watching training today. They trained for at least 2.5 hours in midday 30 degree heat
.
RFC regulars present and did the full training were:
Thursty, Lids, Martin, Cotch (looks super fit and able to do full training now
), Newman, Rance, Morton, Tuck, Nahas, Vickery, Gourdis, Browne, White, Post, O'Reilly, Dea, Contin, Hicks and Westhoff. Rance is ripped while Browne looks to have trimmed down a touch - perhaps to improve his mobility.
Of the newbies:
Houli and Miller did the whole session.
Batchelor, Helbig, MacDonald and Derickx participated at the start and end of training with the main group. They stayed out of the tactical gameplay drills. While that was going on they did half a dozen 200m runs around the outer side of Punt Rd Oval. Helbig and Derickx look the most likely to push for a debut next year. MacDonald is solid but his fitness is behind the others. Conca didn't do much as he's coming back from injury IIRC. A lap at the most with one of the trainers.
Some Coburg ring-ins as well - Jakobi, Clifton, Kadhlefelt, Jones(?) and BF saying Fewster as well.
Astbury only did the warm-up and Jack did some goalkicking before the others started. They were both walking around fine in the stands later on in their training gear signing autographs.
Gus' ankle has flared up again so he hardly trained and went inside the rooms early.
Farmer and Nason I saw appear near the end of training watching.
I didn't see Connors, Griffiths, Foley, Moore, Edwards, Taylor at all.
As far as training itself they began with a warm-up including short-stepping through ladder rope before the footys were brought out. It looked like they were working on 1-on-1 and zonal tactics. and working on hitting-up teammates who found space in a zone or if the down the line kick wasn't on then switching back and across to the other side. This was first done with kicks only and then handball only with the 'attacking' side (green singlets0) maintaining possession from the defenders (red singlets). I was talking with friends so I didn't keep an eye on all the drills. As happened last year there were at time specific drills for the forwards, mids and defenders. Training finished with some running. A couple of 800s and then finished off with a km run. Whitey, Cotch, Hicks, Houli and Lids finished top 5 most times. Martin was really struggling and needing to push himself in the final lap of the km run and finished 2nd last ahead of a Coburg player. Obviously as Dimma said in the Fighting Tiger, Dusty needs to improve his outside game which means improving his endurance running.
Any questions fire away. Pics to come.
