Training in mild cloudy conditions at Tullamarine. This is a joint report with Karma Bomber whose photos will appear later.
The comment I hear most frequently is “we’ll win more games than people think.” Exactly what this means I’m not sure but I’ll outline the situation as clearly as I can. Our present "predicament " (to quote from Blindside) is unprecedented. The way the ball movement is going at present as far as we can see would see us struggle to win more than one or two games. The hope has to be that as we play games together against real opposition the players will start to jell and confidence in the game plan will increase and running patterns and ball movement will be more precise. If this occurs then perhaps the popular prediction will come to pass.
Of course the elephant in the room is how many games do we want to win? I don’t for a moment suggest tanking but in the circumstances forced upon us a year devoted to player development and experimentation is fully justified and an early draft pick would be a just reward for the trauma this club has experienced. Pick one would stick it up the AFL which is tempting.
The good news from today’s session is that we are pretty much injury free. Hams did laps but Leuenberger told us he feels “fine” and he backed this up by jogging ten laps. As has been commented before the suspensions have removed both our slow midfield and most of our injured players. There is irony here somewhere.
Kommer trained strongly again today and told Karma that his knee is “pain free.” and Dempsey has been impressive with the amount of running he has been doing; one club official remarking that " it is much more than three or four years ago." Fantasia is training well and caught the eye of Mornington Bomber who joined us today. The consensus is that he is a smart footballer.
It was interesting to see Brown who has been playing in the forward line with some success moved to the backline today and his place at full forward was taken by Grimley who is a giant of a man. Of the younger players they seem to be particularly happy with Parish, Eades and Morgan.
The emphasis of today’s session was mainly ball movement and herein lies the problem. Ball movement was slow and zig zagged more than you would hope, turnovers were evident and often passes were kicked too high. Karma likened it to “keepings off” and it was difficult, despite some good passages of play, to see an effective pattern of quick ball movement.
One official suggested to me that we are in “a holding pattern” until everything bursts out and comes together. Everyone’s trying their best and this description is a good way of looking at our current position so we leave Tullamarine now while the players kick back with nachos and hot dogs to watch the Super Bowl.
If Hooker gets poached on $750k a year then AFL will have no choice but to give us pick 1.
The AFL will call him a delisted free agent and give us nothing. The fact the AFLPA has come out and said all 12 are delisted free agents next year is a disgrace, as it is a green flag for our opponents to open up the chequebooks and get a bargain.
I don’t think they’ve said this. Apart from the article in the Hooker thread I’ve seen nothing. That article only said “there remains open the possibility”.
As I said in the Hooker thread, if the club doesn’t stand in their way, hopefully a trade is a more likely than a player invoking this clause.
If Hooker gets poached on $750k a year then AFL will have no choice but to give us pick 1.
The AFL will call him a delisted free agent and give us nothing. The fact the AFLPA has come out and said all 12 are delisted free agents next year is a disgrace, as it is a green flag for our opponents to open up the chequebooks and get a bargain.
If the AFL do this we simply sue. Can’t be penalised twice, they’ve already applied penalties. That said, I have no issue with them being treated as normal FAs. Given what has happened.
We’ve been pretty dreadful at even making threats let alone following them through. Besides, they’ll just say that the contract voiding thing was always part of the original punishment.
If Hooker gets poached on $750k a year then AFL will have no choice but to give us pick 1.
The AFL will call him a delisted free agent and give us nothing. The fact the AFLPA has come out and said all 12 are delisted free agents next year is a disgrace, as it is a green flag for our opponents to open up the chequebooks and get a bargain.
If the AFL do this we simply sue. Can’t be penalised twice, they’ve already applied penalties. That said, I have no issue with them being treated as normal FAs. Given what has happened.