Training - Friday 27th August 2021

I was able to pop past training on my allotted time of exercise today and watched for about 20min.

Langford was training on the rehab oval doing just about everything without hesitation. Jumping, kicking, sprinting, one on one with coaches. He must have just missed out this week. Right to go next week if we win.

Walla trained with the main group for the duration I was there, seems the ‘spark’ is still missing in him. Nothing else I can really report, its a tough one to judge from the outside.

While I was there the group was doing a full match sim drill, looked like the ‘A’ team vs the rest. Caldwell was in the ‘A’ team and Clarke was with the rest who were wearing yellow bibs (which included Cox, Gleeson and Phillips). Sometimes it can reflect the team that has been selected, sometimes it doesn’t, we’ll find out 5pm today.

Overall the boys looked switched on and ready to roll.

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Thanks for update. Everything points to Caldwell in for Clarke.

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sounds like caldwell is definitely in for clarke. devo that walla has got up for this one.

thanks for the observations.

If we add one a week

Caldwell in for elimination

Langford in for semi final

Tippa in for Prelim

Hooker/Baldwin in for Grandinal

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They would play Clarke on the opposite team if they were asking him to play a defensive role on someone like Daniels…?

Where was Cox?

Had the bib on too

Medical sub.

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Good to hear that Langford is getting close. He will be champing at the bit to get in and show what he can do. He will be a great weapon to add to our arsenal.

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Kudos to anyone organised enough to attend training and/or coherent enough to post astute predictions about team selection. I’m a blubbering sweaty nervous wreck meself.

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It would make a whole lot of sense

In the past it felt like these Elimination finals were our Grand Final…. Ie. ‘Who gives a f*ck about the next week, just try and win this game’.

This year, I feel like it’s expected that we win on Sunday, and we’re building into the finals.

I honestly think we can make a Preliminary final.

None of this sitting on the fence stuff. We’re holding you personally responsible if Jye doesn’t play, gets injured or gets less than 100 DT points.

This for me, IF we win, I will be saying that for every match onward.

I am excited that we are playing but like @Humbert_Humbert am a nervous wreck. (without the blubbering and being sweaty :wink:)

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Let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

Absolutely agree that we need to believe though and plan now for if we stay alive.

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That’s very nice, but you also have to name the outs.

Hind could be one this week

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You might need a drink or few.
Then again drink might be the cause, not the cure.

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In past years it hasn’t felt like that at all for me. In those years we’ve limped into the finals, sometimes only being there because our rivals fell at the last hurdle, and I’ve had no expectation of winning, except perhaps that final against North where I thought we might win because they were even worse than us.

This year we’ve won our way into the finals fair and square, a game and percentage clear of ninth place. The team is playing good, hard, committed football. To me it’s completely different.

I still don’t have any expectation of winning on Sunday. Footscray are an excellent team. They’ve been playing terrible football for the past few weeks – since we beat them, in fact; but there’s every chance that on Sunday, in a final, they will bounce right back. If that happens, we can still win, but we will have to be at our very hardest and most committed.

So I don’t have any expectation. But I do have hope.

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bringing in a great player is much better than having to take out a great player going into finals which is what we’ve had to do most times

definitely not limping in