Early start for the Tigers at training today. A pretty warm day out in the sun too
. I got there just after 10am and the session finished around 11.30am with the Hawks waiting outside for us to finish. No sign of Moore or Browny as far as I saw but everyone else was present. In terms of injuries - Kellaway, Jackson, Tivs and Chaffey were separate from the group. Polo had an icepack on his right quad/inside thigh. Hall and Foley laid on the stretcher table to do some stretching with a trainer after training but both appeared to be ok.
As was the case on Monday, the squad was in the middle of a scratch match when I rocked up. Whites vs Blacks again but this time around the whites had the "name" players. I saw the last quarter and a bit with the whites the dominant side - 5.4-34 to the Blacks 0.1-1. Lids 2, Richo 2 and Raines were the goalkickers IIRC in that time.
In terms of the two sides I might have a couple wrong as Thursty and Razor weren't wearing their usual numbers. Joel had 14 on at the end of training while Rodan looked like he was wearing 38:
Whites Blacks
1. Newman
2. Gas
3. Deledio 8. Roach
4. Raines 10. Stafford
5. Simmonds 13. Knobel
14. Polo
11. J.Bowden
12. Richo 19. Limbach
15. Pettifer
16. P.Bowden 39. Hall
17. Johnson 22. Meyer
18. Rodan
21. Tuck
24. Cogs
25. Schulz 29. Oakley-Nicholls
26. Pattison?
27. Krakouer 33. Hartigan
30. Tambling 34. Hughes
31. Hyde 40. Thursfield
37. Casserley
38. McGuane?
41. Foley? 35. White
42. Humm
43. Howat
44. Graham
The whites were very clean today across the ground. Newman, Joel (CHB on Graham) and Gas were strong down back and with Sugar on a HBF set up many attacking rebounds from the backline. Simmonds was running up and down the ground so it definitely looks like we'll be using him in a Dean Cox/Jeff White way. As for the whites midfield - Tucky especially plus Cogs, Hyde, Rodan and Tambling got plenty of it. Nice long running goal from Raines. Lids did as he pleased on the lead up forward while Richo snagged two while I was there - one in the square after receiving a handball and the other after a mark on the lead then playing on. The decision making and passing when going inside 50 was much better today.
The Blacks were attacking towards the end where the crowd was sitting so the ball didn't come down that often. When it did the Blacks were forced to attack from out wide. Oakley-Nicholls got his hands on the ball a few times though. Stafford had their only set-shot after a mark but missed.
The good thing about training today from my perspective was that there were few errors. It's also great to see the Tiges play modern footy with those without the footy running hard into space to create open options. It regularly enabled the switch of play both to the left and right and back again either way as well as straightening up the play down the middle of the corridor. Terry said afterwards it was a pretty good session.
Terry then brought the boys in and they then did some stretching exercises as one group. After that the squad was broken into three groups - one on each wing and the other in the middle. The drills today were about accuracy.
With each group on the wings - four cones were set-up at one end in the shape of a square and Tivs or a trainer would stand inside this square. The rest of the group was then split into two sides - shirts and no-shirts (settle down Julz
). From ball-ups and throws-ins they had to battle to win the ball then use the run and carry gameplan to get the footy by either hand or foot to Tivs so he could catch/mark the footy within the square. If they did so precisely without the other side stopping them they got a point. If they missed the square it was counted as an automatic turnover. This was pretty well done by all. The only negative to come out of it was Polo, after marking the ball, deciding to try and get past Cogs and Cogs wrapping Polo up in a perfect tackle and taking him to ground. I'm assuming that's when Polo copped his injury. He was pretty sore when leaving training.
While all this was going on, the middle group had a break from the footy and were playing a game where again the group was split into shirts and no-shirts and one player from each would stand within their square facing each other. The objective was to try and ground this yellow heavy? round ball within your opponents square. If you did your team got a point.
The three groups rotated between the two wings and the centre and after that the whole group was brought into together at the Yarra Falls end to do push-ups and that was the end. Tambling and Limbach stayed to do some goalkicking practice.
Wallace said the day wasn't finished for them and we had a couple of sessions to come in the afternoon.