Collingwood Pre-Season Training Report: 22/12/2006 (Friday)

[Johnson#26]

Collingwood Pre-Season Training Report: 22/12/2006:
By Luke Mason

You would have thought that this morning’s training session may have been an easier one for the Magpies. After all, it is their final training session prior to the festive break. But you couldn’t have guessed it had you seen the intensity which they worked at.

Plenty of work was done, toiling under the harsh Melbourne skies and through the cool breeze which kept the temperature under wraps.

The group now look forward to the joys of Christmas and some well deserved time off, before getting back on the horse in the new year.

The players hit the track in the early hours of the morning whilst the mere mortals were simply getting themselves to work. The group stretched, and began a drill which ran up and down the field, in what appeared to be something of a cross between lanework and old fashioned circlework.

This was the main theme for the first hours of the morning, with the players soon called into a huddle by the recently retired Blake Caracella, who took charge of the group, before heading back out, spreading themselves along the field.

The players would run the ball down the ground, working their way through the middle of the field before finding the loose forward all midfields love to see.

New recruits Nathan Brown, Brad Dick and the rookie listed Brent Macaffer and Sharrod Wellingham all teamed with former club defensive stalwart Alan Richardson, who has since developed into a highly acclaimed assistant coach specialising in cultivating youth, doing simple kicking drills in a pocket.

The players then continued on to moving the ball up and down the field, running in numbers, while the younger players took part in ball handballing activities on the side of the field.

It was at this point when Travis Cloke, Chris Dawes, Ben Reid, Paul Licuria, Tyson Goldsack, Paul Medhurst, Brodie Holland, Heath Shaw and Carlton recruit Chris Bryan arrived, kitting themselves in boxing gloves, taking part in simple punches to each others hands, hardly a spar to scare anyone.

As the players huddle in the middle, centre half forward Anthony Rocca also decked himself out in the boxing gloves, clashing fists with a trainer on the other side of the oval.

Scott Pendlebury and Harry O'Brien linked up with the boxes, joining Goldsack, Medhurst, H.Shaw, Bryan and Licuria in stretching elastics in what appeared to be quite a strenuous drill, with the key emphasis on the arm muscles, the biceps and triceps.

Meanwhile with the gloves, Cloke faced off with Dawes and Reid with Holland, the players working overtime in furiously pumping their fists.

The main group were by now easing the ball out of defence via ruck work, with the players in the white singlets to run the pigskin up field to score opposed to their orange counterparts.

Rocca was now completing a series of short run-throughs along the outer wing.

The main drill was now taking on a more match like intensity, with stoppages beginning to arise and players starting to go harder and harder at the man. An unperturbed John Anthony, the man expected to act as the staple in the Pies defence over the course of the next decade, put down a far more experienced Rhyce Shaw with a classic bump on the wing. Anthony has certainly been a standout on the track todate this summer.

With Rocca joining the elastic stretching group, the rest of the squad took a seat while listening to their assistants, splitting up into separate drills around the oval.

Ben Johnson, Shane Wakelin, Wellingham, Egan, Dick, Macaffer, Anthony and the two Ryan’s, Cook and Lonie, took part in some ball handling drills, with the rest of the squad taking part in some one-on-one overhead marking drills on the eastern side of the oval.

The boxing group went for a leisurely stroll around the oval, with Reid instead running his share of three laps. The groups rotated between drills, with upgraded rookie Shannon Cox jogging over to his handballing teammates when the assistant’s whistle calling them into a huddle.

Following a long talk in the centre square, it appeared that training was done and dusted.

But it was not to be.

The group instead split into four sections, taking part in a difficult gut circuit on the boundary line. One group (assistants included) would be working with the elastics, another lifting weights with a single hand, pumping them up and down alongside one another. Another bunch pulled weights in a different, seated fashion, whilst one of the more challenging aspects was the station which saw the players lift weights, one in each hand, and ferry them from one end to the other, before dodging and weaving their ways through some poles in an agility test. With ten minutes apiece dedicated to each activity, it was not for the fainthearted.

Finally, it was time to draw stumps and leave the field for the rest of the year, the group looking ahead to some time off over Christmas before kickstarting their charge towards the Holy Grail in early 2007.

As an aside, skipper Nathan Buckley was a notable absentee from training this morning, and it is assumed that he is with wife Tania, who is due to give birth to the couples first child. We wish them (and the baby) every success.

Also, I'd like to mention what a lovely young man new recruit Brad Dick is. Met him today and he seems a very nice, mature person. Good luck in '07, Brad.

Merry Christmas to all, and keep the faith.