Barry Stuart Cable

A pretty chilly training session this was.  The wind was like ice.  I was glad to be kicking and running around with the kids.

Good numbers at training again (16), I’m going to assume everyone is enjoying training and that’s why they keep coming back.

The parent support was again excellent, with Steve, Adam (Steve’s son), Marty, Dave, Tim (my son), Adrian and Cole who was tying bootlaces.  I also noticed Christine and Thalia keeping some of the kids focused.  It’s great to see so many parents willing to get invloved, it makes the Coaches job so much easier.

The drills for today involved handballing, kicking, marking (overhead), bouncing the football and kicking for goal on the run.

We completed training with our now traditional match practice.  The quality of these practice games is getting better and better.  Cambell and Alex were the stand outs for me, they really want to be involved in the action all of the time.  Kobe is just getting better and better.  Everytime Nick got the ball he used it very well.  Amelie did a couple of nice kicks.  Despite Kevin’s size he is fearless and he won a few contested possessions against much bigger kids.  The Pescud brothers, Dylan and Keiran are really hard at the football and played very well.  Jensen had an injured leg which was causing him to limp a bit but he didn’t complain and was involved in some really good plays.

Thanks very much to Jo for bringing down a bag of Freddo Frogs.  I’m not sure it’s ideal timing to give these to the players after training just before they have their dinner but I haven’t had any complaints yet.

Our first away game of the season and an early 8am start.  The game was at Gairloch Reserve in Applecross.

Truan, Damian and Matthew needed a lift to the game so I picked them up on the way.  We only had three players missing, Nick, Amelie and Alex.  It was a great effort by the parents to get all of the kids to the game on time this morning.

I thought the conditions were pretty good.  It was overcast but not cold and the surface of the oval was nice and dry (i.e. no dew).

Once again the players did a good job and the improvement is noticeable.  Kobe was dishing off some great handballs to bring players into the game.  Matt had a bundle of kicks and was kicking goals.  Truan took an excellent mark running with the flight of the ball.  Kevin was getting into the packs and getting the ball out to other players.  Cambell as usual was in the thick of the play grabbing contested marks, tackling and getting plenty of kicks.  Really impressed by Jayden, he gets better every week and looks like he really enjoys his football.  Jensen put in an excellent effort and setup some really good plays from defence.

Dylan’s little brother Keiran had a run on the ground and got the ball (although he’s not part of this team he just couldn’t watch any longer without getting onto the ground).

We got a couple of injuries, an opposition player landed on Dylan’s leg which caused him a bit of pain and Nathan copped a hit in the face.  Both boys are OK.

We had the rotations on and off the ground going today because we could only play 12 on the ground.  We didn’t get it exactly right, I think someone was on for the entire game while everyone else had to spend some time on the sidelines.

An enjoyable morning and very encouraging to see the players improving.

Decided to do one on one coaching with some of the players.  We just practised some quick handball, overhead marking and kicking.  I think it worked well because I wanted to give some of the players a little bit of extra training and you can’t really do that with everyone training in a big group.

Steve had the players practising running and bouncing the ball.  Some of them were pretty good at it especially because we hadn’t practised it before.  They also had a bit of competitive fun playing leader ball with a football.  Steve had a good goal kicking exercise which all the players enjoyed – they all love kicking a goal.  Great work with the drills Steve and thanks to all of the helpers, Marty, Neil,  Adrian, Tim (I know I’ve forgotten someone).

We finished training with about 20 minutes of match practise.  Everyone played pretty well, I think the players are getting better at reading the play and putting themselves into the action.  We’ve certainly toughened up because a couple of players got knocked during the match practise and in the past they would have stopped playing but tonight they just shrugged it off and kept going.

Amelie is really training well and for someone who hasn’t played before she is improving very quickly.  Caleb did some pretty smart things during the practise match.  Truan, Jordan and Luke did some excellent defensive plays i.e. chasing, smothering and tackling.  Matt had the ball on a string.  Nick’s a quiet kid but he’s good some great skills and he never misses a target. Kobe was just starting to show his speed, he’s going to be awesome once he gets his confidence up.

Looking forward to this week’s game v Applecross. 8am start time!!

With this weekend being a long weekend I wasn’t sure what the turn out would be like – but 14 players made it which was pretty good.  Initially I was worried no one was coming to training because at about 8:50am only Jeremy and Kobe were there, but as usual in the next 10 minutes everyone turned up.

All of the kids seemed really keen to run around this morning, probably because it was freezing and they wanted to warm up. Everyone was working really hard in the drills.  The skill level and enthusiasm was very good.

The parent support as usual was very good with parents happy to assist with the drills.  Although Marty got a bit carried away and injured his back.

We had a bit of match practice during the second half of training which was well umpired by Steve.  Luke, Alex, Cambell and Damien really impressed with their endeavour.   Matthew, Jeremy and Truan did some nice long kicks. Ethan was darting in and out of the packs.

Special acknowledgement to Kevin who has really improved his marking and kicking and has obviously been doing some extra training at home – well done.

Great training session this morning – well done everyone!