Back to training after a couple of weeks off. I was looking forward to getting back into it.
It is still the final week of school holidays so I was expecting numbers to be a bit low. There were 9 players at training, including Jared and his younger brother Matthew.
We started training with a straight forward kicking drill, just kicking in lanes with 2 players per parent helper. I then extended the drill to include running and bouncing the football with a kick to finish off. Only having 2 players per group kept everyone pretty busy.
The next drill incorporated using the bump bags. We had 3 parents with a bump bag and 1 parent rolling the football to the players who were coming out in single file, picking up the football giving 3 strong hip and shoulders to the parents holding the bump bags then running on and having a shot at the goals. All of the players did this drill very well. It’s pleasing to see the players getting more confident with using their bodies and not being worried about being bumped. Alex, Matthew, Jeremy and Jared were really hitting the bump bags hard.
We finished training with some match practice, 4 players v 5 players. The quality wasn’t the best to start with but the longer we played the better everyone got. Matthew really played well and even though he is younger he wasn’t intimidated. There was some rough stuff between the brothers Jared and Matthew but nothing I hadn’t seen before (I have 3 sons). Kevin was a bit of a star kicking a goal and doing a number of other really good kicks. Jordan took a strong contested mark. Jarred, Luke and Ethan were really hard at the football. Alex has a great work ethic, he enjoys chasing and tackling just as much as getting a kick. I was pleased with the effort of all the players, everyone was asking for a drink when we finished.
It was such a good training session I decided to give everyone a Freddo Frog (I must be getting soft).