Training Report: Wednesday March 4

[Neil Appleby]

It was a perfect morning for training; partly cloudy and still. Hoddle Street was tragic so we arrived late at 10am.

Not Training:
Lachie Keeffe, Ben Kennedy, *Levi Greenwood, Michael Manteit

Modified Training:
Brent Macaffer walked/jogged laps
Darcy Moore ran a few laps and then went inside.
Jesse White & Brodie Grundy were spectators.
Clinton Young appeared but did very little before returning back inside.

Today’s session was perhaps the most interesting of the year. There were lots of new drills and lots to like in seeing almost a full list happy and fit. Tim Broomhead didn’t stop smiling, so happy was he to see teammates Ben Reid, Paul Seedsman and Jono Marsh finally get back into full training.

Player Watch: Ben Reid
Fantastic to see Ben training without restriction. He trained the house down and joined in match practice. Ben played a key back role tailing Travis Cloke. Looked in fantastic nick.

Player Watch: Jono Marsh
For the first time in 6 months, Jon did a full training regime. He too played as a defender. Standing almost as tall as Frost, Marsh will be a key addition to our backline depth in my opinion.

Player Watch: Paul Seedsman
Again, played as a defender and did every drill. Was not hampered at all by his recent hip surgery.

The Drills:
Most of the drills were new.
1. Small group tackling drill – supervised by Bucks
Ball rolled towards player who picks up the ball and is tackled and swung forcefully onto a padded mat.
2. Small group nearby also training for tackling. Ball rolled towards player who picks up ball and tries to dodge player running toward him.
3. Simultaneously, the main group does a new running/kicking drill. Players running side by side, handball and then kick long to leading forward.

Match Practice:
Match-ups at various times were:
Cloke /Reid Seedsman/Dwyer Frost/Maynard Broomy/Ramsay Oxley/Goldy Blair/Williams Cox/Witts
Freeman/Sidey Brown/Maynard Marsh/Oxley
Goodyear/ Abbott Sharenberg/Crisp Broomy/Sidebottom
Elliott/Swan Thomas/Ramsay Gault/Marsh Seedsman/Swanny Thomas/Freeman

It was a quite short match practice actually, only lasting about 10 minutes. Then Bucks called all players and coaches into the middle for quite a long time explaining the next new drill.

4. This is a centre clearance drill. Two ruckmen (one being Anthony Rocca wearing heavy padding) and the other being either Witts or Cox endeavours to tap the ball to the running small. The ball is then quickly cleared to a leading forward.

Pairs of players at the Hisense end wait behind the goal line as a forward and defender go at the incoming ball. A few match ups here:
Cloke/Brown – Brown does OK in this match up
Goldy/Marsh – Marsh stays with Goldy preventing clean marks
Karnezis/Toovey
Witts/Frost - Wiitsy a bit off with his ball handling. Fumbled a lot.
Gault/Reid - Gault takes a very nice mark against Frost

A couple of really nice marks taken by forwards today; the first was a pack mark by Fasolo and the second was a beauty by Corey Gault.

5. Now all defenders are taken down to the river end by coach Ben Hart. This drill sees a coach acting as the designated kick-in player, kicking to the fowrad flank (30-40 metres) to a leading defender. The player is being encouraged to fly over the back of Ben Hart (who wears padding) to take the mark. Marley Williams seems to particularly enjoy this drill.
Players taking part: Reid, Frost, Toovey, Williams, Marsh, Ramsay, Armstrong, Maynard, Brown. This drill lasts for 15-20 minutes.

6. Now we have a centre clearance drill supervised by Matt Rendell & Rocca. Witts V Rocca and Cox V Rocca. Ruckman tries to tap to his teammates. Pendles calls the centre players into a huddle to discuss positioning and who is to be the designated receiver of the tap. Now Corey Gault gets a gig as the ruckman.
Bucks and Harvey stand on the sidelines watching this lengthy drill. Matt Rendell takes Cox aside to explain where to stand for the centre bounce. Bucks also comes in to chat with Cox.
*Grundy and White stroll over from the boundary to watch this ruck-work drill.

Summary:
Anybody watching the Pies train this morning would have noticed the emphasis, in just about every drill, on running and kicking. Swift ball movement was the order from Bucks & Harvey and almost every drill reflected this. Also evident was the emphasis on long kicking to a one on one forward.

It was terrific to see Reid back training strongly and to watch Jono Marsh getting stuck into his role as a medium defender.
I can’t help being impressed when I see Marsh fit and firing. He’s fast, agile and doesn’t take a backward step.

Plenty of supporters present this morning so lets hope we get another perspective posted here as well.

[gurugeoff]

thanks Neil, any comments on Freeman today? Didn't think he showed as much as some other newbies the other night.

[Jezza]

Thanks for the training report Neil! It's thoroughly appreciated.

Love hearing that Reid and Marsh trained really well especially after the recent injury setbacks they've endured.

I have two questions about today's session regarding some of our players. Firstly I'm still a little concerned by Clinton Young's fitness so I'm wondering what's going on with him exactly as it doesn't seem like he's trained that much lately and secondly how did Swanny and Cloke train today?

[3rd degree]

Thanks Neil, good to hear Chopper is on the park, along with seedsman. Was it true that Medhurst might come down as a part time goal kicking coach?

[mattys123]

The Ben Reid part made me giddy.

Thanks Neil.

[Dave The Man]

[stui magpie]

Great report as usual.

Thanks again

Question, with the focus on quick legs and long kicking to a target, what was the accuracy rate like? Were the forwards leading and watching the ball go everywhere except where they wanted it or have we learned (or started to learn) to actually kick to the advantage of the leading forward?

[TimetoFly]

I would think White/Grundy/Kennedy would have all had the day off.

Moore is a concern

[Neil Appleby]

[Neil Appleby]

[Neil Appleby]

[Dave The Man]

[Neil Appleby]

Just realised Levi Greenwood was absent today.

[simon tonna]

thanks Neil.

has anybody else who was there got more to add
on those Neil didn't mention? it would be greatly appreciated
to hear what others think.

Don't get me wrong Neil, i think the general consensus is
your training reports are brilliant but its also brilliant when
someone else chimes in to give there 2 bobs worth.

cheers

[TimetoFly]

out of the players not training who do you think might have injuries?

We know about Macaffer Young Moore & Keeffee

So I guess we are hoping that Grundy White Kennedy Greenwood are just being managed