As work is not far from Vic Park I went to see the Tiges train again today. Team skills were the order of the day. The session finished around 5pm. I got there about 3.30pm. About 25 or so people were watching.
When I rocked up, we were in the middle of a intra-club scratch match - blacks vs whites. The only guys not in it where Chaffey who was having a kick to kick with Jarrad Grant and Browny and Tivs who were practicing one-on-one marking with a trainer kicking the ball to them. Browny was also kicking the ball back to the trainer with both feet which was a good sign.
The two sides were:
Blacks Whites
1. Newman 4. Raines
2. Gas 7. Brown
3. Deledio 8. Roach
5. Simmonds 13. Knobel
10. Stafford 14. Polo
11. J.Bowden 16. P.Bowden
12. Richo 19. Limbach
15. Pettifer 21. Tuck
17. Johnson 22. Meyer
18. Rodan 23. Jackson
20. Hall 24. Cogs
25. Schulz 29. Oakley-Nicholls
26. Pattison 32. Tivendale
27. Krakouer 33. Hartigan
30. Tambling 34. Hughes
31. Hyde 36. Thursfield
35. White 37. Casserley
40. Moore 38. McGuane
41. Foley 39. Kellaway
43. Howat 42. Humm
As was the case on Friday, the boys were implementing Wallace's run and carry gameplan very well but there were a few too many hospital or wishful passes for my liking going into attack. The game itself was pretty full on for January and the 1%ers such as tackling, shepharding, talking, etc were performed well so credit where it's due. Moore limped off at the end and spent the rest of the training session sitting on the boundary line. There didn't seem to be too much of a concern from the trainers so hopefully it was just a knock. Hughes and Casserley also finished up for the day.
Wallace then brought everyone in including Browny and Tivs for a chat before breaking up again for a drill. The drill was designed to work on rebounding from the backline into attack from a defensive throw-in. It was good to see us do this drill as we struggled to set up scoring chances from throw-ins last year. Wallace is obviously well aware of where we fell down statistically in 2005. Once again the squad was split into black and whites with the blacks the rebounding side. A trainer would act as a boundary umpire and the blacks had to win the ball then feed it out to runners on the defensive side of the pack who would run in numbers as a wave and either carry, kick or handball to the open fat side of the ground and then go into attack towards Richo, Staff and Lids. This was pretty well done by all with Hyde almost the main goto man in virtually every passage. Even Simmonds was involved as a runner and snagged a long goal. Being lighter has obviously made him more mobile. Early on in the drill the final kick inside 50 could have been better (wrong option more than poor execution today) but as the drill went along we got much better.
The squad was then broken up into four groups for goalkicking drills with 2 groups at each end of the ground and one either side of the goals on a 45 degree angle. In this drill a kick from the goalsquare would go to about 50m out where a player would mark then handball to a running teammate who would then run and shoot at the goals with the player that handballed the footy to him then becoming a chaser from behind to put on pressure. There seemed to be points on offer to add a little bit of competition to the drills between the groups. Overall the accuracy was pretty good.
The next goalkicking drill was to practice snap shots. Each group would form a circle with a player in the middle. The players on the outside would handball one after the other to the middle bloke who would shoot around his body. Once again pretty well done.
The final goalkicking drill was similar to the first except the ball from the kick-out would be tapped down to a player front and centre and he would then have to run and shoot while the tapper and the guy who kicked the ball in from the goalsquare converged on him to put on pressure. Most of the guys did this well although Knobel's first attempt seemed to be a pass off the side of the boot in my direction around from the goals lol. Polo also had one that went off the side of his right boot. Tambling fumbled a couple of times when the ball hit the ground from the tap. He spent time with the trainer after training working on picking up the ball cleanly and then running on goal. The trainer told him to slow down a touch as he went to pick up the ball. He was ok from then on.
Finally for a bit of fun, everyone was brought in to around 60m from goal for a few long pot shots on goal. It was pretty hard to see who was having a shot from the middle of the group but Knobel's kick went stright through the centre while Pettifer just missed his and he gave a loud groan lol.
The session then finished with Krakouer, Rodan, Tambling, Limbach and Browny having goalkicking practice and a couple of us behind the goals torping any footys that cleared the net back onto the ground. If you ever fancied kicking the footy at RFC training (well just after) now is the time of the year to come down.
More photos to come btw. Cheers MT
