A nice but warm and sunny day at training today. I popped in again at about 10.45am but was told some blokes had been training/running since 8.30am. Training finished around 11.45am so it was a long session for some.
No sign of the older blokes - Richo, Browny, Joel, Sugar and Simmo as they start next week - but pretty much everyone else was present. Connors still had his moon boot on but occasionally went for a short job with a limp to fetch a footy.
As for the newbies - Cotchin, Rance and Putt were there again today as was Silvester, Gazzo, Horne, Collard, Callinan, Fanning, Sullivan and a couple of smaller blokes I couldn't put a name to the face. Callinan is small but he's a dead-eye-dick around the goals. I think Zomer was there too (No. 12? for anyone else who went). Greg and Francis spent a fair bit of time watching training. I forgot to ask if Gourdis was out there
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As for the old hands - Moore looks like he's been on the 'roids in one photo
. Lids is a well-oiled machine (I'll leave that for Julz, Moi and Steph to judge).
As for the drills I saw, the first was just long kicking circle work around the oval which was finishing up as I arrived. In the next drill they worked on clearances from packs. One player would stand in the middle of about other 8 players paired up in teams (attacker and defender (orange singlets)). David King would roll the ball along the ground to the centre player and then the attacking "team" had to clear the footy and pass it to the forwards (with defenders on them) near the goals. It looked like Jack was the forward with McGuane on him. The whole squad would rotate through the drill in these groups of 8. Foley and Blingers stood out. Blingers weaving in and out and then accelerating clear was good to watch. The biggest cheer was for Kel Moore who ran around the back of the pack to receive the footy then burst clear on a bouncing 80m run, a quick one-two handball with Jack and then banged it home from 5m out.
Any questions just fire away. I'll post some photos either later tonight or tomorrow.