Early morning training report Wednesday 16th

[The Peanut]

I went down do Moorabbin this morning at 8.00am and left after the boys did their warm-up. I tried to count them and swore to myself once again that I didn’t take a piece of paper down with all the names on so I could tick them off – just like the piece of paper that a saw laying up in the stand recently that a fellow supporter had used with the list printed off the official site and little ticks next to each name.

I am pretty sure that Harves, Rooey, Bally and Lenny were missing in the early warm-up but pretty well everyone else was there. The aforementioned were probably inside as the number plate of the car that caused the fuss yesterday was in the car park and the last digits did indeed describe the car model. Would you believe me if I tell you that I only noticed it because the first digit set is the same as mine?

There was just a bit of stretching and kick-to-kick around the Animal Enclosure area for about half an hour or so and only a few of the boys did a lap or two. They were then called inside for what I speculate as some sort of a team meeting.

There was very fine drops of rain falling and the outside seats were a bit damp to sit on.

The Peanut was there again with his trusty little pocket camera, which is obviously making the coaching staff nervous because they took a picture of me with their trusty little pocket camera as they were going in. Perhaps they think that I am a scout snooping around or perhaps it’s because I’m good looking. I decided to leave training before the main session as I have lots on today and after all my trip to Moorabbin was just little diversion from my early morning trip to the milk bar.

I hope there will be a more comprehensive report or two later when the Wednesday training sessions gets going properly - from the supporters who are regulated by more civilised hours.

Edit: a part of my pic thumbnail display - don't take any notice of the date - my camera is a little like myself - 'a dollar short and a day late'.

[Oh When the Saints]

Eloquently written Peanut, and I'm sure you were the subject of photography for no other reason than your aesthetic appeal

[B W and R all over]

Those training tops are a rip-off of the old Frankston VFA jumpers.

[Otiman]

Those training tops are a rip-off of the old Frankston VFA jumpers.

Interesting, isn't it. Coincidence? Perhaps not.

Love your work, Peanut. It's that casual, slightly tongue-in-cheek style of writing that I miss from journo's these days.

[savatage]

Can I just say that you're a gem Peanut!

Thanks for your continued brilliant efforts.

[spiral2]

I got there around 9.30, so I probably caught most of the session after Peanut tagged out - here's what I can recall -

leaving the track as I arrived (just after warm up I guess)
G, Blake and a few others?

absent/didn't train
Harvs, Lenny, Raph, X, Grammy, Rix, Attard, Blake, G, Ghengis, Madden
Max was working with the fitness/coaching staff. in full coaching gear, not sure what's going on there, anyone?

Modified
L Fisher - ran steady laps as per usual - anyone know what's up with him?

M Gardiner - a bit of short kicking and maybe some easy laps?

Goddard - did some medium distance kicking with bally. looked in good shape & spirit, moving nicely, seems eager to get amongst it.

Bally - did some medium distance kicking with BJ (~30-35m flat passes). looked fine. came out again later and did some in close quick hands work one on one with a coach/trainer. looks in very good shape, as someone noted a few weeks back from a photo, his calves are packed with muscle, look like they're going to detach and form a clone.

Kosi - didn't see him on the track, came out toward the end to sign some autographs and had a fair sweat worked up so must be hard at in the gym

Goose - did some running with SOS (I think) and some kick to kick as well

LVR - some static work late in session with Big Mac.

Hiccups?
Geary left the track during a drill, no limp or anything but went off with a trainer in the middle of a drill

McEvoy - seemed a bit proppy at one stage, went off a little earlier than others to start rubber band stretching. may have just been a fitness thing, first year getting it easier? but he did seem a little limpy. got up afterward to do some static tap skill work with LVR.


Drills
mainly half ground - full ground ball movement stuff. practicing switching, picking options, delivery into Fwd50, kicking goals on the run, linking through the middle, and some in close stuff with tacklers. skills were pretty good. some dodgy handballs and goal kicking on the run was not great - Fizz doesn't seem to have improved. delivery into Fwd 50 was pretty poor most of the time - bit of a worry

Standouts
Eddy - fit as hell, penetration on his kicking seemed good, hit a lot of targets today
Dal - class above
Roo - ditto
Mini - does everything right, hits all targets, runs hard, good fitness
Armo - did pretty well, not right up there but pretty good
Dempster - nice kick, longish too by the looks of it
S Fisher - always works and runs hard
Milney - everywhere, worked really hard, lots of voice as per usual
Schneider - did some nice things, touch of class about him. nickname is Needle or Schneedle - something like that.

Allen nickname = woody or wood duck

King - only ruckman to train, works hard, ground level skills not great but ok. was in forward line in the fwd 50 drill, along with Milney & Roo. Schneider and Gardiner were further up as half forwards.
C Gardiner - works hard but skills suss

Fitness/Midfield group
This group did some hard running work at the end of the session and included Dal, Joey, Eddy, Fizz, Mini, Armo, C. Gardiner, Birss, Ferg?, Jones

they did 2 laps of oval at good pace followed by a break (~2min) and then back and forth running between cones at around 50m apart (they did this for a set time - maybe three minutes? - they seemed to cover about 500m I think...?)
the did two lots of that and were looking pretty buggered at the end
Eddy killed them with Joey, Dal and Mini the next best. Armo did well, he and Jones were the next best. Fizz brought up the rear.
Eddy was great, appears to run distance quickly with almost no effort. was really encouraging the others, great to see from such a young guy.
mini did really well, isn't quick but is steady and persistent. joey looked much better than pre Xmas, went really well. Dal really pushed himself, a little like mini, not super quick but comes home strong toward the end of the runs.

New guys
J Steven - didn't standout
Chivers - goes ok, gets the ball a bit in drills, pretty good hands. kicking a bit iffy and seems like he has to work on his smarts a bit.
Eljay - came out at the end and Bevo had a good chat to him, seemed to be giving him some encouragement.
Luke Miles - impressed, first time I'd seen him train. looked VERY quick, kicking ok, the odd mongrel, good smarts. seems like a good prospect. build like a cross between BJ and Blake.
Ding dong (Big Ben ) - seemed pretty agile/mobile in the drills. doesn't look quick off the mark but seems to move around pretty well for a big fella. skills look good for a big bloke too. didn't seem as natural with the tap skills as LVR at the end. The drill had one guy standing in the centre flanked left and right. a guy on one side would throw a ball above the centre guy and he'd palm it down to the guy on the opposite side, reverse and repeat.

membership was around 18,100

[riccardo]

Those training tops are a rip-off of the old Frankston VFA jumpers.

They are also pretty close to the old Centrals jumper in the SANFL before they went for the Crows style.

I like them, personally.

[saintbrat]

Has Nick R signed a new nike Contract- shiny white shoes and socks.

T E has one very loud voice- matched only by Milney
? Do the staff ever give milney a direction to encourage anyone in particular? he ALWAYS talks it up at breaks,-

Only 'name' player I couldn't spot was Grammy,
most others appeared at some point, the oldies- well all bar kingy- went in after about 30 min- + clarkes, and recovering players.
Interesting within that last running sequence to hear Goose and others really pushing Dal and Joey to catch, keep up with or stay ahead of Eddy- one set Joey as in front but within two sets Rob was a head.

Odd spot; I didn't get a pic but after first set of drills they did a stretching excercise which required on knees with head to turf- my thought was -
'they are worshiping the moorabbin turf.'

[saintbrat]

question? is chivers the short darker skinned young man? if not who is he

[shoreline]

Who ie the short player with curley hair runnng laps at the end of his session?

[snoopygirl]

I mentioned in a thread last week that I thought the training tops were very similar to the Frankston VFL tops. I like them. They're also similar to one of the designs on the thread a few months back about a new design for the clash jumper. We could certainly do a lot worse.

[spiral2]

Who ie the short player with curley hair runnng laps at the end of his session?

yeah there were a few random youngsters there today
the guy you mentioned was tiny! he seemed to know his way round a footy oval though. none of the others looked great, one of the taller guys seemed to be a pretty strong runner.

yeah SaintBrat, Chivers has browny hair, and a bit of a tan, tallish mid size. Peanut has a photo on his site.

[saintbrat]

it's the tiny guy I was wondering about too- he appeared to have indigeanous heritage - he did most of the session.

[Oh When the Saints]

Thanks for the report spiral.

Sensational effort. Top stuff.

[GrumpyOne]

it's the tiny guy I was wondering about too- he appeared to have indigeanous heritage - he did most of the session.

Thought he would have had indigenous heritage for the whole of the session.

[saintdooley]

i went, and i have some photos to upload tonight when i can be bothered.
and that small guy you are talking about bratty, aparently he is on a scholarship or something like that...

i got there at about 9.50am and all the boys did from what i could see is run around topless!

[Chester's Saints]

I attended too this morning.

If it hasn't been mentioned yet, some of the drills were to do with rebounding out of the backline, through the midfield and into the forward line, then switching play accross the field and then begin the process again.

One instance, Milne-Dog entered the forward line and kicked it across goal to an unknown player and stuffed up the play. Ross screamed "Keep it simple". I guess we are so use to Milne trying the most difficult options.

A few drills involved kicking at goal.

Towards the end of the session, some of the midfield team (Dal, Armo, birss, fizz, eddy, ferg, to name a few) did some hard running drills.
- Two laps of the oval (timed) - R.Eddy won
- Beep test style drill (timed) - R.Eddy won
- Two more laps of the oval (timed) - R.Eddy won
- Another Beep test style drill (timed) - R.Eddy won
- Slow lap of oval

Didn't train with main group
G-Train
Grammy
Harvs
X
Raph
BJ
Goose
MGardy (only half)
Ball??

By the way, there was a tall lanky kid that could not kick or hit a target if his life depended on it, shocking.

Cheers

[sarah 2]

thamnks for the report everyone, im on holidays and still cant get to the training

[luke.l_26]

absent/didn't train
Harvs, Lenny, Raph, X, Grammy, Rix, Attard, Blake, G, Ghengis, Madden
Max was working with the fitness/coaching staff. in full coaching gear, not sure what's going on there, anyone?

I went down as well and I saw all of that lot.
Lenny was walking around the oval talking to a fitness coach i think.
Went inside the rooms after a while.

Pretty sure, Harvs, Rix, Attard, Gehrig, Raph and Blake trained right in front of where i was sitting so I dunno what happened there.
And From what I recall they participated inthe whole training.

[i_luv_nick_riewoldt]

cheers for the reports everyone! Keep up the good work!

Wow, this eddy kid seems to be progressing really well. Im looking forward to having a look at training first hand soon!

[iwantmeseats]

Gee, I have to say I am very concerned about Kosi!! In the gym or not, I dont think I have read a sinfle training thread that actually even mentions him out on the track. Not good.

[karnak]

Kosi - Bike, rowing machine etc (all the fitness he needs), but I reckon he is doing strength and endurance conditioning. Ie. 1 legged squats standing on his toes etc. Build up his resiliance through tendon and joint strength. I think we'll see a much bigger Kosi unit this year. Think he'll be starting to hit the gym hard soon prob a 8 week intensive weights program followed by us seeing him on training track about 2 weeks before the season starts.


PS you can work on close skills when in doors. anyway just my thoughts I'm just having a guess, but I am not concerned 1iota with Kosi. The media is all over him and his injuries, if he was injured we would know about it.

I'm glad the group is split up to the degree that it is, not only are different body types need different therapy and exercises, but different positions need different attributes. If we want Kosi to be in the Forward line then he will have to improve his strength imo.

[Batnoe]

If Kosi was in the forward line, yes his strength would be needed, but what about most positions on the ground?

With his height he could play anyway- Key Forward, Key Back, Ruck

3 positions that need a lot of strength. Kosi has always needed a modified training regime, i am glad he is finally getting it. It really inst worth risking him and losing him mid way through the year. We finally have some fitness guru's that know what they are talking about

Ball, Goddard, Goose, Gardiner all on specific training programs and all players coming back from injury. Why have Sydney been so good for the last few seasons? Ross Lyon for one and Misson the other!!!

Always a slow first 3 weeks as their stars have a modified training regime, and only come back when they are ready so they are 3-5 weeks behind the rest but then they are fit at the last 12 rounds- including finals

[savatage]

I am more optimistic about Kosi this year than any other. Different programs for different players - there is no cause for concern!

[big_mac_evoy5]

nioce report spiral keep it up the big mac or big ben lol i think he will be awesome it will be like two kosi's lol can't wait boys only a month til nab and 9 weeks until the first game were we willbeat the swans