…this is really getting corny now…
7 Likes
Don’t concentrate only on the spelling.
There’s a grain of truth in what he says and that is most important.
10 Likes
Take the puns to the publican
Sorghum.
barley any truth to this report
In the past 2 days?
FFS
I’ve been doing a spot of thinking recently. Only a spot. That’s all I have in me, these days. One of the topics I was cogitating on was, somewhat remarkably, some mysterious and , frankly, absurd mechanics. Of the Quantum kind. It gave me a headache. It’ll likely give you one , too, should I ever try to work Higgs Bosun and superpositioning into a training report.
The other was a dabbling into history. It’s not widely known, but when 17 year old Marco Polo closed the front door of his Aunt’s villa in 1271, he called out “sto andando a prendere il latte, zia. non ci metterò molto” (I’m heading out for milk, Auntie. Shan’t be long). The reason it’s not widely known is mostly due to the purchasing of a license de poétique. If you think that’s somewhat unfair, consider this. Polo’s famous book of his travels was actually written by a romance author with a penchant for colourful embellishment. Either way, young Marco’s alleged utterance was something of an understatement. He was gone for 24 years and Auntie endured a very cold tea.
It called to ( a usually befuddled) mind another historical episode. This one , happily, a more accurately documented event. Alas, less happy in outcome. On the 17th of March, 1912, somewhere on the Ross Ice Shelf, a heavily frostbitten and gangrenous Lawrence Edward Oates exited the tent of the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition and vanished to a knowing death in a blizzard. According to Sir Robert Falcon Scott - he of “the Antarctic” fame- Oates final words were “I’m just going outside, and may be some time”. Scott himself perished a week later , but left his diary and letters for posterity. Oates’ farewell entered the popular consciousness as not only an astonishing act of self sacrifice, but his words became legendary for their sheer understatement. Here endeth todays history talk.
So what in god’s name, I hear you all cry, does any of this rubbish have to do with a football training session in Melbourne? Probably not a lot, in truth. And yet, having now seen three training sessions, two links jumped into my undoubtedly addled brain.
Let’s start with the first. Understatement. In each of three training runs, my overiding impression has been of quiet learning and measured understatement. In both word and action. Training remains, in a sense , piecemeal. There are drills held all over the ground in small groups. Some groups do multiple drills, some seemed to concentrate more on their own area’s of the ground. Everything is crafted for a purpose , but as yet the totality of threads haven’t been drawn together.
The mood is upbeat, but also muted. Anyone that requires encouragement finds it, but there are no overt shows of histrionics. It feels unrequired. Groups spilt off to run laps , a fitness guru gives them the cadence and resting times, but the players often attend to their own enforcement of them.
Mick Hurley was on track, with the modified group. He received a warm handshake and big smile from a trainer, but again it was all low key and without fanfare.
The trialling players all seemed at ease, apparently comfortable in the expectations of them, and i could detect no obvious interference within the drills. Someone seems to have brought them up to speed quickly. Paradoxically, I must confess to not being completely up to speed on who is who. And despite assumption being the mother of all failures, I’m going to make a few. We ran some forward drills that initially seemed to be about setting up the play for the third man up. One “forward” would engage with a “defender”, the kick would be guided towards these two but the intent was for a third player to come from the side ala Royce Hart for the mark. Wright, Baldwin, Eyre spent quite some time in this endeavour, a few others such as Stringer and Francis came and went. The delivery into these players wasn’t always ideal, but there was a strong breeze blowing from the south east and intermittent rain squalls. Oates would rightly have scorned it, but one could be forgiven for questioning the date. As indeed did Draper, who asked me that very thing as he pounded into the rain and the temperature plummeted. Christmas in July, perhaps.
The nature of the forward drill then changed. Enter the Daveys. And Hirds. At least, i assume it was the Davey boys. No longer were the forwards to mark, instead the ball was to come to ground and the smalls get to work. “Capped” Davey seemed particularly adept at getting the crumb and finding a way in to goal. There’s an element of “dancing with your sister” in all of these drills at this time time of year, so let’s not read too much into low pressure situations , but clean gathers and good skills never go astray.
But whilst we talk about the pressure levels of a training session, let’s make a quick diversion. Zerrett isn’t terribly loud, but he certainly has his say. He demanded that attempts to tackle and pressure weren’t just tokenistic. “Get up on him! Take him down! That’s better!” In his view, if you’re meant to smother, then damn well try to smother. He seems to have a kindred spirit in Hobbs. It’s noticeable that Ben actually wants to make contact. Even after the ball had gone, he’d make sure he got in a little bump. Even on Zerrett, if my memory is correct. The other thing about Ben that you notice with the camera is how quickly he can get rid of the ball by hand in traffic. In a keepings off drill, he received and dished off the ball with alacrity. He also kicked a nice left foot snap goal into the breeze. In keeping with the understatement theme, let us simply note that he seems promising, and move on. For now.
Where were we? Ahh yes. More heavy instruction from Rance this week. He ran a drill that didn’t involve any football use at all, designed simply to view the positioning of forward and defender as they worked up towards the 50 line and back. The defender had to know when to take ground and zone off, and when to close up. Again, it was methodical and instructional, if not glamorous.
Those bemoaning the lack of leading on Monday would have drawn comfort today from… leading. A ground ball simulation at half forward to a player ( with a matching player who was meant to pressure, see Merretts demands ) who was then aiming to hit the leading forward. Zerrett is elite here, even into a difficult breeze. Perkins also had moments that verged on sublime. A deliberate manipulation off the side of the foot hit a leading target 30 meters away with perfection in weighting. Watch Archie closely. He fits the understated tag perfectly this year. Looks to have fined down a bit, fitness looks up and the thing I took from his debut year was an ability to make the clever look mundane. He’s notionally flashy, in an entirely unflashy way.
Jonesy is still largely doing just running drills. There’s a quiet confidence and assuredness to his whole demeanor. Once again, he was accompanied by Lord. They also did a leading/kicking session together on the 2nd oval. Alastair hasn’t done a lot of work with the footy in the two sessions I’ve seen him, but what he has done has looked pretty decent. His running power looks very very good too, smashing out the laps and still able to continue on. Reid is on managed minutes. He asked something of the fitness team, was told “you’ve hit them mate” and headed for the rooms. Jones seems to have progressed to footy boots, at least in part, I think Reid is still in runners.
Tex Wanganeen was an interesting watch. He clearly doesn’t have the fitness levels of some of the other kids, but he does have a sense of poise and a certain innate balance. Voss seemed to spend some time with what I’d loosely term “the midfield group” .
Parish is slowly upping his training loads, mixing laps and run throughs with drills. He gives every indication of confidence that all is well and going to plan.
Wright seemed to be explaining some finer items to the young forwards at times, likewise Shiel with some mids. None of it theatrical, just low key and matter of fact.
Tippa continues to work, drills and running. Lots of running. He sees most happy with ball in hand. Any break, he’s looking for a footy to have a shot. Ran laps with a group of half a dozen. Darcy offered encouragement. Hold that form, Tip. Spent time one-on-one with fitness staff. Practiced running snaps.
For the rest, they all just went about their business. We had a bit of match play, but like previous sessions it all begins at half back and is purely designed to compress the ground / find a way through. You could assume that somewhere, at some time, we are working diligently on centre square setups and ruckwork, but in public it remains unseen. Like last year, what we get to see at these training runs is an intent to defend and stifle ball movement, just like every side. What we won’t see until well after Christmas , imo, is the totality of the planning or anything fancy. It all revolves around the basics, getting better at the small things in the moment, and seeing what they all add up to in sum. It’s impressive in it’s consistency, it’s routine, it’s unity. If it feels like I’m repeating from last time, it’s likely because I am. Dare we say, in it’s very understatement ?
Which brings us in an entirely circuitous route back around to the second point. I hadn’t forgotten. Which is altogether shorter than the first. Ronald Fejo Jnr. This kid is not fit. He might be SANFL 2nds fit, but it’s obvious that he has a bit to do. But he can play. Off both feet, the kicking looks assured. Drilled a few goals. The mid-ball-drop-baulk and fake was silk. But what really caught the eye was a passage in the full ground “match play”. Someone emerged at speed from a contested ball. Ronald. An evade and handball to Zerrett. Zerrett scoots upfield with a bounce, looks inside for the handpass. Somehow, the receiver is Ronald. Who then plants an inside 50 pass onto someones chest. No idea who. It didn’t matter. This kid has some wheels, and got to where he had to be to be involved again.
Not seeing the link as yet? Still opaque? Fair enough. Simply put, he has some work to do. No question. There are no guarantee’s, far from it. But I’d be curious to know what he said to his Mum on his way out the door. Because there’s a chance that he, too, may be gone a while.
Thanks for reading.
224 Likes
Gym is next to the cafeteria.
2 Likes
I certainly wouldn’t have spelt it like that.
1 Like
Wow,
Exhausting.
But worth it.
4 Likes
Every day I would take a bloke oozing class, agility and an innate sense of how to move through traffic, but needs to work on his fitness over literally any other short comings you will see of someone available as an SSP.
And twice on Sunday.
17 Likes
Settle down. Just asking a question
1 Like
The only thing I understood when reading the first 3 paragraphs was “sto andando a prendere il latte, zia. non ci metterò molto”.
7 Likes
Thanks for the report. Really pleasing to hear they are doing a lot of work when the ball goes into the forward line
Sal really knows his audience, released a picture book
23 Likes
thats Hurley…lol
32 Likes
Ah.
That makes it less funny.
4 Likes
Not gonna lie, read the Fejo bit like 4 times 
36 Likes