Pre-season training. Bring it on!

[blackbird_RGB]

some interesting things i heard at training today:

talia: "crouchy i wanna hear ya today, i wann hear ya." seems crouch is a bit quiet...

jacobs: "tipp i need to touch it, tipp i need a touch!" in the full field drill, he seemed pretty desperate to get the ball

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.

to me, this seemed like it had to do with moving the ball quickly from a kick in to result in a goal, although without match like pressure due to the ratio of def:attack. the players switched the yellow bibs around, so i reckon everyone got a shot at wearing them.

it seemed like the objective of the vested players was to get the ball out of bounds, and the non vests were to score. i remember at one time a yellow vested player ran it over what i assume to be the line, and a coach yelled holding the ball and it was given to a non vest.

the porps tipps incident was certainly entertaining. what i noticed was that porps doesnt seem to be worried about his shoulder at all. if he did, running towards the biggest guy on the ground in the hope of getting the ball, while the big guy is running backwards towards him, is probably not what he would have been doing. he did it 3 times.

with the first warm up runs, to me it seemed as if the excersise was new to the boys. they seemed unsure of quite how it worked. in the grup nearest me, the last guys still going were rory, vb, symes and otto. rory and otto dropped out on 'running speed 21.5' vb on running speed '23,' symes was somewhere in the middle of these.

as people have said before, smack is very flat footed. he runs in a similar style to my sister, and just looks so slow. near the end he was very verbal, urging on symes mainly, and he was the guy who took vb a drink bottle, which i liked.

i didnt notice jarryd lyons, but seeing as 95% of the group currently have a similar hair colour, and are tanned to a very similar colour, he could have been there. if you gave me picks, i could recognise every player, but at training it is EXTREMELY difficult.

something is up with LT, was by himself for a great deal of the session near the net/trampoline thingamabobs, kicking/hand passing to a coach.

rory laird was there, i noticed him. didnt notice orval, or hear his name called out. i heard the names of a lot of the new guys: timmy, lairdy, joycey etc. so they were there, but i didnt recognise them. grigg was there, i reckon he partnered with crouch for the quick hands handball drill won by truck and rory, but not 100 %

i saw tipps have 3 shots on goal. set, snap and running. all went through for six points...


anyways, here are my VERY disjointed thoughts, if you have any questions i will do my best to answer.

ps, sorry about there being no capitals in the sentences, im too lazy to hold shift, and the computer isnt correcting it...

 

[dylan123]

Too true

The guy was putting a big focus on technique - making sure you hit them front-on rather than turning to the side (easy to spin away from), keeping your eyes up so you can watch the ball, and also not give away your intention to hook the leg, grounding your feet right before you propel into them, keeping the body slightly hunched so you can go in hard without hitting the head, etc.

I find it interesting that they want the players to keep their eyes up as I remember reading in one of McLeod's football skills books that you should always focus on their hips. I guess even when you're doing that you're going to have some idea where the ball is otherwise you'd be tackling a lot of players that have since moved the ball on...

 

[cmndstab]

To be fair, I may have misunderstood the guy. He said it when people were starting to focus on the leg too much.


blackbird - you're right, Luke Thompson was doing stuff on his own for some reason. He's built up a bit I reckon but he clearly wasn't right. Not sure what's going on there.

 

[blackbird_RGB]

To be fair, I may have misunderstood the guy. He said it when people were starting to focus on the leg too much.


blackbird - you're right, Luke Thompson was doing stuff on his own for some reason. He's built up a bit I reckon but he clearly wasn't right. Not sure what's going on there.

Honestly it didnt make much sense to me, he seemed to be moving alright, and even did a lap or two at the end, he didn't seek to be wearing any strapping. He looked fine to le really, so I was quite confused by this. Especially with this being my first training.

 

[Godallblighty]

Great stuff, everyone. Getting a bit excited...especially hearing that we seem to be addressing aspects of our play that have been pretty frustrating the last couple of years.

As a Victorian supporter, very appreciative of the pics and reports.

 

[PykeDream]

As people have said before, McKernan is very flat footed. He runs in a similar style to my sister, and just looks so slow. Near the end he was very verbal, urging on Symes mainly, and he was the guy who took Van Berlo a drink bottle, which I liked.

I have a mate who is the same, runs on his heels rather than the ball of his feet. Is a big bloke, and basically just lumbers and is slow as a wet weak. I think its either the cause of consequence of an ongoing foot injury/defect.

I'd assume that the coaching stuff would be trying to rectify McKernan's running stye at some point; don't think it will do him any good.

 

[PykeDream]

Its in Berri apparently

Please say that it'll be after the 21st. Skimped on a trip to Berri for 10 days so that I could work.

 

[WAG]

If your a right hander I'm picturing left shouder driving into hip region of opponenet. Left arm wrapping around in a 'tackle'. Hopefully pinning the opponenets right arm.
Right hand/wrist getting behind the left knee of opponenet. Just above it to remain legal. Pull on that lever point so knee bends and pulls foot off ground to get them off blance and losing power from the ground.
Slight lift and bang flip them over onto the ground as quick as you can.

Kinda like tryign to get an opponent on teh ground in the UFC with a bit more restriction on where you can grab.

That's what I'm picturing anyway.

A couple of photos from facebook (assume from our website?).

 

[Chief Crow]

Nick Poulos the new strength and conditioning coach was on 5aa earlier today. Heres the link to the audio

http://www.fiveaa.com.au/audio_the-muscle-behind-the-crows-nick-poulos_103961

 

[Coopers]

Hahahaha, I asked the same question

Legal as long as it's above the knee apparently.

Yeah mate, you grab behind the knee, and pull with your bicep, that's similarly strong to the hammie... no way you're not restricting movement and tackling effectively.

I like this idea, it sounds... aggressively painful.

 

[cammo6556]

Please say that it'll be after the 21st. Skimped on a trip to Berri for 10 days so that I could work.

Just looked it up. Feb 16 & 17...

 

[JunkTime]

I went to training today and here are a few of my random thoughts
-Porps has incredible ball control and class superior to most of our squad and this has shone through in the 2 sessions I have seen.
-Lynch was kicking the ball beautifully to players on the lead and I was happy with the little bit I saw of him today.
-Kerridge( if it was him with hat on and blonde bum fluff facial growth) twice showed great support and encouragement to team mates. Was great to see from a young, newbloketo have that sort of confidence and is comfortable enough in himself to do this. I heard him say to other 1st year players after they had done some solid running "come on guys suck it up lets and get back to it".
-Sloane calling out all the way across the field to acknowledge a great attack on the ball from Lewis Johnston in a contested situation. Isn't he the bloke you would love on your team and people like him are so important in building team spirit.
-The 18 v 9 drill was a contest between 3 teams of nine to see which team could concede the least number of goals from the opposition in 3 mins.
-Van Berlo time after time leading from the front with his gut running. He is an outstanding athlete and very courageous and this should not be underestimated. It isn't just a matter of him rocking up and automatically beating all the others. His consistency of effort and hard running needs to be acknowledged.
-at times Bernie Vince's disposal was sensational. I recall him slotting a left foot goal and another pass out in front of a team mate that was perfect!
-To my eye Brodie Martin, Luke Thompson, Rory Sloane had all put on some muscle. Tex looked huge also but I hope he doesn't get too big and lose his mobility.
-At the end Callinan was helping Petrenko improve his left foot kicking. I heard Callinan tell Pup "gee you have improved out of sight". He did improve but when he did screw the odd one up Callinan would explain what Pup had done wrong technically( one was falling away and being off balance). I got the impression he is a kicking coach for Pup.
-Milburn was helping Jaenschy and Lewis Johnston how how to defend a player whilst being in front of them and limitting the space and direction the opponent has. Sorry it is hard to explain but good to see some tips coming from Dasher.
-at the end of training it was funny lots of guys were having set shots and Tex missed one and he wasn't happy about it! In fact he was filthy! So filthy he yelled out, walked over to a ball lying around and booted it off the ground so far it went onto one the road in front of the Westpac centre. It made me laugh- nothing too serious!

 

[macca23]

Many thanks to all that went to training and contributed their impressions or pics on how it all went down.

Stabby marginally wins the award for the best attendee today due to the length of his magnificent ramble - best rambler in the business is stabby.

 

[PykeDream]

Just looked it up. Feb 16 & 17...

Ah well. Thanks for finding out.

 

[jenny61_99]

Many thanks to all that went to training and contributed their impressions or pics on how it all went down.

Stabby marginally wins the award for the best attendee today due to the length of his magnificent ramble - best rambler in the business is stabby.

Ah, so size DOES matter then?

 

[Allefgib]

Only when it comes to stabby giving macca what he wants.

 

[WasThereIn97]

Yeah, his arms look HUGE!

 

[Vader]

This thread is now getting perilously close to the 1000 post limit and is being closed as a result.

Feel free to continue the discussion in the part 2 thread.