Pre-season training. Bring it on!

[blackbird_RGB]

I can see it now...

I'm in crowmania, hiding behind a stand/rack ready to jump put at any second with the camera out...SMILE!!!!



so they employ good lookin guys/gals in crow mania eyyy?

 

[jenny61_99]

Get em while they're not looking... more better that way!

 

[blackbird_RGB]

Get em while they're not looking... more better that way!

The old sneaky 'im making a phone call, but I'm not, what I'm actually doing is using the camera to take a picture of you' trick

 

[jenny61_99]

That's the one! But, shhhh you didn't hear it from me!

 

[Slippery Pete]

Every single time I've been in there, it's been pretty good.....

 

[Allefgib]

Sorry folks - couldn't get down this morning.

Waiting on some important feedback at work that I'll need to action asap so sittnig waiting for it.

Also - there is a kids day next Thursday which might be better instead.. just hoping they train properly.

 

[srv23]

I think the AFC's desire to over populate their organisation with pure aryan blood has extended to Crowmania. Last time I went in nothing but gorgeous blonde specimens of both sexes...

 

[WALL-e]

srv goes both ways?

Can vouch there are brunette females who work/have worked in crowmania.....still good looking.

Allefgib.......son, get to training. Stabby better be there.

 

[Mad Fan of AFL]

Training is today right?

 

[jenny61_99]

Was this morning. I expect it would be over by now.

 

[chigwidden]

Was this morning. I expect it would be over by now.

It just wound up - good crowd there, including buses of schoolkids. Will try and write something up when I get home.

 

[Mad Fan of AFL]

Can't wait for the write ups guys

 

[Slippery Pete]

I can't wait for the write up and pictures too.

Wait, we are talking about Crow-mania aren't we?

 

[Mad Fan of AFL]

I can't wait for the write up and pictures too.

Wait, we are talking about Crow-mania aren't we?[/quote]

I'll settle for nothingless of a detailed report.. of the the girls' wonderful customer service of course

 

[Slippery Pete]

^^
Should I be in charge of this?

 

[Crow-eater]

Got some pics. Will upload them soon.

To clarify, not of the Crowmania store clerk, who was male today, but of the players

 

[chigwidden]

I can't wait for the write up and pictures too.

Wait, we are talking about Crow-mania aren't we?[/quote]

I'll settle for nothingless of a detailed report.. of the the girls' wonderful customer service of course

Hmm. I went into Crowmania, but no staff appeared. Maybe they'd heard about us already?

 

[Mad Fan of AFL]

Does anyone know where our community camp will held this year?

 

[cammo6556]

Does anyone know where our community camp will held this year?

Its in Berri apparently

 

[Mad Fan of AFL]

Its in Berri apparently

Thankyou. I hope there may be a few people that can go up there to do some training reports. I have grown accustomed to the fine people who provide write ups for our enjoyment. It is much appreciated

 

[cammo6556]

Thankyou. I hope there may be a few people that can go up there to do some training reports. I have grown accustomed to the fine people who provide write ups for our enjoyment. It is much appreciated

Agreed. Being in Melbourne it's near impossible to get good info during the off season. Those who provide training reports are kings (and queens) among men (and women)

 

[chigwidden]

So, a sort of report... this will probably be a bit disjointed.

I got there about 9:30am, and the players were finishing warm-up.

It was good to see Will Young out and about -- he, Truck and Sam Shaw were training separate from the main group and started out kicking to each other while everyone else began interval sprints. The majority of the group work was focused on tackling and on sprints.

For most of the session, the new draftees/first years were also working separately to the main player group. They started out doing laps.

I took a massive amount of pics, but I can't get them off my camera until I get back to NZ. Doh. Anyway.

After intervals, the main group had a little handball competition -- fastest pair to do a certain number of handballs stuck their hand up, and got to watch the rest of the team do punishment pushups. Truck and Batman won handily, and I got a nice shot of them high fiving while everyone else did pushups. Heh.

From handballs, to kicks, and then a whole field drill. From where I was sitting, the main thing I could see was Bicks getting each player to deal with him physically pressuring them in the goal square for the ball as they led and marked a long bomb -- the bomb was kicked by one of the other groups (who were doing things I wasn't paying as much attention to) , and each player rotated through each group. Was interesting to watch each players style in dealing with pressure. Bicks was encouraging them (okay, insisting) to go body-on-body with him. Most of the backs tended to lean heavily into him and push off at the right moment, whereas the mids were much more tap-and-go. I thought Tipps was going to lean on Bicks so hard he'd squish him...

There were a couple more full field drills: guys in yellow bibs focused on tackles/defensive work, and everyone else focusing on handballs and deliveries to the 50. Porps was looking pretty good in the forward line, as was Tom Lynch. At one point, Porps in a yellow bib tackled Tipps -- successfully! -- as a mark came in, and they both ended up in a pile next to the point post. That generated a bunch of laughs from the spectators.

The younger playing group at this stage was doing a pickup/handball drill, from memory.

After that, the main group split into two. One group did a lap of the field (for a certain time), while the other group split in two to do a drill.

The drill was a tackle drill -- start laying flat, jump up into a tackle pad held by another team member for the count of five, drop flat, retreat to the start line, drop flat. Schwerdty was encouraging them to "let him hear the hit" and push as far and hard as they could, while being fast. After a few tackles, that group did sprints, and then switched places to hold the tackle pads, while the other half of the group did the tackle drill and sprints. After both groups had completed a set of tackle/sprint, the group that had been running a timed lap switched places. I think they did three rounds each of the lap and drill.

Finally, they split into small groups to work on specific things. I was watching Talia and Johnston practicing outbodying each other in marking; Tex, Wright, Porps were practicing kicking goals, etc.

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of things, but that's what my camera reminds me happened...

 

[chigwidden]

Meant to add: Based on what I saw, I'd say Lynch is a fair crack to be playing in MMC and first week of competition. Johnston ditto. Both were looking really good in training.

Luke Thompson is definitely not looking up to full speed, to my eyes.

Tex is looking huge, while Talia is looking very lean -- he's got no spare weight on him now. Stiffy is looking a bit on the chubby side, which is not entirely unexpected.

 

[cmndstab]

I was there today Actually it was a pretty big turnout, I always judge turnouts at training by whether there are more fans than Crows employees Looked like there were a good 50 or so fans there today

Session went for around two hours. I was a tiny bit late but they were still doing the runs when I arrived so I didn't miss much. The injured/light preseason group is pretty small at the moment which is nice. Rutten is still doing light work, Kerridge was participating in most stuff but not the full-contact drills, Shaw was doing laps most of the time, same with Talia, Martyn (thanks beagle2! ) and Young. Supposedly Johncock is being eased back in but from what I saw he did every session. So I understand, the only real senior player doing 100% of the work this preseason is Doughty. Guess when you're living year-by-year you need to do that!!

It's always interesting to watch the repeat sprints to see how the various players approach them. Some, like Talia and Walker, hold off the first few times so they have something left later on. Others just give it 100% the whole time, with varying degrees of success. It worked for the likes of VB and Symes, but not so well for poor Dowdell who looked stuffed most of the session.

I've only been to two training sessions this preseason but both times I've seen a shifted focus from what I'm used to with Craig's training sessions. Specifically, there is a big focus on drills obviously designed to build upper body strength, and work on building the player's ability to use their strength while fatigued. There were the usual exercises for this kind of thing - push-ups into starjumps - but also a nice tackling drill. I was lucky to be standing next to what I assume is our rugby import tackling coach when he was directing the tackling drill. A player would hold the pad, and another player would charge at them, meeting them face-on, using as much of their momentum as possible to drive the shoulder into the player, and then they would use their spare arm to try to hook the leg. What pleased me the most was that it was one of the first drills I've ever watched at a training session where the players simply looked out of their depth. It's clearly something we need to work on so it's great that we're putting full focus on it during the training sessions. Some players seemed to get the hang of it after a while - Doughty looked natural with it, Jaensch got the hang of it, Walker got there eventually - whereas others didn't quite seem to be able to co-ordinate it, most notably Henderson. Every few tackles the rugby coach would interject, telling players either to keep their eyes on the upper body, or hit the player more face-on, or scoop the leg more sharply, or whatever. There was a big focus on going in as hard as they could even in training (that's what the pads are for I guess). At one point the coach yelled "Go in harder boys! You should have flattened him then Tex!" Final tackle of the session was Walker flattening Jaensch who popped straight up and ditched the pads at Walker's head, hahaha

At the end of the session they combined the thrusting momentum and tackling emphasis with running. They had players in the push-up position, and they had to jump up, charge into another player (with pads) for 5 steps, hooking the leg while they were at it, then drop back down into the push-up, then jump up, go back the 5 steps and fall into the push-up position again. It looked bloody tough, but it's great to see us training the execution of tackling skills while the players are fatigued and have strained muscles. After so many repetitions, the players holding the pads did some repeat sprints, and then they swapped over. Some players looked absolutely stuffed by the end - notably Dowdell and McKernan. Dowdell was getting plenty of encouragement from the blokes along the lines of "come on Ben! You've got more to give Ben!" He seems to be popular in the group, but is still a long way off the pace. Kerridge didn't participate in the tackling drills but did the runs and looked fit - but that's easy to do when running next to a bunch of exhausted blokes!

The other drill that I really liked, and was a slight change from the "old days", was a drill in which a player had to gather a loose ball, chip a ball sideways to a player who then had to kick to a third player who started next to the first player. The key point of the drill however was for the last kick to enable the third player to run at effectively full pace to mark the ball, so it had to land 25m or 30m from where the player started. It certainly made a nice change from drills I was used to watching where the ball would land on the head of a stationary player who would then take off, which works perfectly well until your opponent figures out he can zone 10m off and chip off the ball every time. Some of the kicks were poor and the trainers made sure to let the players know when they'd had a shocker ("Hospital ball!!") and equally when they kicked a beauty. Vince fired off a ripper kick which earned a "Wowwee, now that's playing AFL!" from Matty Clarke. Porplyzia, Mackay and McKernan earned similar praise for various efforts in the group I was watching.

Tried to watch some of the young guys when I could figure out who they were (or when I had them pointed out to me! ). Crouch, Brown, Joyce, McIntyre, Ellis-Yolman and Grigg all seemed to be in training. Couldn't figure out if Laird or Orval were there, not a clue what they look like. Crouch has skills but looks a bit behind in the fitness stakes. It's great that he's getting an AFL preseason now at 17 to give him a leg-up going into the season. Brown had some nice moments but messed up a couple of kicks in the drill I detailed above. I could never seem to notice Joyce, McIntyre or Grigg out there but that might be because they're fairly nondescript looking players. Ellis-Yolman is bigger than I expected him to be, can someone tell me what position he plays in the AFL? I expected him to be a bit of a small speedster but he's looks more like a wingman build. He's a bit behind in the fitness stakes too.


The Crows have a veritable truckload of staff which I kind of like to see. I always got the impression in the last few years we were being run by just a handful of trainers, but there would have been 25 or 30 staff members out there today, between coaching staff, training volunteers, video recording people, and so on. Everyone seems to get on really well with each other and they all seem to know what's going on which is good to see. Just makes them feel a bit more like a big club rather than a minnow.


Finally, I was watching the traded-in guys in Jenkins, Johnston and Lynch. Lynch stands out like a sore thumb on the field and didn't really do anything wrong, but nothing that grabbed my eye - to be fair, he spent most of the session on the opposite side of the ground from me. Every time I watch Johnston I like what I see, except I can never figure out it's Johnston at first! He's smaller than I expect and doesn't look super strong but the guy just strikes you as someone who thinks quickly and is very confident. He's fit right into the group. Jenkins seems to be close with Jacobs and the two of them did pretty well when I was watching, but there weren't any ruck-specific drills that I saw so it was hard to get a true gauge on them. If the fittest ruckmen get the starting spot, Jacobs and Jenkins have it in spades over McKernan, Dowdell and Craig. Actually, come to think of it, I didn't notice Craig out there at all today. Is he still injured? Usually I notice the big ox.


Probably the only drill today that I didn't think much of was a "bring the ball across the ground" sort of drill that, to my eye, had mismatched teams. It looked like it was 10 vs 15 or something like that. They had some poor small defender (possibly Brown?) standing on Johncock but he was hopelessly outnumbered, so he had to keep zoning off onto the other forwards, who would inevitably handball over the Johncock for a cheap goal in the square. Presumably it was a defensive-oriented drill, since Johncock isn't going to be given that much space as a defender, let alone a forward, but it wasn't a great display defensively. At the other end, of all people we had Symes lining up as a defender on Jacobs, and he was roughly as effective as you might imagine. About the only green-vested player who showed much was Dangerfield who laid a few ripper tackles, though at least one would likely be judged in the back on matchday.


Normally I like to nominate a trainer of the day but nobody really stood out to me. Porps has some definite class, VB killed them in the runs, Doughty looked very natural with the tackling, Vince displayed some nice kicking skills ("Skills McGills" according to Sloaney), it was a bit of a mixed bag. So instead I'm going to just give props to Aiden Riley for putting up with "Pigdog" as a nickname, hahaha. "Here pig! Here pig!!" Seriously, that would get tiring pretty quickly, hahahahahaha.

 

[WALL-e]

Thanks chigwidden!


....



And stabby too I guess.