Training Training Thread 2023

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Sphynx said:
We’ve absolutely got one with Drury.

He comes across as that pest in school that was unbelievably good at any sport he played despite looking like Rick Astley.

Seriously impressed when watching among AFL company.
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We're no strangers to Blake
You know the rules and so do I (do I)
A full commitment is what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy....
 

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Sphynx said:
They’ve broken into some specialist skills work.

Forwards practicing goals on the run on the boundary. Drury and Sheezel in this group.

Defenders practicing body work and intercepting. Jack is training here.

Mids practicing stoppage handball releases

Mid group is - Simpkin, Powell, Phillips, Xerri, Edwards, Wardlaw and………Josh Goater…
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So TT and Sleevo still with the forwards?
 
Well I watched my first training session ever! Travel time meant I arrived later than expected but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Will Phillips looks in great shape. He certainly won’t die wondering. The newbies looked to be having fun and the vibe in general seemed good. Have a great Friday everyone ☀️
 

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Thanks for the pics and reports y’all.

I’ve been “like” clicking like David Helfgott playing “Flight of the Bumblebees” on speed.

Much appreciated by those of us unable to attend. 👍
 
Will Phillips, Turner, and Jy specifically look like they have put on some size. Will has legs like tree trunks. Jy always looks ripped though.

Sheezel, chom and archer were marking, running hard and was in the mix. (Chom is a monster). Archer specifically was everywhere early. Tackling machine. Saw X did a few nice things. He is a ****ing unit. Young was in a lot of chains down back and same with Ben McKay. Powell had a few involvements, looked slick. He has put on a few kilos for sure.

TT didn’t partake in training drills but did shitloads of running. LDU, CCJ and Larkey also did laps. Curtis Taylor still looks like a skinny twig lol

Wardlaw looks the part already physically.

Who’s the one with ginger hair? (Rookie draft pick). He looked great.

Was surreal to see our Clarko, sitting back and watching super closely. Sordof hung around the background, doing his assessments. What a legend he is going to be for us.

You can really tell the group is hanging off everything he says, including all our other coaches. Fully engaged.

Go north 💙
 
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Horizons_00 said:
Will Phillips, Turner, and Jy specifically look like they have put on some size. Will has legs like tree trunks. Jy always looks ripped though.

Sheezel, chom and archer were marking, running hard and was in the mix. Archer specifically was everywhere early. Tackling machine. Saw X did a few nice things. He is a ******* unit. Young was in a lot of chains down back and same with Ben McKay. Powell had a few involvements, looked slick. He has put on a few kilos for sure.

TT didn’t partake in training drills but did shitloads of running. LDU, CCJ and Larkey also did laps. Curtis Taylor still looks like a skinny twig lol

Wardlaw looks the part already physically.

Who’s the one with ginger hair? (Rookie draft pick). He looked great.

Was surreal to see our Clarko, sitting back and watching super closely. Sordof hung around the background, doing his assessments. What a legend he is going to be for us.

You can really tell the group is hanging off everything he says, including all our other coaches. Fully engaged.

Go north 💙
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Drury.

1669943080124.png
 
Alright.

Perez and Corr were going about their best impersonation of a cross fit competition at the open door of the gym, between boxing circuits and weights. Flynn is a bit of a monster at his age. I was going to take a picture of Flynn, but with his top off, I felt like I would have been breaching some sort of digital revenge pr0n law.

I didn't see Stevo, Zurhaar, Bonar, Logue, Tucker, Greenwood, Spicer. I presume they were in the gym if there.

LDU, CCJ and Goater were doing a mix between the ground work and additional running.

Tarryn was training exclusively on his own, shadowed at all times by a S&C coach, he wasn't doing the high intensity circuits Flynn and Corr were doing and wasn't doing the running with LDU, Goater, CCJ etc. He then spent the last 15 minutes of training in the interchange bench. I asked one of the fitness coaches, he mentioned "he needs to get his running numbers up before partaking in ground work". I think the cuddle and the foot up the bum that Clarko mentioned was in line for J*F probably applies to Tarryn as well.

Pretty low intensity session with about 25 mins of a full ground drills, then some specialist forward and back 50-60m drills, some focusing on deliberate delivery inside 50 with a full zone in place by the opposition.

I mentioned in my posts, I think the most impressive person on the track regarding my initial expectations driving there to what I saw was probably Blake Drury. I've seen a bit of him at NAB League level, but I like to see them early in pre-season to gauge them against AFL bodies. So he gets the 'Alan Obst extended write up' from the session:

To start with, he's tiny, but that's not a bad thing. He's about a similar size to Boomer, minus the 25 years of weights routines. I mentioned in the posts that I think he's one of those freak natural ball sport athletes. When they split into this weird Gaelic football drill where you could only kick it off the ground and then pick it up with no U-turns allowed, he looked like a natural with the other ball. In all the various multiple ball handballing games, he made it look easy compared to others. He just looks like one of those AB de Villiers types.

In terms of his skill set. In the full ground work he rose up with a nice vertical and took a few semi contested marks against the likes of Simpkin that made me sit up and take notice (the type of aerial work that both Lazarro and Mahoney aren't capable of and this seems definitely underreported pre-draft ). In the contested work he was very one touch and clean when others weren't, reminiscent of Will Phillips etc. Then during some brisk circle work, he was hitting low penetrating darts around 40m with regularity. I was thinking to myself (ok.....), then Ratts whistled a change in direction of the circle and he got it back wheeling around on his left side and hit a 40m dart with a completely natural and fluid ball drop on his left side (Probably 5 players would have been capable of that out there today) and I thought (OK!!!!!!) There was even a bit of noise from a few players and coaches at this.

In the specialist forward work, they were doing a drill where they double back from a lead and receive an over the top kick. I got a good look at his foot speed. He's just quick enough to get some separation, he's got a bit of zip and is a yard quicker than both Mahoney and Lazarro who failed to get any separation in the same drill. Drury closed down Sheezel to get a spoil in, in this same drill when playing as the defender

In the goal kicking drills, he was sending the ball 50-55m with ease for someone 175cm, which says to me again, he's a bit of a "freak" a bit like Boomer was with his timing and ball handling skills.

Remembering this kid also has a 2km time in the low 6:00's.

I'm calling it now, not only will he play senior football in 2022, he will play 100+ senior AFL games. I saw Patch in his first pre-season, whilst he was a tough grafter with a superb footy IQ, Drury has more weapons and skill in his little toe than Patch had and I reckon he reads the game just as well. Patch lacked AFL athletecism, whilst Drury is small, he's just quick enough and definitely well above average overhead for his height.

For the others:

Wardlaw - Trains a bit like he interviews, a bit laconic, but also looks like he hasn't played in 7-8 months and is a bit underdone early days. Shades of when Will Phil came to us after the knee inury and Covid. In terms of the ball work, like Goater last year, his athletic attributes jump straight out at training. He hangs in the air with that monster vertical and can pull down one handed marks and handball recieves that others simply can't get to. He's going to be one of those hot and cold ball users by foot, he trys to hit most targets with real penetration. I suspect one day he looks like Nathan Buckley but on the odd occasion will cough it up. Luke McDonald/Anthony Stevens esque in this regard.

Sheezel - Unlike George, he doesn't look at all underdone. He has that bolt upright perfect posture that Pendlebury has that makes you think his parents strapped a dictionary between his shoulder blades during high school. His ball use is simply supurb. I don't mean good, I mean didn't miss a target for the entire session and barely missed a 10cm grouping on the middle of each of his targets chests for 90 minutes type good. He's quiet at the moment on the field and definitely looks the type that is drinking everything in. He's got a pretty stocky frame, in the separation drill that I mentioned with Drury, he cruises a bit and lacks that genuine explosive 5m burst and I suspect he's home is going to be across half forward, where his engine will get him up and back continually, rather than deep forward where he will rely on seperation.

Powell and Chom have both put on noticeable size, probably 5kg+ for each of them. Tom is physically starting to look like an AFL footballer rather than a kid. Chom is just ready. He was jumping on heads, he looks like a man now and the type of athletic forward we need to help out Larks. Kallan Dawson did really well defending him on a few occasions.

Will Phillips is winding back the clock to this time last year, where he looked imperious. He looks super fit, hungry, trained completely, putting in extra running between drills and was the center piece around alot of the ball movement stuff. He's absolutely going to captain the club at some stage. His Dad was there today, as he was last week as well, so obviously plenty of family support after the year he had.

Goats is big, like 10kg bigger than this time last year, I suspect the club is going to continue with the use of him off the wing this year given how much improvement he showed in the VFL and how easy he found the ball in his AFL debut.

Howes first kick in a training drill for North was a 30m mung off the side of his boot that missed the leading target by about 30m. I thought "You will fit right in!"
 
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The Dingrel said:
Goater....wow, now thats some serious work into physical development.
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1669945711004.png
Doesn't say much for the others that Goater is keeping up even after the amputation.
 
I missed Cooper.

He really impressed me for his first session

I watched at least 6-7 of his sessions in January last year so got a good grasp and have a good point of comparison.

His kicking has improved ALOT. Whether this was down to coming out of Covid last year, or the year he had at Assumption/Northern, but his ball use was generally excellent, one of the better on the track today.

He's put in a heap of work in the gym obviously and isn't the size of a normal first year mid/fwd.

He was moving nicely.

Sheezel, Cooper and Drury certainly would have worried a few of those smaller types like Mahoney, Laz, Turner and few others today.
 

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Training Training Thread 2023

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