Earl Hood

And Tracc plays predominately forward, out of the square till we get more of our big forwards back. No mention of Mitch Brown tonight so I suspect he is an unlikely starter, round 1.

Trouble is we are desperate at least for the first 5 weeks of the season. We need a couple of tall forwards. I would be pushing for Mitch Brown if fit, to work in with a combo of TMac or LJ or Petty. At least 2 of those in the forward line. With Trac playing predominantly forward early in the season. Add these to Fritsch, and small defensive forwards, Spargo, Viney, ANB. Maybe we can construct a functional forward setup? If Kossie is fit I think he will be playing further upfield early on.

BAU, 10/12 on the player injury list. Same old same old. Will it ever change?

Interesting in these ideas to plug the problematic hole of the other wing is there is no discussion of trialling Joel Smith, if he was ever fit of course. We know he has good size, 190 cm and that he can run and cover ground. Then we were told by Richo last season that this guy is an elite endurance beast who can run all day. We know Smith is an elite athlete lacking in the footy smarts that limits his potential as a forward and has limited him so far as a lockdown defender when fit. Could he be released to the wing and just told to keep running into space to receive the ball when we have the pill and running down the opposition when we don’t? Apart from the Jackson option, the others just don’t look to have the attributes. Harmes and TMac are on the slow side. Does Melksham have the engine?

Basically agree with this but why is it so? You watch the Bulldogs and they just instinctively know where their team mates are, where they can handball out of trouble, often out of sight, behind the ball carrier. Some of Libber’s handballs over his head backwards push the boundaries of credibility for the Umpires surely. But yes in comparison we seem disorganised despite year after year of training drills but it all doesn’t seem to work at AFL level, we still depend on the individual supremacy of Max, Tracc, Oliver et al to be competitive. That is individual dominance rather than a playing system that can dominate. For the dogs there are always team mates ahead, sideways and behind. That builds confidence for the risk taking ball carrier trying to break defensive lines, that he will always have an emergency out. I don’t believe we create that confidence on game day. We provide it in our practice drills at training but come game day, under pressure the daring plays go missing. Is that because players don’t have support around them and players presenting forward of the ball? I don’t know.

I hope we get at least another 7 back for round 1. Oliver, Viney, Salem, Hibberd, Melksham, Kossie and Brayshaw. Hopefully we can also work Mitch Brown and Petty into the mix, up forward as well. These players will improve the side but I do worry that our forward problems remain unresolved. And I see no real changes to the game plan, if you can call it a plan! Slow ball movement out of the backline, kicking long down the line is not how we train, sorry to sound like a broken record.

Is it your backhand?

Did Mitch Brown play in the twos today? If fit he needs to play forward round 1. He at least is a natural tall forward and we are desperate. With our best mids back playing we will be able to play Petracca deep forward. That May paper over our weaknesses.

We were always on a hiding to nothing today with 10 first pick players out against a top 4 side. But was seriously unimpressed with Traccs game. If he is to go to the next elite level he should have shown more dominance, he at best, had a few good cameos. But really the story was there was no evidence today of an improvement in our game plan or skill levels, no evidence that we have worked on the so called transition by the mids to our forwards. In short our old problems are still there. With 2 of our big forwards out for weeks not sure what we do to be competitive in the first 5 or 6 weeks.

Yes I have only seen 2 training sessions this year but watching the game I noticed that we were not switching play or moving the ball in any way that resembled the what I have witnessed. I know we were missing perhaps 10 first pick players but I thought in a preseason match you would keep trying to play to the system you train?

Ben Brown as well.

The umpire had good vision of that! That is a perfect example of why that rule was created, push the guy forward when he is in the air so you can take the mark. Unbelievable miss. Yet umpires will pay in the back if you fall onto someone who is already on the ground!

I thought this for the last two seasons. The midfield can be so much better if it works more as a coordinated unit rather than a number of talented individuals. I am hoping Yze can recreate a cohesive unit similar to the Hawks midfield at their peak. Not asking for much I know.

Rode past Gosch’s this morning. Oliver, Viney, Hibberd and Melksham doing ball movement drills and Salem later on doing some laps. All were moving freely and looked sharp. That’s 5 pretty handy players that would be normally be amongst the first picked. Hopefully all will be available for round one.

Have you taken up cooking classes Biff?

Need to work on our tackling to prevent the opposition getting the ball out cleanly so often.

Umpires obsessed with the push in the back rule! Any tackle that ends up with the tackler on top of the tackled, no matter how they got there is adjudged in the back! Ridiculous but it has been working to our favour this match. Glad I am not a defender these days.

DemonOX yes Vettes are great to drive, do you drive the Camaro shown in your avatar?

I think someone said he was given leave to go home for family issues? I was looking for him at training but didn’t notice him as I was looking to see if they would use him as a designated line breaker in the match sim today as we had heard from earlier track watchers. Didn’t see that.

Yes thankfully we kept Tom. We are now looking at Tommy, Petty, Mitch Brown and Luke Jackson as key forwards, aligned with Fritsch, Tracc, Melchum as mid sized forwards with Spargo, Kossie, Nibbler as crumbers.... it’s not the end of the world if our midfield dominance continues into 2021 and you know we get that connection between mids and forwards functioning.

I think the real key from these drills is to get the players to present and give the ball carrier multiple options hopefully within 20 to 25m. Most of our players should be able to deliver a low trajectory pass to a target 20m away, surely. One of our deficiencies I believe in recent years has been players not presenting ahead of the ball carrier coming out of defence, hence the long bomb or hopeful 45m speared pass that gets intercepted. There are only 2 or 3 guys in any side that can deliver this miracle pass onto a team mate’s chest. So you need multiple options, short, long or wide. That was the great value Langdon brought to us last year, he always positioned himself on the wing to be a sideways option for the ball carrier. That made us a much better side and we needed the same on the other wing. It gives the ball carrier confidence to take on the opposition, knowing they will always have an outlet thru Langdon. If you can get others to always provide escape options, ball carriers will take the game on more and more. That’s my theory anyway.

Beautiful day for a drive so I decided to take the Corvette out for a test drive and headed down the Eastern to the Monash and on to Cranbourne. Got there late but watched for about 50 minutes or so from behind the bloody fence! I found it difficult to identify the newbies during the session and one group kept their yellow tops on for the whole session, so no numbers. Conditions were near perfect, the ground surface looks superb, it was sunny, warm and there was no wind! Very odd conditions for Casey. They were doing full ground ball movement when I arrived, then broke into 3 groups, 2 doing the handball keeping off routine that has been described in other training reports, the 3rd group included the big boys, Max, Bradtke, TMac and LJ contesting marks and kicking passes back to Farmer, Harmes, Jetta. They then moved to another full ground more contested, ball movement exercise, yellows vs blues. This went for two 10 minute halves. one group was doing exercises off to the side for most of the session, Viney and Gus in a harness pulling weights up and down the boundary. AVD, Weideman, Chandler, Mitch Brown, Petty, Smith all working hard on a weights circuit that looked punishing. Melchum was in and out of routines, then doing laps, then disappeared into the gym. The last full ground contest was interesting, they are certainly looking sharp and energetic, they all look to be in great shape. But as this routine progressed I found it was a mix of the good and the average. Players at times missed targets, turning the ball over at worst or picked a poor option passing to a player that was clear but because the delivery was not to his advantage, too high or to the wrong side, defenders were able to make ground to intercept or punch the ball away. The other disturbing thing for me anyway was that I don’t believe I saw a goal kicked from beyond 25m in this exercise. Shots on the run from 35m missed, the few set shots from 35 to 40 looked like they missed as well. However Goody was watching this intently and seemed pleased with the play, he only pulled play up once and reset everyone because maybe there were players out of position? As I say the ball movement looks good but there was a lack of polish given the contest meter was at about 70% compared to game day but of course the coaches may be urging them to push their ball movement skills to their limits. Individual observations: LJ took a screamer on top of Jonesy, who ended up face planted in the turf but got up OK. He is moving very well and has clean hands. May and Lever on opposing sides were each standouts for their defences, May took a great pack mark, one handed, played on and passed off to an opponent unfortunately. TMac generally playing forward of centre, he did some nice things, he does seem to be moving better this year, still managed to get tackled, holding the ball when he took on one defender too many. What’s new? You always have your heart in your mouth when Tommy decides to take on the opposition with ball in hand. I think it was Rivers for the yellows who took on all comers from half back to sprint past 2 or 3 blues and deliver a pass to the forward pocket. Very impressive piece of play. Bradtke took a couple of nice pack grabs and competed well against Max at the centre ball ups, umpired by Jordon Lewis. He just might develop into something. He has always had skills and agility just seemed he needed to put on some muscle and learn to throw his weight around. Salem stood out as the link man when the yellows were transitioning the ball from defence to attack, he had a lot of it and I don’t think he made a false move all session. Best on ground today. Rosman took a good contested grab up forward for the blues and had a set shot from 45, it was close and no problem with the distance. That’s about it, sorry with half the guys in yellow and often on the other side of the ground I could not identify many of thee new guys. As I left most were doing goal kicking practice and the rehab guys were still busting their guts on the weights circuit. It was time to head off to Tooradin and lunch at the Jetty Cafe! The Vette never missed a beat

I was once told by a local that every house in Daintree had a python living in the roof space!

Having watched training regularly in previous seasons at Gosch’s and then watching in dismay at some of our match day efforts I have regularly commented on Dland that these guys are not playing as they train. The mid/forward disconnect that is talked about ad nauseam, you know the running forward and attacking in straight, predictable lines, the long bombing to the square, when the forwards have led out of the square, etc, etc. You don’t see that at training in game simulations, it is all about unpredictable ball movement, looking for free and short options, constant movement. Come game day against a good opponent this all disappears at least in the past 2 seasons. Maybe this is the year it all starts to work.

I believe the new national Women’s Farnarkeling League matches will be televised by SBS this year!