Just got back from a sunny mild day at Punt Rd where the boys trained for about an hour and a half. They mostly worked on physicality and run and carry today.
Absent altogether were Browny, Razor, Meyer and Moore.
It was a surprise to see Cogs come out in his training gear but he just stood and watched.
A few of the guys either stood in the race very briefly or did a little handball work - Collins, Clingan, Connors (left thing tapped), Clever, Cass, Howat, Kingsley, Knobel, Petersen.
Others like Simmo, Sugar, Foley, Riewoldt, Edwards only did part of the main training with the squad and the rest doing their own thing.
Simmo, Patto, Graham and Polak with the help of Newy worked on their ruckwork for a bit.
The only concern to come out of training was Rainesy doing separate work with a trainer. He was running baulking from side to side. Perhaps he's carrying something which might explain his slow start to the year.
For the first half an hour of training we had Robbie Kearns from the Storm down to work on physical and tackling drills. Riewoldt was very vocal pumping the boys to be hard at training. At least our young guys seem to understand what's required
. A bit of stand-up wrestling to start with followed by some 2 on 2 whereby the tacklers had to stop the ball being cleared by hand and force the attackers across the boundary line. They also did a couple of other handball/tackling combo drills. At one point David King yelled out "where's our **** leaders" to get the boys more vocal during it. They finished off with some 1 on 1 fighting for the ball with Royal rolling it along the ground. Lids and Tambo were great to watch. Lids probably slightly ahead as they went along. Other contests were Krak and Hyde, and McGuane and Petts from memory. Thankfully everyone got through without injury although a couple of boys got up gingerly from tackles but were fine a minute latter. They were wearing padded training tops.
After Robbie Kearns left they then worked on some run and carry drills. The first drill seemed new. Most of the squad gathered at one end and then 4 players at a time had to work together to run and carry past two lines of tacklers - one at CHB and one a CHF - and then either pass to Richo up against McGuane or kick the goal themselves. The good thing about this drill was you saw the same mistakes we make during a real game. Guys turning themselves into trouble and handball errors. It was also to test our tackling from a defenders viewpoint which was pretty good. Best at it today were Lids, Tambo and Hyde although Tambo once left the ball behind when he was bouncing it at full pace.
The final drill was a rebounding from defence one and targetting our forwards - Richo (v McGuane) at FF plus Schulz (v Gas) and Petts at CHF. Each time a player lead and marked in the midfield David King would yell out for everyone to sprint.
And that was about it. During the session when they were huddled as a squad there were two big distinct cheers so maybe a possible sign of two changes or two newbies?
