He has been on modifed training most of the pre season and has done very little kicking, from the little I have seen though his action has looked good.
2 Likes
Have players been trained with any drills on centre square ruck contested clearances as well as ruck stoppage throw in clearances whether it be from forward 50 or back 50?
And have the forwards setup a goal from stoppages and/or have the backmen propelled the ball forward of 50 from half back stoppage situation in these drills?
I think with Stringer it’s a little bit off both. Most of us will have our eyes on the new guys more than others. From what I’ve seen his ability to break away from a pack is as good as anyone at the club, but he has been a little fumbly and his disposal hasn’t always been great, but you get that from a lot of players pre season.
It’s hard to know where to rank him until we see what sort of tank he has, which will determine how much time he can spend in the midfield. All of Zerrett, McGrath and Smith have been exceptional in my opinion. When you throw in Heppell and Zaharakis we will be batting much deeper than last year.
I think the biggest difference to last year is the emphasis on defensive pressure. A lot of the drills have been half ground drills based around forwards creating pressure and defenders trying to break the press, whereas last year there was a lot more whole ground drills based on movement from one end to the other.
The other thing to me is that we just have a better more developed list than last year all round. We don’t have the situation of the returning players easing back into the workload, and with a lot of our older slower players no longer there the level of pressure in most situations seems higher.
Added to that is the natural competition for places that is obvious to anyone who has tried to do a best 22, and as Jackie pointed out the general mood of the players seems as good as it’s been in a long time which also makes a difference.
I think there has been a significant improvement over last year.
19 Likes
I was also told it’s 11am tomorrow, with no training on Friday for Australia day
Hooker seriously must of cooked himself at the end of last year
1 Like
I agree. And taking it back to the original comment - if he remains the best handballer in our team till the end of his career, we could do far worse - in fact I would expect it.
I think he gets into good positions and has a strong body to hold his ground and can find the ball.
My problem with him is the speed of his hands to get off an effective handball or get it to his foot. I think he may be fine at VFL level but the step up to AFL speed could really find him out. It’s most noticeable if you’re comparing him to someone like Zerrett or McGrath who never seem to be re positioning the ball in their hands.
They obviously do a lot of work on the speed of their disposals, hopefully it’s an area he will improve at over time.
2 Likes
I didn’t see too much stoppage work with ruckman for the first month or so, but that was also hampered a bit by Bellchambers, Luey, Joe and Lavender being on modified programs.
Most training sessions of late there has been multiple small groups going off and doing stoppage work, there hasn’t been much boundary throw in simulations that I have seen.
Most of the drills have has the ball starting deep in defense and then trying to apply forward pressure / clear the zone.
At other times there has also been plenty of work among the forwards practicing leading, blocking and creating space
2 Likes
He actually looks in great nick, he just hasn’t been doing much of the full training sessions. I imagine as with a lot of players they are taking a very conservative approach, and there is no doubt his is doing a lot of work behind closed doors that we don’t see
1 Like
“Bone bruising” was actually code for a hot spot >> heading towards a stress fracture
He’d have been played with pain killers and just risked further damage had we progressed to a prelim vs Crows but since we were knocked out first final been nothing but conservative with him since as far as managing running loads.
All fine now though from his perspective
2 Likes
A lot has been mentioned about our increased work on our defensive game, but have they done much full ground ball movement? And how are our overall kicking skills looking? Hopefully we can improve our defensive weakness without losing any of our attacking flair. Our personnel up forward is too good to give them bad entries.
1 Like
Tim Watson wasn’t real bad.
Our attacking flair should not be effected because it is only initiated when we gain possession of the ball. The defensive weakness is what we are not doing when we don’t have possession.
I’m with you on this one.
We had no issue once we got the ball forward but transitioning from defence through the middle of the ground was a big concern.
We turned it over a lot more than most sides which lead to our defenders being caught out of position.
Saad’s run and carry should help but I would like to see somebody else step up and help Hurley with clearing zones with penetrating kicks. Goddard could be that option.
1 Like
im convinced you dont know who laverde is… what injury are you talking about? and lav isnt a red head…
2 Likes
I think the point is if we’re not training the attacking side as much, it could drop off
1 Like
That’s coloured by the fact that we took it through the middle more than most sides, and we took the risky, on-the-run, inbound pass more than most sides.
2 Likes
From what I’ve seen there hasn’t been as much full ground movement as other years, with a lot of the work being done on transitioning from deep in defense to the centre of the ground.
I’m not the least bit worried about losing attacking flair. With guys in the side like McKenna, Saad, Fanta, Tippa, Stringer and Zerrett it’s a natural part of their game, once the ball is out of defense the rest will take car of itself.
That being said there here still been a lot of work done with the forwards regarding leading patterns, movement and blocking in the forward half, as well as kicking into space.
Regarding the kicking skills I haven’t noticed a significant difference one way or the other, but it’s often a bit scrappy at this time of years.
5 Likes
I agree, which is why I think Saad will be a great addition. By running it through the zone it creates overlap and less chance of turning the ball over by foot.
Of all our defenders Hurley is the only one that has the ability to kick through the zone and thats why we continued to see Merrett going back to the halfback line.
Hartley has the peg for it but just doesn’t use it enough.
This is one of the main reasons I would like Francis included this year. His kicking depth is as good as Hurleys.
2 Likes
I think I would prefer whole ground defensive pressure training. What I mean is last year we were bad at defending the spread so I would prefer to see us practicing that on a whole ground with more space rather than a half ground which is more confined and maybe giving a false sense of the work rate required to defend and close down the space and spread.
1 Like