Where’s @jackie_mihocek at these days?
I wonder is Mozzie doing yr 12 early commencement. And if so where.
First sentence valid point.
Second sentence a tad creepy.
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Thanks Deckham, another great report. Here is what I noticed from today:
Training today in pleasant conditions, even the normal Tullamarine wind wasn’t too bad.
Quite a large group didn’t join in with the full group again today. In the modified was:
Parish, Daniher, Begley, Ambrose, McKenna, and McNiece.
Bellchambers, Smith, Gleeson, Baguley, Redman, Brown, and Lavender didn’t train but were in attendance. Hurley we think had something significant happen in his personal life, he was getting hugs and pats on the back from the group and had a very light session. Mosquito was again absent, maybe finishing his school work.
Fantasia completed a lot of the session with the main group just using the one hand which he managed well in typical Fanta fashion.
After the discussion around Jok in the last couple of days I spent some time watching him again today. On the link to the Collingwood BF discussion about Jok (where nearly everyone said they should draft him as either a rookie or earlier in the main draft) posted a couple of days ago there were a few people saying one of the knocks on him was his kicking was erratic.
Again I couldn’t see any evidence of that. Out of 30 or 40 kicks I saw only 2 weren’t pretty well perfect, and those 2 were just out in front where the player could run onto them. He has a very nice technique and and also a good trajectory neither too high or low.
In the handball drills he also acquitted himself well with only the odd fumble, although he could do some more work on the speed of his decision making and execution, which will no doubt be worked on over the pre season.
After most of the main group had finished he had a one on one drill for about 15-20 minutes with one of the trainers marking solidly kicked balls from about 5 metres away, and then collecting ground balls while riding a bump. During this he was given quite a bit of instruction on the correct body positioning to ride the bump.
For the rest of the main group the length of the ground used during drills seems to have been gradually increasing, and today they used the full length the ground for the first time I have seen this pre season.
I know it’s been mentioned by myself and others before but I think it bears repeating that the overall skills of the group seem much higher than in previous years at a similar stage. I have heard that they were asked to do about an additional 15% of work in the off season and maybe that has lead to less fatigue related mistakes, but nearly all the kicking marking and handballing has been spot on and placed to the players advantage rather than having to stop and wait or go behind them.
A couple of things to finish on regarding Francis. In the full ground length drill he was confronted by a defender running at him who was close enough to smother his kick and no option to handball. he choose to kick a perfect pass of about 30 metres off his right foot to a teammate at about a 60 degree angle on his right hand side, it’s just freakish some of the things he call pull off.
I meant to mention previously in another training session there was drill where a player was handballed the ball and was then immediately gang tackled and had to try and get the a handball off, which most struggled to do. In this particular instance Francis had 3 players all over him (think of the photo from earlier in the year of Francis shrugging off Hooker except there were 3 players). Francis shrugged off all 3 while keeping his feet and delivering a handball while the other players fell to the ground. As you can tell I’m trying to push my way to the front of the very fast growing Francis bandwagon.
The session ended a little earlier than other around 11.45. It appears they are putting a lot of thought into managing the loads of both the group in general and individual players, hence the number of players not training on different days.
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???
You mean as in stalker creepy?
I was assuming he would come to Melbourne rather than finishing his schooling in Gippsland, and whether we had him started at a new school already locally.
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Jok bandwagon back on track. Phew.
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My mum’s always telling me not to leave my Joks on the floor.
Which is weird considering I moved out 11 years ago.
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Great report - any sense on redman?
Presumably in a moon boot but I do hope that his continued attendance means surgery has been avoided - although they could just be waiting on a specialist opinion.
He was with me at training I think it was Monday of last week. I don’t think he comes to as many sessions as he used to, but is still very knowledgeable and up to date with what’s going on, just not doing the training reports for the time being.
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There are reports that Franga was seen jogging laps of the lap pool today… on top of the water.
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Jumping on the Francis banwagon.
Will have to move his magnet from Back pocket/third tall into the centreman position
He might be the next player to play the James Hird/Mathew Pavlich role - But he is also a better intercept mark,
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Yes he was in a moonboot, @Karmabomber was with us today and went off to take some snaps of him, hopefully they will be posted later on. He looks very upbeat with a smile on his face, I’m guessing the prognosis is good (fingers crossed). He seems to be a very popular player in the group
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That’s correct.
He was also dragging a fishing rod behind him with which he caught a couple of fish and fed over 5000 people
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Caught up in the #metoo movement, presumably.
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I did read he broke his ankle somewhere.
This was the drill that he did the one on one work on at the end of training. He seems like a nice kid and very keen to correct his weaknesses
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Has Smith trained this pre-season? If he has, he seems to be missing a fair chunk of the sessions. Any idea what is up?
Francis’s handballing has always been Jobe-like, and that isn’t an exaggeration. He just has the timing and the ability to hit teammates through a crowd, it help being big enough to shrug off 3 or 4 tacklers
I haven’t seen him, I don’t think.
Not that I have seen. He was out there again today feeding balls to players in drills but not joining in. I’ve been told he has just been given an extended break but who knows.