I attended training today with VanDerHaar, arriving just before 0900.
First, the rehab group: two small groups doing handball drills initially before some went to the Rehab oval for further training. One group consisted of Heppell, McQuillan, Redman and Stewart. The other of Merrett, Draper and Lachie Johnson. Johnson has no bandages on his knee and is moving without any limp so I’d say he is come through his ACL reconstruction well. Redman would disappear inside afterwards. The rest went to the Rehab oval for different periods of time. Draper probably the longest, joined by Fantasia at some point. Stewart did a lot of running - sprints on the Rehab oval and laps around both ovals. Heppell seems to have taken McQuillan under his wing and both returned to use the exercise bike for basically all of training.
I left at around 1115 and training was still going.
Laverde did some work with the main group but predominantly did laps and running away from them. Doesn’t seem inconvenienced in any way. McKernan, Ambrose, Shiel, McBride, Jones, Bryan and Cahill all trained with the main group but not necessarily every drill.
After drinks (1010), Ambrose left do a few laps and Shiel went to the Rehab oval to do a some specific exercises and kicking practice. One exercise was having a large green elastic band around a small goal post and Shiel running hard with the band around his waist until it wouldn’t let him go any further (i.e. about 5m or so). Seemed very much to me to be an exercise to build core strength.
Note on Mozzie: I saw him from much closer today. He definitely has some extra conditioning around the middle but also seems to have built up his chest and shoulders. Moved well throughout training and seemed to have no problem keeping up.
Training today was much more about specific drills than match sim. There was some match sim for about 20 minutes either side of 1100. It consisted of a coach kicking the ball to a back pocket and then, typically a long kick out wide to the wing. The first time, Bryan took a huge grab over the pack - except I don’t think that was the point of the drill - repeatedly after that, the kick would go out wide and Phillips/Bellchambers would compete typically but not attempt to mark. Instead, they would deliberately knock it to the ground, create a ground ball and smalls would swarm to gather and clear. There was more tackling intensity in this match sim than last Thursday. Another time a short kick went to Gleeson in the corridor who easily baulked McBride and kept ambling up the ground. McBride quickly recovered and nailed Gleeson in a perfect tackle from behind with players coming in from everywhere. Plenty of support for McBride. McKenna was on Gleeson’s side and was all business. Grabbed him by his yellow bib and picked him up straight away. McKenna has been one of the more vocal players at both training sessions I have attended.
Note: player camaraderie seemed good with plenty of chat. Hurley continues to be in a very good mood for whatever reason.
Back to McBride - he has a slightly high, but very straight, ball drop and kicked well at goal. Had no problem handballing either. He did look unsure of himself early in the session but became more assured the longer it went. Jones has a slightly odd ball drop but is a thumping kick and moves very well. Bryan looks like a young Tim English and is very good below his knees. If he is 203 cm then Phillips must be all of 205 cm. During a rucking drill you could see Phillips and Bellchambers giving Bryan plenty of tips. Cahill has a great build for a small forward and is well developed across the arms and chest - a bigger version of Snelling. He could easily debut early next year in my opinion. He looked the most assured out there of all draftees.
The drills were many and varied and included:
- Players in 3 groups, typically doing drills that involved short kick/quick handball movement back and forth.
- Tackling drill very early on where players were in pairs went right shoulder to left shoulder and then vice versa. It was more about technique than intensity.
- 2 x 200m runs based on 3 groups of players followed by goal kicking and the repeat and repeat again. It seemed the idea was to practice goal kicking whilst fatigued. McKernan, McBride, Jones, Bryan and Cahill only did the first 2 x 200m and then kept goal kicking throughout.
- Mini set plays where the ball would be worked to the goal square from a pocket and McKernan wouldn’t mark but knock it down for a small to crumb the goal. Similar to the match sim, it was about simulating what happens so often in those situations i.e. 90% of the time a ground ball insues.
One thing that was disappointing was that the kicking skills I thought were ordinary throughout. Too many missed targets too often. The best ball movement style in the world is not going to work if you can’t hit your targets under little pressure. Not limited to any specific players, just overall. But again, training is non stop and the players are being forced to execute skills continuously after a power of running in an endeavour, I think, to mimic what happens in a real game.
Overall, I can see the plan with training with the emphasis on hard running, execute skills, wash, rinse repeat.
Outside of Daniher, Hooker, Zaharakis (all not seen) and Johnson (ACL) I expect all players will be in full training my mid-late Jan.