Anyone notice if Smith was wearing Puma boots?
Noticed this on one of his insta pics the other day.
All well and good, but who failed to stick the tackle?
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awesome video 
Press Conference from BJ at 1.30pm .
BJ: âItâs fun, fast and excitingâ #AFLX
BJ: âI wonât give much away but it is very much a kick-mark type of gameâ
BJ: âWhen you get to my age, itâs about focusing on round 1, so I probably wonât be playing it.â
BJ: âWith the development of McKenna and recruitment of Saad we have strengthen our backlineâ
BJ: âI will be playing the same role in the mid but also moving down back tooâ
BJ: âIf I get a choice I would go out on my own terms, but itâs about whatâs best for the team. So weâll see what happensâ
BJ: âWe are all trying to improve and we donât sit down and think about top 4.â
BJ: âWe are not naive, we know where we went wrong last year and it was a good learning curve, for most of the guys it was a first final.â
BJ: âWe are driving Joey to get better defensively, he has a great attitudeâ
BJ: âWe all need to improve, offensive we were really good last year but now itâs focusing on our defensive.â
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Very Artsy 
this might be more to your liking 
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But giant steps are what you take.
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Short and sweet today.
Very long session. Players were buggered at the end, but worked very hard.
Match play focussed on team defence. Pressure good, forwards a little sloppy.
Parish again looks the goods. A couple of good tackles led to repeat stoppages, something we struggle at. Also got the ball out wel. Break out year.
Hooker played and moved pretty well. Brown the same.
Guelfi is a good pick up. Could well see him in he seniors at some point.
Stringer as a permanent mid. Just hope he doesnât lose his forwardâs nous.
At the end, the boys did a 400, as a red group and a green group. The first groupâs time wasnât flash, their second go much better. Worsfold asked the players why the first one was shithouse. The red and green then did a 400 as a group (most of them were stuffed), their times werenât great but the effort was there. Woosha brought them in again and reminded them about hard work and mental strength, donât let it lapse. Really interesting.
Saad isnât a 400m runner. Redman is.
Laverde and Langford have been covered by my learned friend.
AFLX will take some getting used to. Itâs different, but an okay type of different. Wait to judge when I see two teams play it.
YeahâŚ
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Someone gets paid for these?!
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Must be inspired by the Academy Awards coming up
live training reports now.
Wow.
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I thought the AFLX was utter shizen. Itâs just like normal footy but without the good bits.
I REAAAALLLY hope we move him back into the midfield permanently next season. I saw a significant drop off for him between '16 & '17.
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No drop off at all - planned rounding his game out.
Given I usually bag stats, but you might not agree with my opinion, here goes;
Vituallly identical stats from 2016 to 2017 - slightly more kicks to handballs, and slightly more marks.
Same clearance average, tackles etc etc.
Given he played a role as an outside mid or high half forward for much of the year thatâs not a drop off. Itâs spot on development.
In his own words he needed to develop his tank to work better as a full time mid and get to more contests.
Will be an elite mid by the end of the year.
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Some points from my perspective:
Intense and lengthy training session, including full-ground match simulation.
I was really impressed with Clark. He is not only a beast, physically - hard to tackle, hard at the ball, ultra-determined and 2nd only to Ambrose in tank - but he is constantly encouraging others. We may have one here. And his field kicking today was fine.
McNiece & Redman have bulked up considerably. Both look intimidating - Redman being the larger man. Redman was outstanding in his running drills effort. He is not the natural Ambrose is, but he wills himself to the front. I also noticed a nice bonding moment between he and Saad, when Mason put his arm around him for a while. Saad was buggered. He may be fast, but his tank is lacking.
Francis - Nackers described his drills today on the 2nd oval - and I concur - his skills are truly sweet. He looked ok stamina-wise, also. Later, he practiced mark/defend with Fletch and Zerk. These three boys are great intercept marks.
Langford still takes too long to make up his mind. Itâs frustrating, really. Things are zipping along, Langers marks - and everything stops dead. This happened at least 3 times today.
Stewart may fumble a couple of marks, but heâs just like an over-sized rover - good on the ground, whisking up the ball, weaving and dodging and powering away.
Smith was prominent, but is working in 3rd gear during match practice. It seems obvious to me he can turn this up 2 or 3 more gears. He ran laps hard.
Houlihan (sp?) looked like he got a knock and limped for a while, but I then saw him resume his normal gait.
Great moment on the wing - Hurley on McGrath, monstering him in size & weight. McGrath gets the ball, Hurls shakes him off it, McGrath doggedly persists, sprints past, makes a spoil, and then draws a free. The kid is a star.
A little girl (maybe 2 years old) on the hill was practicing her kicking. She fresh-aired most of them, and it wasnât helped by her being constantly distracted by butterflies. She did get to connect with one though. And she did a lovely âbalance and walk over the storm water grate because itâs lavaâ thing.
JoeDan looks like a friggin beast. He and Chook did one-on-one practice - marking/spoiling.
Laverde made some exquisite passes.
Ambrose is a farking Terminator. The man is unstoppable. He effortlessly powers away from everyone in laps, face a stone mask. Iâm sure he could just lap them if he could be bothered to.
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Nice work Deckham.
Iâm quietly confident that Ambrose is going to be back at his frugal best next year.
Seems to be putting in a great deal of work.
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Any Lavender news?