I did learn something in year 12
I mentioned Mackay before and I'll mention him again, he's not putting afoot wrong. He makes little errors and is just a smooth mover. He's tackling well and just always popping up with something.
Sellar has been working hard and seems to have stepped up a level compared to what I saw last pre season and even at season training. He's being utilised in drills and getting a chance to attack and defend. He always stays back longer and often works closer with a coach.
Otten and Armstrong would be the two recruits from 07 who are standing out the most, but more so Otten than Armstrong. They're both very good at using their voice, especially for only second year players.
The usual suspects of Goodwin, Edwards, Reilly, Shirley and Doughty are all having good pre seasons.
No one is really standing out as poor performing. I must say though Tippett hasn't really been catching my eye. From what I've remembered he hasn't been used as a main forward target, so I haven't noticed him too much.
Finally got down to a training myself
Will make a few comments although CG has done a great job. I took some photos and might upload them later, but they weren't much chop due to a crap camera with crap zoom.
You were right on the money with the fartleck running CG, from memory they were doing about 60m at 3km pace followed by 20m at a sprint, cycling between the 2 for about 5 mins without a break. Good fun stuff
A couple of notes from the session though:
Sellar is definitely working hard, if he doesn't make it, its not through lack of effort. He really does cut an imposing figure when out there, you can see why we'd invest so much time in him. One thing I noticed throughout the session though was that he needed to work on timing his leaps for a grab in a contested situation, the ball quite often went over head. It was really pleasing to see him working with Benny Hart following the session on exactly that. I stayed for a bit to see how he went and he really started to improve when opposed to Hart, took some really strong grabs. Also in the circle work drill they did towards the end of the session, he worked hard accross the ground to create a contest and found a fair bit of the footy.
To Stiffy now, I wouldn't worry too much about his gut, I think Drummond caught him at a really bad angle, what little gut there is on Stiffy, I'm sure it'll be gone in a couple of weeks, he didn't stand out at all on the park as being overweight or anything.
Walker is definitely looking ready to take on the AFL, his skills and balance with the footy are just amazing and there are definitely no worries about whether he'd be big enough for the AFL. They did a lot of one on one leading and Walker absolutely excels in this area, just knows when and where to lead and can easily slip his opponent. To me this is what will seperate him from everyone else and make up for his lack of any great athletic qualities. Sellar in contrast needs a lot of work here, you can tell he's very unsure in this respect and really struggles to get away from his opponent or when he does its often too late or to the wrong spot.
Mackay is just awesome out there, everything he does just oozes class, he's always one take, never fumbles, delivers well etc.
Whilst he can take an overhead mark, Porps is still very tentative when doing it and to me doesn't look confident yet doing it, which is to be expected though.
Expect Petrenko to play a bit of footy this year, was looking very sharp and was complemented numerous times throughout the session by Craigy, I think VB has a bit of competition for the tag of Craigy's favourite
On Jacky, at one stage they were doing some front and centre work off a pack situation followed by a snap on goal, what disapointed me was that Jacky struggled big time with these "snaps", don't think any went close and if he wants to be a "small forward" these will have to be his bread and butter. If I were him, I'd be out on the oval every spare second I had (with a trainer or 2 if possible) practising snap shots from all angles. As a kid I did a lot of this and snap shot goal kicking is now one of the strengths of my game and I don't believe it has to be learnt as a kid. Walker and Porps I must say, nailed every one I think.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Gallman replace Massie in the side as that medium defender, he seemed to be doing a lot of competitive marking work with the likes of Stevens, Gill, Walker, Sellar etc.
Was very disapointed not to see the new fellas out there, might have to go to another session.
Thats all I can think of for the moment anyways, I must say its pretty hard to tell who's who out there, Sellar and Tippet are about the easiest, Tippet with his height, Sellar with his shaved head and just being such a beast. Whilst Sellar may not quite be as tall as Tippet, I reckon he'd be just as, if not even more imposing.
