Training today was at a hot
Victoria Park. The session went for around 2 1/2 hours with regular drinks breaks.
The whole squad, minus Cotchin, were present. Rance and Kingy only did the warm up from what I saw and Putt spent some time with Monkhurst. Rawlings thanked Rance afterwards for his encouraging words and talk while Kingy was offering advice to our defenders in particular Schulz. It was good to see Meyer train fully. Hopefully a sign he's getting over his hip injury.
After warming up with a run and in close handball drill, the squad spread out into small groups of 3-4 for the first drill which was to work on moving the ball quicky with runners receiving handball from markers. Basically a kick in from one goalsquare to HB then dish off and kick to the centre then dish off and kick inside 50 then dish off and kick a goal at the other end. They had two footys going at once end to end. Still the one too many missed targets but at least they were working on handball receives which they didn't do on Friday night.
Next up was 1-on-1 match-ups from the HB line. Inside forward 50 they had Schulz on Hughes, Thursty on Richo (where Thursty copped a cut to his leg towards the end of the drill and went off), Tucky on Lids. Moore was on either Browny or Petts. Moore was again the best defender following on from Friday night. Richo the best forward. The big fella held onto a ripper of a mark at full pace on the lead. He was holding onto everything that Thursty couldn't get a fist to. Unusual seeing Richo taking marks with his arms out away from his body (like they should be). They rotated players a few times so I can't remember all the match-ups. Rawlings was instructing near the goals while Wallace was barking instructions from the wing. One time both Polak and I think Petts or Collard both led out of the square leaving the goalsquare vacant which forced the inside 50 kick wide to Polak (which was too long btw). Plough told Rawlings that he wanted someone to run back to the goalsquare so the ball stayed in the corridor.
The last drill was an inside 50 kick one. They had a 3-on-3 contest on the HBF where the attacking teammate had to handball their way out of it (sometimes it looked a lot like Friday night
but without the turnovers) and then pass to someone just outside 50. They then had to pass to a leading forward who needed to kick the goal otherwise everyone bar the kicker had to run a lap. Morton, Richo and Lids nailed their shots but Gourdis just missed his.
Training was then finished off with about 5 or 6 ~200m goal to goal runs and then another lap of Vic Park before warming down. Edwards fetched some ice to place on his quad. Rance had his foot and ankle in a bucket of ice.
Any questions just fire away.