I assume Jackie’s enjoying lunch, or…well, I’ll leave it up to your imagination, so I’ll kick things off with a very brief report.
Training in good spirits with a very vocal coach in cool and overcast conditions with virtually no breeze.
When I arrived the boys were on the other oval doing drills which I didn’t pay a lot of attention to. Carlisle was practicing set shot goal-kicking.
They came back to the main oval and worked on forward entries. Only fourteen players by my count, so I assume a bit more was going on inside.
Interesting that Hams was out there among them. I will sheepishly confess to taking a long time to recognise him.
The forward entries drill, to an outsiders eyes, seemed based on using numbers to get clean possession by hand in the midfield, going sideways or backwards if necessary, but once the midfield player got clear to deliver directly into the 50.
Long, short, centre, wide, just hit the leading player clean, get the mark and do it fast.
The midfielders seemed to get their heads around this pretty quickly.
The forward players did okay, I thought, but Jimmy was constantly calling out to them. ‘Jake/Joe/etc. they’re looking for You!’
And from 40-45, ‘Easy goal! Take the shot!’
Joe did get reamed for missing a leading target.
‘■■■■ kick, Joe. That’s a turnover. They’ve just kicked a goal.’
And everyone had it hammered into them that the last kick had to be on target.
Then there was some boxing and off.
Don’t ask me who wasn’t there because I won’t know.
I can tell you I didn’t see Jobe, Goddard or Chappy.
That’s all I can be sure of.
Overall I thought it was encouraging. Vocal and a few laughs, but still all business.
