Pre-season 2020

[SeanM]

Who else attended pre-season training today? Would be good to get a report from a different source. Much of the best stuff came from the 30 minutes or so Horse spent chatting to a large group of fans. Unfortunately, because I'm somewhat hard of hearing, I couldn't hear all of it. Of what I did hear, it was mostly typical Horse, not giving very much away (but peppered with a few nuggets of interesting facts and opinions).

I went down to training as well this morning. But I did not even realise Longmire was giving a talk to the fans.

I don't usually get a chance to get down to training. So I find it interesting but hard to absorb everything. I end up wandering around trying to figure out what to watch and focus on. For example I watched the senior players having a 11 vs 11 game but felt watching the younger players doing drills and playing a mini game among themselves at the northern end would have been more interesting. Just to even see the interactions between drills.

I got a bit better at recognising players over time. But did you recognise Ling, Gulden and Campbell doing training? I think I figured out Ling right at the end. Did he have brown hair with a shaved hairstyle, red singlet and black runners?


Another thing I found interesting was which players on the fringes of the first teams will look to push themselves up into the best 22. I feel there is a large group of older squad players and developing young players aiming for a few open positions. Especially the halfback/small defender position and the wing/half forward position.

I have only seen two preseason sessions so hesitant to make judgements on players. But I thought COR looked good with his kicking and running out of defense. Also Foot surprised me. He was training with the senior group and looked pretty comfortable. In one drill he was part of the front 3 making leads. And at other times when he was in midfield he was clean with his kicking and moved well.

[Ludwig]

I rate Mills very highly and feel he can play well in just about any role. I think he's the kind of player that can make things happen with ball in hand, much like Pendlebury. It makes more sense to me that he plays midfield and becomes a 25+ possession player. We have so many other players that are quicker and can vie for a small defender role, like COR, Cunningham, Stoddart and Ling. We need Mills to bolster our midfield now.

As for Buddy, I figured that he wasn't a great public speaker and preferred not to take on the additional media responsibilities of being in the leadership group. He already had more attention than he wanted. I'm sure that he would have been in the group before if he wanted it.

[SeanM]

I will just write down what I remember of the drills.

- First seemed to be a warm up or agility focused drill. They split into a few groups. I watched the group behind the goals. They were doing run throughs where they had to step over those tiny hurdles or jump over a bag. Also practicing side stepping just in front of a tackle bag. And a lot of focus on sideways movement like sprinting forward, stopping and moving side to side.

There was another group that was doing stuff with a large rubber band like having two players moving against each other inside a rubber band. There was also a group of six to the side handballing in a circle. They may have been on restrictions for that drill. I think it was Amarty, Naismith, Reid, Mclean, E. Taylor and someone else.

- Next they did skill drills in smaller groups. Drills focused on short flat kicking, handballs and ground balls.

- Next I think the senior players did a 11 vs 11 match on two thirds of the field. Longmire was umpire and sometimes he would pause the game and discuss something. The younger players did some drills and then a small game between themselves at the northern end.

- Next drill was 4 attackers vs 3 defenders. The attackers would try to handball between themselves for a bit and then break upfield and kick the ball to a 3 vs 3 contest.

- Another kicking drill. Someone would kick to a leading player who would then handball to a player running across him.

- A match sim where the ball would start from the kick in and they would work it upfield. Then Cox would blow a whistle. The players would lay on their belly then get up and sprint to their starting positions.

- A match sim maybe 13 attackers vs 10 defenders. The attacking team would pick up a loose ball near their goal square and try to work it upfield.

- Finally the players split up into five teams then had a competition. Based on goalkicking from certain positions, a pushup contest to that "Bring Sally Up, Bring Sally Down" song and riding 10km on a exercise bike as a team.

It finished around 11am. At the end Blakey, Heeney,Aliir and Rowbottom seemed to hang around for quite a while to take pictures with people.

[dimelb]

Thank you to all who have given us a look at the training. Much appreciated.

[707]

Reports greatly appreciated. How I wished I lived in Sydney at times like these!

[dejavoodoo44]

I went down to the training session this morning with my 12 year old daughter. I won't offer a long report, but just wanted to note that Buddy was in everything, from all the warm-ups, into the drills, and then the match sims.

There was a great deal of focus on exiting 50, and then another sim dealing with F50 entries: lots of fast ball movement and changes of angles moving up the field. I actually thought that the group looked outstanding: clean in the drills, full of voice and running in quite difficult conditions. Hayward ("Wilbur") was moving superbly, right up on top of the grass, like a big cat. Lots of upper body development. Florent was also impressive: a slinkier mover, placing long kicks to advantage consistently. Mills was playing across half-back in the simulations. Ronke looked good as well. Naismith cut a lonely figure running laps. Sinclair looked strong and focussed. Lewis Taylor, clearly stung by RWO observations of his lack of condition, was putting in hard sprints in every transition on and off the field during simulations.

Young Chad Warner was spending a fair bit of time with the tackle bag. I get the impression that he is kept in a cage and fed raw meat.

But Buddy . . . wow. My daughter gasped out loud at one of his cross-field kicks that hit a free target on the opposite wing on the chest: "he didn't even look!" she exclaimed. And hearing his advice to the younger players as well as conversations with Parker analysing something they'd just done . . . an amazing education for a young player.

And Stevie J's advice to Florent who got held up on a HBF looking for options:—"Look early, look late, then go long!"—might be a key insight into the developing game plan.

All this talk about skills training, has got me feeling optimistic, that we'll be playing a fast, creative style of football. I'm also getting keen to see Warner's development. I get the feeling that towards the end of next season, many of us will be wondering, 'how the hell did he slip through to pick 39?'. Much in the same in the same way, that towards the end of Parker's first season, many of us were wondering how he could have slipped to pick 40.

[bloodspirit]

OK, if nobody else can or will, I will add to the comments I have posted already about the training session and the stuff Horse said, that nobody else seems to have heard. I won't repeat the excellent descriptions given by others of the various drills and what the players were doing except:

* to agree that the club is doing an terrific job typecasting Warner as a tackling machine. He had a spectacular period for about 20 minutes where he was being worked hard by two trainers all on his own in various tackling drills with bags and balls etc. looking just as O'Reilly Boy suggested, like he's been kept in a cage and fed raw meat and released once in a while to unleash carnage. Afterwards he was given a wet towel to wrap around his head to help him cool down;

* to note that Heeney didn't participate in the training session due to quad tightness and was left hanging on the sidelines.

At a certain point the players had a break from the match play and the players moved to the southern end of the ground to the training area behind the goal posts and the group was addressed by both Horse and also various members of the leadership group. While this was happening, a small crowd of fans gathered on the other side of the fence to listen in. Once that finished the players returned to the field to continue match simulationas and Horse came over to the fence and started chatting to the fans. A large group of fans gathered around and listened and he took lots of questions. (It was during this period that Warner started his tackling show in the background.)

Some of the Q&A I heard included, as best I recall (and trying not to repeat the stuff I've already reported):

* What are we going to do to fix our midfield issues? Horse: A big part of the problem was the ruck not being able to get first hands on it. Getting first use of the footy allows you to play a territory game and to put pressure on and get repeat entries. Not winning enough taps made it hard for us, although of course we tried to combat it in other ways.

* Someone asked, well, what about Richmond and the Giants who didn't have dominant ruckmen? e.g. GWS v Pies prelim Grundy v Mummy? Horse avoided the main point and focused on saying what a smart player Mummy was and how he used his body to force Grundy to tap to a particular spot where everyone would know the ball was going which went some way to neutralising Grundy's big advantage in the hitouts.

* When the club recruited Knoll they had hoped that he might be able to play a couple of games towards the back end of the season but they felt he was just coming from too far back with his game knowledge given his basketball background and it wouldn't be fair to play him in the AFL. [Unclear whether he is ready yet. If Naismith isn't available I think Knoll's a chance at some stage. Incidentally, Naismith said he would resume full training after Christmas and that his knee is fine now. He's only in rehab due to his shoulder reco.]

* Horse emphasised what an important role rucks have and just generally reinforced the impression that he believes you can't have too many of them or overestimate their importance.

* As I mentioned previously, he had similar comments about the importance of the lockdown small defender role. He said it's very well to move Mills to the midfield except what if the opposition's small forward then kicks six on you? He agreed that Cunningham had excelled in this role before his injury last year.

* The club seeks, especially in the pre-Christmas period, to ease the draftees into the training load. Not just physically but also in terms of the amount of meetings and stuff it is a big step up for draftees and a tough adjustment. After Christmas the draftees will get a load more similar to the rest of the playing group.

* Repeated how it is hard to attract coaches to come to Sydney from interstate, especially because of the high cost of living here. Dean Cox could have gone to Geelong (where it would have been much cheaper to live) and we were lucky he came to us.

* We have in recent history had fewer coaches than other clubs but now we have a normal, 'full-sized' complement of coaches.

* The reason for the coaching restructure was to "help us win more games". Kirk is going to focus on players individually; Cox is focusing on how the team plays as a whole. Macca is stoppages coach. Didn't mention what Tadhg would be doing.

* We are glad to have 10-11 players on the list now from NSW. [I only count 8. Maybe he was referring to next year when we have recruited Gulden and Campbell?] Noted how having relatively low level of local players makes it harder for us compared to a club like St Kilda where 25+ of their list are local.

* Said all the players traded in were recruited in the belief that they are ready to play. Didn't say whether they will be selected.

* Likewise non-committal about whether any of the draftees will debut. Said it is hard to say. You never know what is going to happen. Realistically you never get to choose your ideal best 22. "It would be a good problem to have." Doesn't ever attempt it on the whiteboard.

If I remember more, I might add it but still hoping someone else who was there will be able to add more.

[bloodspirit]

What you fail to understand is that having Mills play that Nick Smith role is key to us winning more clearances.

All this talk about skills training, has got me feeling optimistic, that we'll be playing a fast, creative style of football. I'm also getting keen to see Warner's development. I get the feeling that towards the end of next season, many of us will be wondering, 'how the hell did he slip through to pick 39?'. Much in the same in the same way, that towards the end of Parker's first season, many of us were wondering how he could have slipped to pick 40.

I've already said a couple of times how excited I am about Warner but I think it is a stretch to compare him to Parker at this stage - not because of the career Parker has gone on to have but because some thought that Parker was a top 10 draft pick in his draft year and it was a surprise he slid so far, whereas none of us had heard of Warner when we picked him and we felt like we had reached for an unknown Kinnear Beatson special (even if he had played and acquitted himself well for the champion team at the National Championships).

[stevoswan]

Watch the Swans 'Merry Christmas' video.....it's brilliant.

Official AFL Website of the Sydney Swans Football Club

Fear not, this oddly titled link does get you there.

[mcs]

Watch the Swans 'Merry Christmas' video.....it's brilliant.

Official AFL Website of the Sydney Swans Football Club

Fear not, this oddly titled link does get you there.

Great stuff - most enjoyable!

And a Merry Christmas and happy new year to all those on RWO too! Been a challenging 2019 for our boys, but I feel good times are a comin' - just got to stay patient and enjoy the ride!

[Mel_C]

I hope it isn't true but I read a rumour that Naismith has done his Achilles. Please please be false.

[stevoswan]

I hope it isn't true but I read a rumour that Naismith has done his Achilles. Please please be false.

Yes, please be false but if not, what do we do? Last years stop gap measures were unhelpful to our progression so.......welcome to the one's Michael Knoll. Time to step up.