Training Wednesday 3/8/16

Training at Tullamarine in showery, cool conditions.

A moderately light skills session aimed at improving field and goal kicking.

As a new initiative (at least two my eyes) three shilouette man on the mark dummies were set up and players tried to hit them with a kick from about twenty metres straight in front. I didn’t take stats but the strike rate was about one in five with many near misses that would be good enough as a pass in a game. A common fault was kicking the ball too high over the dummy’s head and I lamented the loss of the stab kick of the 40’s and 50’s which would have been interesting to see. Would putting Caroline Wilson’s face on the dummies have produced more hits? Maybe.

A second drill involved a group of players passing the ball around within a confined space kicking only with no handballs. This drill was noisy and well received by the players as was a third drill which went as follows: players formed three lines the length of the ground designated with white, blue or orange colours. The object was to race the ball up and back with a short kick to a player who hand balled to the player next to him the kick and handball pattern being relayed up and down the line.

It is good to see an emphasis being placed on passing skills which I think we would all agree needs to be improved to reduce turnovers.

joe Daniher goal kicking practice.

You will be pleased to learn that Joe is putting in a big effort to improve this area of his game. He took at least forty shots at goal and the end of training continuing on in the rain after the other players had left the field. Nobody was there watching his technique and coaching him which to my mind is a failure of the club’s training set up. The club could do a lot worse than make Terry Daniher an assistant forward coach or indeed the forward coach per se. Joe practised from straight in front fifty out and moved across to the pocket and also took some shots from closer in. I measured his success ratio at 50 per cent which is obviously a problem in a non pressure training situation. It seemed to me that he achieved the best results when he got well over the ball when kicking a kept his ball drop hand steady without moving it across his body at the last moment. Treat my observations as inexpert. Pat on the back to Joe for effort and he will improve.

Michael Hurley
I attended the coach’s press conference today and as always I was impressed with his calmness, openness and professionalism. Bomber’s conferences were more entertaining but having this man as our coach is one of the most positive things that has happened to this club. When asked about Hurley’s intentions he said “I’m really confident he will be playing for Essendon.” Now of course you can argue what do you expect him to say but I would argue he could have been much less definitive in his answer if he wanted and my observation is that he is extremely open with the press and the supporters and is a straight shooter. I’m going to take his answer as a real positive.

Adam Cooney.
The coach pointed to a unique list management situation this year and answered the question about Cooney this way: “Does he believe he is physically and mentally capable of playing another year?” Make of this what you will but it sounds a little bit as though he is leaving the decision up to Cooney as the basis for contract discussions.

It’s been a tough year but take heart that we have some great young players and a steady hand at the helm.

Round 20 seems about the right time to start skills practice.

Pretty happy with both those responses re press conference, for mine Coons has been servicable at worst and could still offer plenty as a depth/role player next year if he and the club decide to extend his contract another year

Every year a team finishes last in the competition. now we at Essendon know what it like.
Thanks Jackie for having the dedication to be giving these reports at this time of the year. Well done.

Thanks JM. As always, great to see these and get your view on it :slight_smile:

Yep, cooneys getting another year. Fk me

Yep, cooneys getting another year. Fk me

He will Retire.

Yep, cooneys getting another year. Fk me
It's the spongey floor.

Thanks Jackie- great read as always

Thanks mate.

Good to hear RE Joe, but as Shaw said, he does need a full day a week at this point, not just the end of training. All too late for this year tho regardless.

■■■■■■ hell I love Woosha, watching that presser he just looks in complete control and is loving being at the club. So much respect for the great man, hope he is with us for a decade and leads us back up where we belong on the ladder!

Yep, cooneys getting another year. Fk me

Gee wob, you must be doing it tough lately. You always sound like you’re about to pop any minute.

Well done, JM, thank you very much. Your reports are a boon to supporters like me who can’t ever get to training. (And to be honest, probably would be too lazy to if we could.)

I can’t understand why the club doesn’t have a specialist kicking coach. It’s a fundamental skill of the game, and we have a lot of players who are pretty bad at it.

What you said about JD’s goalkicking sounds exactly right. Time and again you see a player line up for goal, run straight in, and then for some unknown reason, on the last step – the kicking step – swivel quite sharply to th right or left. And of course that is where the ball goes. JD often does it, but many of them do. Jobe Watson used to do it in the days when he couldn’t kick a goal to save his life, but then Lloyd (I think) took him in hand and taught him how to stay straight. When he got his confidence back he adopted his current technique of skipping a couple of times and coming in on an arc, but when he takes the final step and kicks, his body is facing the goal and he kicks straight through.

A lot of it is confidence, but the way you get confidence is by practising the correct technique, and kicking goals, constantly in training. Then you have something you can rely on in a match.

Don’t mind that Joey is out there sorting things out for himself…probably heard every bit of advice there is & now just has to work it out without constant ‘coaching’ in his ear.

Absurd that they just leave Joe to his own devices to practice. His accuracy on match day is about 50%, so why should we expect any different when he just takes pot shots.

He doesn’t actually know why he’s missing, otherwise he wouldn’t miss. He NEEDS someone to watch and advise him.

On Cooney: You can look at it the other way. It could be a set up for an honourable “his body just isn’t letting him go on another year” retiring as opposed to a “Cooney delisted after disappointing stint at Dons.” The discussion might have already been had.

C’mon people. There has been 300 views and only 15 have given JM a like.

Make an effort.

Thanks Jackie. Appreciated.

On Cooney: You can look at it the other way. It could be a set up for an honourable "his body just isn't letting him go on another year" retiring as opposed to a "Cooney delisted after disappointing stint at Dons." The discussion might have already been had.

That’s how I read it.

Absurd that they just leave Joe to his own devices to practice. His accuracy on match day is about 50%, so why should we expect any different when he just takes pot shots.

He doesn’t actually know why he’s missing, otherwise he wouldn’t miss. He NEEDS someone to watch and advise him.

But, it was raining!

Thanks for the report again Jackie!
Appreciate the amazing amount of time and effort you put in to these reports.