Earl Hood

Yep our much vaunted young ones need more work. Windsor, Lindsay, Culley, Langford all struggled tonight. Tholstrup battled on. Work to do, but we should see improvement when we get back to the G.

Reality check. We have work to do. It could have been a lot worse, we kept at it so we are fit enough.

Oscar Baker good play and good luck to him.

Some really soft 50’s dished out there. Free kicks 27 to 16. Hawks well looked after by the Umps.

Swans have totally run out of puff.

Que?

When I arrived at training the drill happening in front of me was quite interesting. There were about 20 involved in 2 sides utilising less than half of the ground. Basically the sides had to move the ball in traffic by hand or foot to a coach at each end. If you were in space you looked for handball or occasionally a kicking target but the interesting aspect was the obvious instruction to when in congestion, not to take possession but to slap the ball forward or to an outside teammate. So I saw a lot of slapping the ball when it’s on the ground and a lot of palming the ball to a team mate if it was in the air in a contest. It worked a treat in a training drill. I will be watching Saturday to see if they use this technique to clear congestion to our advantage. These tactics I think work if the inside ball getters know there will always a runner on the outside to receive. Hopefully King is developing this system and the confidence for players to keep doing it.

Langdon leaving training early after running laps. He was in the drills earlier. Suspect he has felt something is not right.

Round 20 2023 vs Richmond. He kicked most of them at the city end and I was sitting in level 3 Ponsford to watch a masterclass in forward marking and set shot goal kicking. I really thought we finally had the key forward we needed but he was injured a few games later and then Melky went down in the final home and away. And that was about it for our premiership chances.

Yes.

I can remember saying we should have done exactly that against GWS game 1 last year and copping some blowback that you always back yourself for the shot etc. We were 3 points up and AJ had taken a contested 40m out on an angle with 2 minutes on the clock. AJ took the shot and missed and GWS ran the ball down the other end for a goal. I didnt blame AJ I blamed our system. So great to see that tactic today.

You are probably right. But I have turned over to the Women’s soccer, more of a midfield battle happening there.

Yawn this game style we are seeing now is starting to resemble basketball too much. The mid ground battles for yardage, a turnover or stoppage and ball up have all but disappeared, it’s just running the ball from end to end for shots at goal. Not particularly enjoying watching others play so it will be interesting to see us in action on Sunday.

Based on the little footy I have watched so far, the games anre all about rapid ball movement and players who can run and run and keep running! So early on at least the “speed/endurance athletes” are going to get a run, Sharp and Tholstrup come to mind.

Can anyone explain Melbourne Storm’s success, given they are also stuck in the dysfunctional AAMI facility. They train on the horrible surface that we used to use under Bailey.