Training Pre-Season 2025 - The boys are back in town.

[theGav56]

Just got back from training and the person who impressed me most was Charlie "grey" Nicholls. Has some height, can move with some agility and pace, has forward craft and can take a good mark. Still has plenty of muscle to add, but it was a positive showing.

Thanks for the insight. Both he and Riddle need development, but I'm excited.

 

[MadMundy]

Do we think Riddle and Nicholls develop in the League or Reserves to start off with the WAFL?

 

[go_the_dockers]

Do we think Riddle and Nicholls develop in the League or Reserves to start off with the WAFL?

Riddle will stay in reserve's while Reidy is there.

Not sure about Nicholls.

 

[greatgatsby]

Training report 29/11/24

Nice cool overcast morning to get the boys rolling.

An early TTHD award would have to be big vossy. He looks huge and super fit. Looks like he spent his entire off swing working out.

Not a super amount of intensity. Only 2 in the rehabilitation group - Darcy and Sturt. I tried catching the cart on the way past, but he must have had lunch in the oven.
Bolton must be on a different program. But he seems to have fit in well. Everyone was gasbagging.

Best thing was seeing JT having a run, looking like he's building up for another big season. His parter Amiss has put on a nice amount of size. Same with Erasmus. Just a ball of muscle.
Driz having a run this early is a good sign as well. He needs a good year.

Not a whole load to report. Will be good once Xmas has rolled by and they start upping the intensity.

Nice - hopefully Sturt's just breaking in his new muscles. No pics of Johnson?

 

[CapitalA]

Did Jye eat He-man in the off season? He's twice the size.

And Darcy looking a fair bit leaner. Nice.

Maybe living with Fyfe he passively leached the bulking gene

 

[serial_thrilla]

Training report 29/11/24

Nice cool overcast morning to get the boys rolling.

An early TTHD award would have to be big vossy. He looks huge and super fit. Looks like he spent his entire off swing working out.

Not a super amount of intensity. Only 2 in the rehabilitation group - Darcy and Sturt. I tried catching the cart on the way past, but he must have had lunch in the oven.
Bolton must be on a different program. But he seems to have fit in well. Everyone was gasbagging.

Best thing was seeing JT having a run, looking like he's building up for another big season. His parter Amiss has put on a nice amount of size. Same with Erasmus. Just a ball of muscle.
Driz having a run this early is a good sign as well. He needs a good year.

Not a whole load to report. Will be good once Xmas has rolled by and they start upping the intensity.

Yeah but was Hugh Davies wearing a hat?

 

[Purple Suit]

Hate to say it but The end of the bears v Detroit game made me think of freo this season just past, in tight games.

The bears were all at sea in the closing moments of that game, full of uncertainty and players not on the same wavelength. They butchered the closing moments from a position where they could have won.

People think the last few mins of a tight AFL game are all luck. You win some, you lose some. Over time it evens out, etc etc.

This theory has now been clearly demonstrated to be not true, by numerous sides but especially Collingwood under McRae.

The team that is best prepared to execute their gameplan and correctly play their roles in the final few mins will mostly win. It’s not just blind 50:50 luck, even though it does play a role.

I’m not sure if its the coach or the players fault but our execution of roles in the final few mins of a tight game was probably bottom 4 in the league last year and definitely cost us finals.
We had several examples where rucks (Jackson was a culprit a couple of times here) inexplicably tapped the ball into high risk areas when we were defending tight leads. We had poor setups in centre bounces late in games that cost us crucial scores (Essendon).
We allowed key opposition weapons to stroll through the back of stoppages unchecked to set up game winning opportunities (watch Nick Blakey with 30 secs left v Sydney).
These things are nothing to do with talent and won’t be fixed for 2025 by adding Bolton and Murphy Reid.
They will be fixed by better coaching and better preparation and concentration by the team as a whole in these key moments.


Will be one of the early watches for 2025 for me. Can this team win tight games on a consistent basis?
To win the flag I reckon we’d want to be going at a 65-70% win rate thoughout the season in games that go down to the wire. We were probably around 15-20% in the 2024 season.

You know what we were also bottom 4 in the league for? Age & experience while Collingwood were top in that category.

It doesn’t mean we don’t need to work hard on it and not just expect it to happen. There are some factors though which shouldn’t be ignored.

 

[CapitalA]

You know what we were also bottom 4 in the league for? Age & experience while Collingwood were top in that category.

It doesn’t mean we don’t need to work hard on it and not just expect it to happen. There are some factors though which shouldn’t be ignored.

Funny thing is freo was winning a lot of close games in 2022 but people seem to have amnesia.

 

[Tbonefreo]

Yeah but was Hugh Davies wearing a hat?

No

 

[Tbonefreo]

Not a whole lot in terms of match sims. That's where the fun begins.

 

[FreoBraddles]

Heard somewhere that near 70% are on individual programs until Christmas - but for a number this is just swapping 1-2 components in the session and designed to ensure they all have their bodies right for the post Christmas block.

Includes Shai and Narkle, plus obviously the draftees, to get them adapted to our high sprint method.

Mix of those adapting to the program, those returning from injury, load management of some players and getting specific things right for players - speed, added muscle etc.

Will seem like lots swapping out - but we did the same last year and had a good run with injury (soft tissue wise) so back them in.

 

[arsesmart]

Training report 29/11/24

Nice cool overcast morning to get the boys rolling.

An early TTHD award would have to be big vossy. He looks huge and super fit. Looks like he spent his entire off swing working out.

Not a super amount of intensity. Only 2 in the rehabilitation group - Darcy and Sturt. I tried catching the cart on the way past, but he must have had lunch in the oven.
Bolton must be on a different program. But he seems to have fit in well. Everyone was gasbagging.

Best thing was seeing JT having a run, looking like he's building up for another big season. His parter Amiss has put on a nice amount of size. Same with Erasmus. Just a ball of muscle.
Driz having a run this early is a good sign as well. He needs a good year.

Not a whole load to report. Will be good once Xmas has rolled by and they start upping the intensity.

Erasmus has the Smurf body shape. Seemed live like a disproportionate upper body length over lower, in photos less so. Was nailing some spear passes with repeatable precision though, which is a good early sign.

 

[theGav56]

Riddle will stay in reserve's while Reidy is there.

Not sure about Nicholls.

Probably right, but Riddler looks to have forward/ruck capacity.

 

[Heave Ho Bro]

He ate Max Knobel and GC helped us cover it up.

 

[Vimal Anand]

In training photos NOD looks fitter and Ollie Murphy looks to put up some muscles

On SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[gungho]

Remember the pre season we did match sims non stop starting from November? It didn’t work. From memory we ended up running out of steam and finishing in the bottom 4. It might have been 2016 or 17 or something like that.

Just interesting the different approaches and ideas taken in pre season.

 

[One_Wing]

Remember the pre season we did match sims non stop starting from November? It didn’t work. From memory we ended up running out of steam and finishing in the bottom 4. It might have been 2016 or 17 or something like that.

Just interesting the different approaches and ideas taken in pre season.

That was like two years ago, in the build up to the 23 season.

 

[arsesmart]

Match sims are fun to watch but I'm not sure they're the best coaching tool. More concise scenario sims are much more controllable and you can stop and rewind at precise moments to emphasise this or that point/skill/strategy.

 

[fnerd]

Erasmus has the Smurf body shape. Seemed live like a disproportionate upper body length over lower,

Maybe he should’ve been a swimmer

 

[Daddoo]

Erasmus has the Smurf body shape. Seemed live like a disproportionate upper body length over lower, in photos less so. Was nailing some spear passes with repeatable precision though, which is a good early sign.

When you say "smurf body", this is what I think of... Damn, what a looker!

 

[Swiggy]

How did delean go? Haven’t heard much hopefully he’s improving

 

[ignoramus]

How did delean go? Haven’t heard much hopefully he’s improving

Caught Ollie Murphy in a run-down tackle at one point, when Murphy tried to go on a run and evade 3/4 of the team. Delean wrapped him up good.

Not a lot to report, really. Mostly drills. Darcy and Sturt on the sidelines doing some biomechanics stuff, running, agility. At one point they were doing kick to kick (15m), with Sturt using his right. Fyfe, JOM and Bolton did a variety of piggy-in-the-middle type drills.

Of the larger group drills, there were a lot of kick-in plays, focusing on moving quick, picking the isolated player 20m out, run and hand-ball receive, etc. Fast movement. Whether we see any of that on game day is another matter altogether.

At other times, there were lots of 3/4 player rotations all at once spread across the oval, with players going through kicking and running formations, when suddenly whistle would blow and one ball became live (don't know how everyone knew which one), and it was one team attacking and another defending. During these we saw Pearce take a non-linear run on more than one occasion. He was looking good. He did have his purple arm guard on, though. Thought Davies looked alright, and MacDonald landed some very nice pinpoint kicks just over the top of an opposing player. Voss grabbed JOM in a bear hug tackle from behind at one point and lifted him a foot off the ground. No wonder everyone picked him for strength on the podcast segment. NOD went on some tearing runs.

But it was all quite low pressure. At one point they were all kicking snap/banana passes, looking for all the world like they were just goofing around, and EVERY SINGLE ONE was pinpoint. It's amazing how a little bit of pressure can make it all come undone.

Some players I didn't see/notice but assume were there: Sharp, Brodie, Amiss.

 

[Superkoops]

Those meniscus repairs take a while to get used to in terms of running. Darcy is under the watchful eye of the rehab team. It is early days. As mentioned the good news is he is getting leaner and is running albeit at reduced intensity.

Sturt had the knee surgery last year and can take some time for the knee to feel right and to run at full intensity. It is all about building back up the muscle strength (Quad/VMO etc).

I appreciate the training reports - keep up the good work

One player I’m looking forward to and I think will step up is NOD. Finished the season off very well. Great last AFL game against Port and was player of the finals for Peel. Must have been line ball between he and Ras for BOG. Anyway he has been training with Carr and if Carr’s running is anything to go by then NOD is ready to go off.

 

[DragoDelph]

 

[mattis117]

In training photos NOD looks fitter and Ollie Murphy looks to put up some muscles

On SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

Murphy is looking way stronger in that frame, has the muscle now to maintain a taller posture.
I think Murphy is in track to be a fantastic full back.