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Great to catch up again with @CJohns, @MattPocock18, and @SofStar99 and thanks for the reports already submitted. My take on today:
Firstly it was the first real warm day of the pre season with the temperature close to 30 by the time they were winding down around 11.30 with a fairly strong Northerly breeze.
Training out on the track today were:
McGrath, Parish, Langford, Smith, Merrett, Caldwell, Francis, Cutler, Ridley, Wright, Jones, Bryan, Cahill, Ambrose, Zerk, Ham, Johnson, Clarke, Hind, Hird, Cox, Perkins, Brand and Eyre. Again no sign of Redman so far this pre season, but I think very other 1-4 year player has been there at least once.
On the sidelines or doing some work in the Hanger were also Reid and Draper.
The modified group was again small with only Smith, Johnson and Hird, while the new draftees in Cox, Perkins, Brand and Eyre had a light run with some easy kicking and handball drills. As stated by I think @benfti previously Johnson had a small setback recently but should be joining the main group in the next few weeks, and they expect him to be ready for round 1 without the usual slow progression from a knee.
Of the new draftees Cox as widely reported looks a great athlete and kicked off either foot equally well. He has an unusual kicking style where he often stabs it across his body in a similar fashion to Suckling, although not to the same exagerated extent. He looks a little light on but with his skills and athletic ability I expect him to get a chance fairly early in the season.
Perkins was only out there for a short while but looked like you would expect from a high draft pick, moving very smoothly across the ground with a nice kicking technique and handles the ball well.
Nothing really stood out for me too much with Brand, I’ll follow his progress with interest during the pre season.
The one I really like the look of though was Eyre. He already looks to have a good body shape and just moves beautifully, with an apparent effortlessness with everything he does, whether kicking, marking, o handballing or running. It’s hard to describe but he just looks like a real athlete and coordinated in everything he does.
I had a bit of a chat with @cjohns about him, who as many of you would know he recently interviewed on his podcast, and he’s also very confident about his own abilities and what he cab achieve, which is very important for a first year player. I’m hoping we’ve come away here with the steal of the draft.
I wasn’t as impressed as others with Francis’s running, he constantly fell away to the rear of the pack very quickly, but as it’s still very early in the pre season I’ll hold off judgments until they have more work in them.
While the group running was mostly midfielders, one player not a midfielder was Wright, who was looking very comfortable towards the front of the pack, and as I’ve noted before looks to be in fantastic shape. He had an extended period at the end of the session with Ambrose and Dan Jordan working on body positioning and contested marking, they were still going when I left a good 10 minutes after everyone else had left the track.
The ball movement today incorporated long kicking for the first time, and I’m happy to report that there were several comments amongst our group about the quality of the disposals considering the difficult wind. Caldwell looked impressive on several occassions, firstly with some really good work in close but I was also impressed with some of his work on the outside running hard to create good options, and he’s another of the new recruits that looks to have very good disposal.
Overall I think we were all happy with what we were able to take away from today’s session with some promising signs from both new and existing players.
For those wanting to come down I’m guessing the next main session will again be on Thursday, but I don’t know for sure. They also had a light session for about 90 minutes on Saturday apparently so will possibly have another next Saturday as well before the Christmas break.
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But where is the fun in that?
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Never been a better run-up in the history of cricket.
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The Joe Daniher Memorial goalposts.
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Permanently fixed to the sidelines…just like Joe
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Redman isn’t a 1-4 year player @nackers so this might not be a problem. Maybe he’s still home in SA and hopefully working hard over there
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Cheers Nackers
Eyre is going to be gun
And 2 Metre moneghetti might just surprise next year
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You’re right, I just checked he’d been here 5 years not 4 so not compulsory.
Frances and Parish from the same draft have been at every session though.
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Just like Kobe Mutch.
Yes I don’t want to be going too crazy without even seeing him in contested situations, but wow, he certainly moves well and tested almost identically to Ugle-Hagan.
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just so we’re clear, you’re saying he’s going to win the coleman in 2021 right?
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Absolutely. I could imagine one or the other playing a tall half forward / linking role similar to what Van der Haar used to do.
If all these recruits are good enough they’ll find a spot somewhere.
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Not nessesarily. If they put him on a wing for example it’s more likely to be a Brownlow.
But then again Gary Ablett senior kicked 14 goals from a wing so maybe it could be both!
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Had an Instagram post this morning that was from Millicent, his hometown…although the photo reminded me more of Mount Gambier…not far away in the scheme of things.
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Seeing vision from other clubs’ training sessions on Friday you’d think that our draftees would be into it by now.
Maybe they aren’t expected to have an impact early in the season (partly because the draft was so late this year that there’s little chance of them being ready for round 1 and they’re all development players except Perkins) so they are just going to ease them into it.
There has only been 2 sessions so far though yeah?
Im sure he’ll be over soon.
The club might have given Redman an extended break at home after a tough season.
He seems self-driven enough to keep up his fitness program away from the club.
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