Training Pre-Season 2023 (First game 18/3 v North)

[PremiershipNo4]

Any news from anyone who’s attending training how Hewett is looking?

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

I think with bulk injuries and covid disruptions it's hard to get AFL match fit. As for a new program I would think that there would only be a few percentage points in difference. I doubt the whole playing group were just lazy and cbf getting fit.

Every other club had to cope with Covid aswell. It was not some dark cloud that hovered only over our club but didn't affect the other 17 clubs aswell and is not a valid excuse. How come Freo didn't have players with beer guts jogging around the park?

I think a lot of the players, especially the higher paid ones who played in the 2018 flag, were and maybe still are very, very comfortable just going through the motions, doing the bare minimum, picking up their mammoth pay cheques, paying off the mortgage on their 4th investment property and are not as motivated as they need to be.

Reminds me seeing all the eagles players at the Post Office nightclub at about midnight after they had been knocked out out of the finals in straight sets earlier that day in Melbourne in 1997. They were happy as Larry. Laughing and carrying on. Slapping each other on the back, Shit eating grins and smiles everywhere. They thought they were hot shit. Carrying on like they were all the Kings of Perth. They did not look remotely upset or down about having just been bundled out in straight sets. I knew then that the next 5 years would be very, very grim.

 

[Bender_]

Every other club had to cope with Covid aswell. It was not some dark cloud that hovered only over our club but didn't affect the other 17 clubs aswell and is not a valid excuse. How come Freo didn't have players with beer guts jogging around the park?

I think a lot of the players, especially the higher paid ones who played in the 2018 flag, were and maybe still are very, very comfortable just going through the motions, doing the bare minimum, picking up their mammoth pay cheques, paying off the mortgage on their 4th investment property and are not as motivated as they need to be.

Reminds me seeing all the eagles players at the Post Office nightclub at about midnight after they had been knocked out out of the finals in straight sets earlier that day in Melbourne in 1997. They were happy as Larry. Laughing and carrying on. Slapping each other on the back, s**t eating grins and smiles everywhere. They thought they were hot s**t. Carrying on like they were all the Kings of Perth. They did not look remotely upset or down about having just been bundled out in straight sets. I knew then that the next 5 years would be very, very grim.

COVID didn't hit Perth proper until late December of 2021. Meaning 16 other clubs had already experienced the peak much earlier than WA. As for why Fremantle didn't struggle as much as we did - I guess it's pure luck.

No one is blaming COVID explicitly for our issues of 2022. NO ONE.

Pretty obvious you have your opinions and just stick to them no matter how much it is explained to you so I'm just wasting my time, but probably no more than I usually do reading your username and skipping your posts.

 

[Keys]

1. Players at every club talk about how much fitter they are each preseason. Nobody says they aren’t as fit as last year. (That said, as a group the players from an outsiders perspective do look as fit as they’ve been for some time)
2. Last preseason prior to the injuries piling up and covid engulfing the club, there was no coverage about the players not looking fit. The fat accusations came later once the season was under way
3. Fitness issues arose due to untimely injuries and covid forcing players to return sooner than they should have and in some instances gains made during the off season were lost due to enforced layoffs
4. It is true that the drive needed to be successful wasn’t there from 2020 onwards (some may argue 2019 as well) and that standards had slipped. The combination of injury and covid exacerbated this and exposed the decline in the harshest possible manner
5. Last season has served as a wake up call and whilst some of the criticism of last year were a justified, not all of it is because there we’re genuinely factors outside the club’s control contributing to the poor season. The players are responding in the right way which should be seen as a positive from a negative
6. The club hasn’t publicly hung anyone out to dry but clearly there’s been a message internally to get better

 

[Get_The_Gaff]

View attachment 1597105

Not sure if Petch is an automatic selection or an automatic non-selection for round 1 after this

He was sick of blokes stealing his budgy smugglers?

 

[MrWoollie]

He said a couple of those missed games were due to covid too. So wasn't injured much last year.

May be being a bit disingenuous here. The way he was moving and carrying himself he was often either injured or out of condition. He was moving like an old man at times. May have been Covid hangover that he never got fully match fit from?

Hopefully he's come back in better all round shape in 2023. Fit, uninjured and Covid free.

 

[Get_The_Gaff]

COVID didn't hit Perth proper until late December of 2021. Meaning 16 other clubs had already experienced the peak much earlier than WA. As for why Fremantle didn't struggle as much as we did - I guess it's pure luck.

No one is blaming COVID explicitly for our issues of 2022. NO ONE.

Pretty obvious you have your opinions and just stick to them no matter how much it is explained to you so I'm just wasting my time, but probably no more than I usually do reading your username and skipping your posts.

Are you blaming covid for how out of shape our players were last year ?

Clearly just lazy ****s living off 2018 credits

 

[Keys]

Are you blaming covid for how out of shape our players were last year ?

Clearly just lazy *s living off 2018 credits

See if you can find an article pre-covid going through the club mentioning that the playing group was out of shape

It wasn’t until part way through the season that the eagles are fat became a thing

 

[kane249]

Teams that used their COVID top up list in 2022

West Coast Eagles, 2 games
...

That's it

While COVID wasn't the main issue for our shit season, it wasn't great either

 

[West World]

1. Players at every club talk about how much fitter they are each preseason. Nobody says they aren’t as fit as last year. (That said, as a group the players from an outsiders perspective do look as fit as they’ve been for some time)
2. Last preseason prior to the injuries piling up and covid engulfing the club, there was no coverage about the players not looking fit. The fat accusations came later once the season was under way
3. Fitness issues arose due to untimely injuries and covid forcing players to return sooner than they should have and in some instances gains made during the off season were lost due to enforced layoffs
4. It is true that the drive needed to be successful wasn’t there from 2020 onwards (some may argue 2019 as well) and that standards had slipped. The combination of injury and covid exacerbated this and exposed the decline in the harshest possible manner
5. Last season has served as a wake up call and whilst some of the criticism of last year were a justified, not all of it is because there we’re genuinely factors outside the club’s control contributing to the poor season. The players are responding in the right way which should be seen as a positive from a negative
6. The club hasn’t publicly hung anyone out to dry but clearly there’s been a message internally to get better

Shuey today stated the truth everyone knows. Last year comments were we looked unfit. He said something like 'where there is smoke.......there's often something' or sum such.

He pretty much admitted last preseason many players didnt come back fit enough. Were not up the AFL standards.

Just looking at everyone you can see skin folds are way better. Some players are looking thin in the face, Gaff and Gov. Reckon they all got a rocket end of last season and everyone was told pull your fingers out or you are gone.

 

[Falco]

Havent hear much about Burgiel - any seasoned training observers seen him out there?

 

[Keys]

Havent hear much about Burgiel - any seasoned training observers seen him out there?

Been steady

Pre-Christmas the draftees were held out of a fair chunk of training so it was difficult to get a real indication of how he was going. The times I saw the draftees running as a group it was Ginbey leading, Long a close second then a bit of a gap back to Hewett, Baker and Burgiel. Dewar and Barnett didn’t run

Post Christmas there’s been less open sessions and when they are open they’ve been less intense

Mostly he’s been with the backs and is doing well enough without being a standout

 

[Obeanie1]

Shuey is too injury prone and misses too many games for him to be a decent captain imo. Barrass is the obvious choice for mine.

Barrass replacing Shuey and jumping ahead of Gov isn't a positive move at this point in time imo.

A year too early.

 

[Get_The_Gaff]

See if you can find an article pre-covid going through the club mentioning that the playing group was out of shape

It wasn’t until part way through the season that the eagles are fat became a thing

We went into the 2021/22 pre season needing to get fitter after the 2021 season of not being able to run out games and not showing up in 4th quarters .
We got a pass in 2020 because of covid and shorter quarters glossed over our fitness
The rot had already set in before last preseason

 

[shooshka]

Teams that used their COVID top up list in 2022

West Coast Eagles, 2 games
...

That's it

While COVID wasn't the main issue for our s**t season, it wasn't great either

We used 47 players, the most in the AFL era (and noting we had only 45 players on our list).

Also played a player who never actually met the senior coach (according to SEN) - as Simpson had COVID so didn't have the chance to ever meet Florenca.

Agree it wasn't the cause of our tumble down the ladder, but it turned a 5-6 win season into a 2 win season. Not all bad (gave the players a kick up the bum that was required and improved our draft position in all likelihood), but also not a season where anyone can reasonable argue that COVID didn't have an effect.

 

[The wily weagle]

All I will say pertaining to the teams fitness (or lack thereof) is that if Kofoed still has a job after how has had the team presenting for the past 2 or 3 seasons, he effectively has a job for life

Hell, according to Nesbitt at the end of last season, where we had our worst ever year and the team was the most our team was noticeably out of shape that i have ever seen:

"Warren has done an outstanding job"

Then we talked tough about "big changes", but proceeded to retain our entire fitness team save for i believe one guy who left to take up a job elsewhere

Forget synergy, it's "credits in the bank" and "stability".

 

[Seadog]

How much longer can we debate our fitness last year?

Personally after reading some posters regurgitating the same opinion a couple of dozen times I think we have drained the well.

 

[Truckosaurus]

"Left to take up a job elsewhere" is code for "was told to find a job elsewhere". An employer who wants to attract staff (often from interstate) does not publicly trash them.

 

[Winky]

How much longer can we debate our fitness last year?

Personally after reading some posters regurgitating the same opinion a couple of dozen times I think we have drained the well.

Water was a bit off too

 

[FKASC]

Training reports fantastic as always. Much appreciated.

Also the photos of players looking buff also appreciated as always THE A5

 

[Brolga]

I certainly never suggested it shouldn't have been reported on, however I am of the belief that there are perhaps more respectful ways of reporting the story than making it a front page spread. Wouldn't you agree that there is more worthy news of a massive front page spread than those events? Had it not been Rhett Bazzo's mother, I doubt it would have been reported on in the same way. A little decorum would go a long way in todays age of journalism. It just doesn't sit right with me and it never will.

Interesting to compare the way this was handled by the media compared with how they reported Rioli’s father passing.
News clicks vs respect

 

[shooshka]

All I will say pertaining to the teams fitness (or lack thereof) is that if Kofoed still has a job after how has had the team presenting for the past 2 or 3 seasons, he effectively has a job for life

Hell, according to Nesbitt at the end of last season, where we had our worst ever year and the team was the most our team was noticeably out of shape that i have ever seen:

"Warren has done an outstanding job"

Then we talked tough about "big changes", but proceeded to retain our entire fitness team save for i believe one guy who left to take up a job elsewhere

Forget synergy, it's "credits in the bank" and "stability".

So, other than limited personnel changes (we brought Mark Kilgallon on board, you don't see the big changes they talked about?

Because everything I see (photos, training videos, etc) the players look to be in very different shape to how they have presented in recent years. I'd guess there has been a significant change in both the programs given to the players (see quite a few bulked up around the shoulders, which we haven't had happening of recent times) as well as almost the whole squad fitter and slimmer around the waistline - again something that hasn't been noticeable in recent seasons if it has been happening.

 

[Doashuey]

All I will say pertaining to the teams fitness (or lack thereof) i

 

[The wily weagle]

So, other than limited personnel changes (we brought Mark Kilgallon on board, you don't see the big changes they talked about?

Because everything I see (photos, training videos, etc) the players look to be in very different shape to how they have presented in recent years. I'd guess there has been a significant change in both the programs given to the players (see quite a few bulked up around the shoulders, which we haven't had happening of recent times) as well as almost the whole squad fitter and slimmer around the waistline - again something that hasn't been noticeable in recent seasons if it has been happening.

I don't disagree with you, but is that due to new training methods, or, the players taking ownership of last year, admitting they were indeed out of shape and really putting the work in this time around?

 

[The wily weagle]

You disagree that our fitness couldn't have been better in the past 2 or 3 years?

Lets call a spade a spade: fitness and physical standards at our club, over the past few seasons, have undoubtedly slipped