Demon Jack

Lever has been great early. Smooth finish by Melksham.

I find it astounding that a player like Tom McDonald whose field kicking has always had a 'heart in mouth' feel to it was the most accurate shot for goal last season. Its also great to see Petracca ranked highly in that list and although he wasn't mentioned , I think Melksham kicked 21 goals and 6-7 behinds last season.

Although I picked ANB, I thought that OMac played his role incredibly well. He was matched up against Brown all day and aside from one free kick late in the fourth quarter, it looked like he's improving nicely. There was one moment sometime in the third where he completely out-bodied Brown and took the mark out in front. His kicking also looks to have come a long way.

Just watched the replay. How about his pass in the first quarter to Tom McDonald? Sizzling stuff.

Easily our best win against North in over ten years.

Fantastic spread of goalkickers. We've had 10 all up for our 15 goals. Hogan 3, Fritsch 2, Neal-Bullen, 2, Harmes, 2, Hannan, Melksham, Vince, T.McDonald, Petracca, Bugg

Fritsch kicks his second on the siren. 52 point lead.

Ryan Clarke is North's leading disposal winner for the quarter...with two.

Hannan and Melksham kick back to back goals!

Jesse with a classic hang and goal!

Harmes kicks an important goal.

Melbourne vs Billy Hartung at the moment.

The 'out the back' goals are still killing us. EDIT: Great finish from Bugg. Great response!

Fritsch on the board! How good was that from Petracca?

Good start by Lewis.

Neal-Bullen opens up our account for 2018!

Final team according to the AFL website. B: J.Wagner 42, O.McDonald 28, J.Lewis 6 HB: J.Lever 8, M.Hibberd 14, B.Vince 23 C: J.Hunt 29, J.Harmes 4, B.Stretch 15 HF: C.Oliver 13, T.McDonald 25, N.Jones 2 (c) F: C.Petracca 5, J.Hogan 1, M.Hannan 19 Foll: M.Gawn 11, J.Melksham 18, A.Neal-Bullen 30 I/C: C.Salem 3, A.Brayshaw 10, T.Bugg 32, B.Fritsch 31, C.Maynard 20, C.Pedersen 21 Out: Declan Keilty, Harrison Petty, Harley Balic, Jay Kennedy-Harris, Sam Frost, Tim Smith Notable absentees: Neville Jetta, Jack Viney, Dom Tyson

Hopefully Fritsch is named in the final squad. Spaghetti arms be damned, this kid has something special.

G'day all! Dropped by Gosch's to watch the lads in action for an hour or so. Easily the biggest news to come out of today's session is that Viney is now training in the main group! Here are the rough notes I took while watching. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When I arrived, Gawn was just finishing up some ruck drills with Mitch King while some forwards and defenders practiced one on one drills. Match ups included Frost/Weideman, Wagner/Hannan and Kent(possible role change?)/Hannan. Some standard warm ups then followed. Great to see Pedders keeping up with TMac during the 50-100m sprints. He looks in ripping touch. Noticed very quickly that Jack Viney was running with the main group. Promising! A quick side note Nev Jetta is in rehab to start off the session. He joined some group drills later then ran laps without much fuss. Doesn’t appear to be anything too serious. May’ve pulled up a bit sore from AFLX. The first main drill involved the players being split into two groups. These two groups where then split in half again and began separate green vs blue match simulation drills on their respective half of the oval. It looked like there was a real emphasis on moving the ball inside 50 from the midfield. Here are a few quick notes regarding the simulation that unfolded closest to me. - Hogan was leading really well while Lever was very vocal and frustrated when Fritsch got out the back to take an almost uncontested mark. On that topic, there's something about Fristch. I enjoyed his work against North in AFLX. To put it simply, things just happen when he gets close to the ball. His tackling pressure was also on display with a rundown of a full pace Dean Kent. Its still a month away, but he seems a high chance for round 1. - JKH looked to be moving well through the centre and Frost's spoiling seems to have come a long way. There were many times last year where his fist would land the ball in the arms an opposition player so it's nice to see some improvement in this area. - The groups then swapped. Harmes' kicking was an early standout in this group while OMac looked composed during the times the ball came to ground. He was surprisingly clean below his knees. - Viney was in this group and while he didn't see much of the Sherrin, he didn't look in any discomfort. Brayshaw also continued his handy AFLX form with a great tackle on Pedders. Here's hoping for a 22 game season from Gus A few separate drills around Gosch's then followed with players rotating between them every five minutes or so. - The drill closest to me involved players kicking around the man standing on the mark to a teammate standing near an opposition player. The kicking was a real highlight here, particularly from the likes of Hogan and Maynard. - The second drill focused on clean hands with players being required to crumb a loose ball and hand passing it to a teammate, who would then kick to a loose player. I didn’t see much of this drill so I can’t pick out many stand out players. - The third drill involved players finding a target amongst those 'fake player' stands. The wind was fairly strong at this point which meant for some occasional missed targets. Lewis and surprisingly Mitch King were those I don’t remember missing a target in the gale. The next drill involved all players and was a kicking drill where players could practice their 30-40 meter passes. Not too much too report here aside from some lovely bullet passes from Hibberd and the Zooper specialist Melksham. Dion Johnston also has a handy kicking action and didn't miss many targets. Some more green vs blue match simulation drills then followed. Some more observations. - Hannan was everywhere in the first few minutes, kicking two goals including one with a lovely snap from the boundary (Edit from five minutes later: fantastic bit of play where he stepped around two players and passed it beautifully to Bugg in the pocket. Second edit: Hannan kicks another with a straightforward set shot. Absolutely on fire! - A perfect Garlett pass from the boundary then finds Tommy Bugg who kicks truly from 20m out. - One player who caught my eye was our prized recruit Jake Lever. He moves incredibly well for someone his size and his defensive pressure his first class. We've picked up a good one here. - A training highlight then followed as Gus unloaded from 60m with a massive bomb to bring up six points. I honestly didn't know that he had that in him! Players then split into three groups (Defenders, Midfielders and Forwards) and began working through some separate drills. I left fairly soon afterwards. Also, from what I could see. There was no Tyson, Vandenburg. McKenna, Baker or Spargo. Happy to fill in any blanks if anyone has any questions.

I think I have a free Wednesday morning. I try and pop down again and write up a report.

Although it was only AFLX, Tommy looked great last night! His hands are terrific and despite his at times questionable kicking, he seems to never miss a set shot at goal. He actually reminds me a bit of Josh Kennedy from the Eagles.

Does anyone know who has the captaining duties tonight?

For a game built around fast ball movement and high scoring, this is amazingly...well...boring. Part of what makes AFL (the original format) great to watch is the build-up and tension created before and after each goal. The excitement of kicking a goal is non existent in this format as play resumes immediately after each score. There's no opportunity to breathe and reflect on what's happened. Also, I can't say that the BT and JB commentary combo is doing much to boost my enthusiasm.

Jack Watts will be captaining for Port tonight.

Oskar Baker. Aside from the fact that he has cult hero written all over him, I liked what I've seen at training.