I went down to watch training this morning. You've got to love the media for contorting what happens at training into what they want to report. More on that later.
Rehab group:
Griffiths - ran a number of laps. He didn't appear to have any noticeable injury so maybe they are just trying to get his fitness up after missing a fair bit of footy last year.
Nason - jogged a lap and then walked a couple more. He's got a compression bandage around the knee. He kicked the ball with the opposite leg so he can put his bodyweight on the crook leg.
Jacko and Kingy - did the same program together. Jogged a few laps, did some 30-50m sprinting and then did some kick to kick after the main squad had finished training.
As for those who had been in the rehab group - McGaune and Thursty trained fully so I'm presuming they'll play in our next practice match in Yea.
Onto training itself. The first drill had the squad split into groups of 3-4 players around various points of the ground where you had to kick to the advantage side of a teammate from another group. I was behind the Northern end goal so you passed from near the goal-line to someone else who was leading to the forward pocket. This player would then hit a lead to the HFF and that player would then pass inside back to the corridor and so on with a ball being kicked back to the someone in the first group by the goal to start again. Yeah the footpassing was average from the same old same olds who we know can't kick but any journo could have said the same thing over past years as well. Hardly a revelation. The media acting as though this was the first Richmond training session they had ever turned up to
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Most of the rest of the session had the squad split in defence (Southern end of the ground), midfield/rucks (far wing), and forwards (Northern end) groups. The forward group near me consisted off Jack (vocal as ever instructing the others), Morton, Nahas, Roberts, Hislop. I think Thomson was out there too but I could be wrong.
For the next drill each group did the same thing which was the retaining of possession with 20-30m chip passes while opponents applied defensive pressure that the media were talking about. Basically it was keepings off as there were no marks paid. It was always plan on. Each group had 3 guys trying to spoil or force a bad kick. Once a mistake was made those players involved became the chasers.
Next up the defence, midfield/ruck and forwards group performed drills specific to their position. So the forwards worked on defensive pressure and a rolling zone from an opponents kick-in. Jack was constantly talking and pointing fingers instructing the zone. Basically a kick-in would go to one pocket and the zone would push over and then the next kick would go back across to the other side and the zone would follow. The midfielders concentrated on stoppage work at ball-ups and tackling. Simmo, Vickery, Gus and Browne were all involved. Even Lade joined in. At one stage we had the coaches up against the mids at stoppages which was kind of funny. I'm not sure exactly sure what the backline group was doing. It looked like they were trying to loop long kicks over a teammate's head so they could mark without stopping.
And that was about it for most of the squad who went inside. The rucks stayed out along with Collins and a couple of other small mids to do more tap and stoppage work with Brendon Lade. Contin did about 10 minutes worth of reflex handballs with a trainer. Jacko and Kingy stayed out longer to do some sprinting work as I mentioned.
Photos to come later on. Any questions fire away
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