Hellish Inferno

No worries. Hard to go past Hamilton as the Merc is so far ahead. But my fav is definitely Ricciardo, hopefully he can put up a good fight. He's talented enough, just needs the horsepower

Yeah I'm guessing it was a lighter session as TDI has been to pretty much all of them and he said it was a lighter one.I think it was because most players not directly involved in the drill would be standing around until it was their turn. Most drills I've done in local footy have involved near continuous running. Although I was mostly watching the forwards/backs as the mids we're further away in the centre of the ground. I think the drills the mids were doing involved more running An interesting drill involved Shannon Byrnes kicking inside 50 to a leading target with a defender on their heels. He would sometimes kick over their heads to a 1 on 1 contest near the goalsquare and the leading target would have to turn around and run back to crumb the spill and snap at goal. Kent was very quick to turn around and run back past the defender.

Cheers TDI, I'm glad it was a lighter session then as I thought Mondays were usually fairly hard. Makes sense after the intra club. Unfortunately don't think I'll be able to make another session I couldn't believe how much Petracca was walking around in full kit, bouncing balls and not showing too much sign of the injury. I haven't seen an ACL before but I guess it doesn't have that immediate immobilisation that other injuries do. I dislocated and grade 3 sprained my ankle in London and was straight into a cast/moon boot and couldn't put any pressure on it for weeks. I guess he was making the most of it before the operation today. He seemed a postive fella though. One other thing I noticed. White was getting treatment on his foot and seemed to be in some discomfort.

I'm in town for a few weeks from London so popped down today at about 10.15 for 45 minutes. So keep in mind that my observations are pretty limited and it was really hard to figure out who is who. The players seem to change jerseys every 5 minutes too. There's the red/blue, yellow, orange, white etc Perhaps it's because my expectations were high, but I was a little disappointed by today, except for moments of brilliance. Most of the session was broken up into groups with mids/forwards/backs etc but at one point they did a full ground drill with 'teams' rotating on and switching the play. The drill would start with a long kick into the backline which was marked by a free backman, who would then attempt to move the ball all the way down into the forward line. I noticed that the backline found it difficult to kick to free targets on the HBF/wing, mostly because players up the ground weren't really timing their run very well or moving to the right places. This could partly be due to excellent defence/manning up, which is a good thing for the team, but maybe not so great offensively. There were a few good moments though. Lumumba took a great grab and linked up well by handballing to the running Garlett. The last kick into the forward line was a bit hit and miss too. This was mostly because the players were well manned and the play was against the strong wind. Also, Watts marked the ball at about 60m from goal and spent a good 30 seconds trying to find a target and he wasn't really sure whether to have a ping at goal. He ended up kicking straight to a defender about 10m out from goal. But Watts had a brilliant play earlier at the other end where he picked up a ball on the run and kicked a left foot snap at goal through the middle with ease. Tyson looked good and made some low, pinpoint passes. JKH and Kent also showed some nice skills and Vandenberg did a few noticeable things. Hogan ragdolled Dawes at one point, which is not an easy thing to do. Hogan had to get some physio work on his glutes/hamstring mid-way through the session, but he joined in to the full drills later. It's good that he seems to speak with the physio at the sign of any tightness. I guess I was a bit disappointed that I was expecting end to end movement with no mistakes but obviously that's not going to happen. I also though the intensity was reasonably good during most of the drills but that plenty of time was spent strolling around between drills. Based on what people had reported on previously I was expecting more movement throughout the whole session. But again maybe I was expecting too much. One final thing. ANB was running laps at a serious pace. He's a beast. Bring on the games and 2015!! I'll be watching from London

If anything, should Adelaide be offering Pick 10 and Richmond Pick 12, we should say to Richmond that we'll give you Trengove for Pick 12 but we're not throwing in Pick 23 as well because we've got an offer for Pick 10 on the table from Adelaide

The question should be is Frawley worth a Tier 1 rating. The fact it would be pick 3 has nothing to do with him. If we finished in the top 4 we would only be receiving a pick in the mid-teens, and I don't think anyone would be questioning it, but it would still be under Tier 1!

We are kicking to 1 on 1's and they're kicking to free men... Go figure!

Classic schoolyard speccy but should have been a free. Ahwell...

Jetta has quickly become one of my favourite players

fffff*****ccccckkk!!! hahaha

I've come to the realisation that he actually does have a dip and tries hard. The problem is that him 'trying hard' is the same as Jordan Lewis having a jog at training. He just doesn't have it in him. He's had far too long to correct this and whilst is definitely more improved, is still far below the standard of intensity and physicality required. Non negotiables

No, Watts has no intensity. That's the problem. He's plugging away but it's just not in him...

The question should be more like who is Dom Salem? Kicks 32 Handballs 14 Disposals 46 Marks 13 Tackles 3 Goals 4 Behinds 2 Not a bad player!!

Watching the replay from the long distance shot, I swear that if Viney was the one that received a concussion/broken jaw, then Lynch would have been the one suspended based on the logic of the MRP. You can see all the players running to the contest from both sides at around the same pace, all focused on the ball and all well aware that a collision was a likely possibility. The impact is a consequence of a contest, not a malicious or intentional bump from a player. It is known as a 'racing incident' in motor sport

Good point. I guess Viney wasn't sure if Lynch would take the ball, so if he was going to impact the contest he might as well bump

The difference is that Lynch had just taken control of the ball (so Viney could have theoretically tackled him as well) and was put in a vulnerable position by Georgiou's tackle, which pushed him forwards into Viney. I personally think it should have been 'play on' as the umpire called in on the field and a shame but tough luck for the broken jaw.

In motor racing, this would be called a 'racing incident' As in it is something that is no ones specific fault and is a consequence of the way the sport is played

What if Georgiou has been instructed to chip it sideways to a player like Dunn and Garland etc. so that they can make some space and fire off a laser 50m pass to a leading Dawes on the wing? Is that better than Georgiou taking the game on and turning over a 40m pass to get scored against on the rebound? Roosy is all about playing roles and I reckon Georgiou is invaluable for his defending and ball winning skills in a contest, so he can dish it off to the quarterback types. I'm sure if Georgiou was actually capable of taking the game on and pinpointing passes he would be, but he knows his limits. Who knows, maybe with more experience and confidence at AFL he will improve his skills enough to play that creative role.

Howe and Fitz needed to stand up with the lack of forward options. I'll let Fitz off, but Howe had a shocker. Some poor skill errors didn't help as well, and we seemed to panick a lot. We need to learn how to brush and side step tackles better in contested situations. The Saint seemed to move the ball quickly from contests and back their teammate to run onto the loose ball or to evade the tackler. The injury to Tommy Mac also didn't help at all

Wow that was a terrible game. So many skill errors and we panicked big time!! Had no counter for the Saints extra man and press in defence. We really needed Howe and Fitz to stand up and kick 5 goals between them...

I did notice that a first year player (think it was Hunt) was really quick in the 300m sprints and overlook a few ahead on the 3rd or 4th run through. So he seems to have a combination of speed and endurace

I did notice that about Blease. He seemed to be a great bloke and came over to chat to the supporters. Watts as well came over to a few people and is very interactive, saying hello and having fun with one of their dogs. I think my only concern with Blease was that he really seemed to coast in those 300's which was strange. But he may have had an instruction to take it easy and I found it a bit strange that no one was telling him to lift his game or giving encouragement. That might suggest it was expected that he was not going to push as hard as the others.

Haha no mate I'm an Aussie born in Melbourne. Been in the UK for just over a year. Have copped it a bit at work during the previous Ashes series so will be nice to head back and dish some sweet justice back

Oh and I don't agree that Kent was one of the most advanced in the rehab group. Still seemed to be favouring the knee a bit, although he did plenty of laps with Riley. Dawes and Gawn were probably the closest to resuming full training as in they were running without much discomfort. Clisby ran plenty but he either has a strange running style or a niggle was making him run favouring one side slightly.

I went along as well. Back in town from London for a few weeks so took the opportunity. Also went to the Demon Shop at the G to get a new training jumper. Very happy with the purchase I don't have much more to add to those comments above. I agree that training seemed to be at medium intensity, which is fair enough to ease back in after the break. Although quite a few seemed pretty buggered after the 300m sprints, which were followed by run throughs in the middle of the ground, so not much let up which made things more difficult for those lacking fitness by the 4th 300m sprint. Blease was paired with Garland in the 300's and I agree he really seemed to be taking it easy. Didn't want to push himself at all, wasn't even really blowing that hard. Maybe he was under instruction to take it a bit easy due to a niggle, but if not then he really needs to push himself more to get the best out. Michie wasn't too bad but he seemed to struggle a bit. Probably need to build his fitness base a bit. Tyson was impressive although he should probably move up a bit in his group. He caught up to those ahead, can't remember who he was paired with. Toumpas has better fitness than I thought but he also gut runs really well. A stark contrast to Blease. The players seemed to be in good spirits. Howe is a popular bloke and jokes around but still takes training seriously. Plenty of encouragement around as well, particular to Max King who hit the wall on the 4th 300m sprint and fell over but got up to finish. Dawes is looking really strong but lean and ripped at the same time. He was moving pretty well and I reckon he'll be ready for Round 1. It was nice to go along but back to London this week and I'll be watching online this year. Hopefully less grey hairs please. Go Demons