OK, if you’re a Port player who knows this is a good place to spy, please stop reading now.
Thanks.
Training started in perfect conditions and ended at “feels like 13º”, which is way too cold if wearing a dress shirt.
First off, the bad news: no Perkins, and she is one of several AFLW players who hasn’t made the perfect transition from end of AFLW season thru VFLW pre-season. The good news is another of those, Bailey Hunt, was present and running at good speed (albeit in sneakers). Huggard continues to play that same role, and yes, she is bored doing that already (one step forward, one step back). Bernadi still on the boundary and occasionally semi-coaching. If we can add all three later it will be very significant to our season.
There was a decent chunk of AFLW players involved tonight, and some (not all) should play on Saturday.
They included:
- Steph Wales
- Mia van Dyke
- Lily-Rose Williamson
- Ash van Loon
- Mia Busch
- and all three of our late 2023 draftees: Emily Gough, Amy Gaylor, and Chloe Adams.
Paige Scott was on the sidelines doing skills work with Nat Wood.
Toogood, Cain, and Bannister doing laps. Daria got a lot of volume in. Toogood and Cain went to the main oval later with Wood.
Unfortunately, early in training vanDyke injured her left ankle. Swelled up quick, and no further part by her tonight.
Looks like we will have the luxury of Wales in the ruck on Saturday, pairing with Krystal Russell. Kalani Scoullar was absent tonight, and Morrow 100% played the role of defender.
Tonight’s other standout from our AFLW list was our 2023 first draft pick of Emily Gough. She was arguably THE dominant mid during gameplay (Chaston the other standout). Danced or busted through congestion a few times. Set shot goal from forty out to finish the gameplay. She and Gallagher are perhaps a centimetre shorter than Russell (who is nominally listed as 180cm).
In the absence of Perkins we had Maddi Ford back in full training, and it looks like she will be our BIG forward. Good leading patterns versus Morrow, and laid a smart shepherd at one point to create an easy score for her side.
Some other positional placements that may not be completely obvious:
- Backs: Molan, Hart-Aluni, Prpic, Morrow, Murdoch, MadGray
- Mids: Chaston, Melnikas, Davidge, LilyRose
- Forwards: MFord
I’d take Hart-Aluni’s role as back pocket on Jordan (she towered over Ava!) with a pinch of salt as it looked like the Hangar end of the ground got most of the players who will be named for us, and despite playing decently I’d say Tayla may be outside the 21 this first round.
Davidge looked to be going a bit faster than most out there; she’s not going to concede a role in the team/midfield without a fight.
Training was pretty to the point tonight. It started with three rotating groups doing:
- mass keepings-off via handball
- keepings-off via kicking across a relatively small square (this drill has been documented previously)
- 2-on-2 contested ground ball collection
Followed by four groups near the corners of the centre square doing continuous and overlapping (MULTI-BALL) leading and passing… and eventually gameplay.
Limited or no involvement:
- Shaw (skills only) and McNeice (not seen) is a huge hit to our defence and chances in this game
- den Houting also limited skills session – her and Shaw told “no running!”
- Huta did almost all of main training, but was yellow-hatted and was not in the gameplay
- Bernardi very little activity on the sidelines.
- Scoullar, Perkins, Tassiopoulos, Bateman and Porter not present.
My brain is currently registering no answer on Dani and sFord. I think they were present, but feel free to panic.
I’m not in a position to tell you if we have it “right”, but there has always been extremely specific instructions to those on the sidelines (this much running, etc).
That’s a long list of players on the sidelines, but with the addition of the AFLW players we still had enough available to start gameplay with a full 16-on-16.
