Cooler conditions greeted the players for the commencement of this morning’s skills session. Quite a bit of kicking, and a friendly dose of banter, was the order of the day. TCT correspondent, Geoff, was again in attendance and has kindly provided the details for this report.
Welcome To The Tank
It was great to see Frank Pritchard in Eels gear at training today. The unexpected retirement of Danny Wicks has certainly been offset by the recruitment of a number of quality forwards, including Pritchard. The older brother of Kaysa will face stiff competition for an NRL position, yet having such a big, mobile player at his disposal might be difficult for BA to resist. Geoff reports that Pritchard looks to be in great condition for his first week at training.
Mixing It Up
It appeared as if the field session today moved away from conditioning and focussed purely on skills. This certainly helps to keep the players fresh and upbeat during what is traditionally the tough grind that all teams go through. Of course that doesn’t mean that the players will be getting a free pass from the hard slog of fitness work. In fact we’re hearing that they will be feeling the pain at their next visit to the fields.
Ruck It Out
The forwards spent today working on their passing skills and attacking shapes. With a focus on a sharp delivery from dummy half to begin each hit up, the forwards worked against the defensive pads. They also formed circles to complete fast passing drills. Much of this work was at the far end of the oval away from Geoff. Therefore he has more to report about the backs.
Sharp delivery to the first receiver.
Kick It To Me!
As the forwards went through their paces, the backs completed a series of kicking drills. There seemed to be an emphasis on both accuracy and technique. From grubbers kicks, to pass height kicks and chips, there were reminders about body and head position as they executed the drills. There was also the typical cross field bombs that worked on both the kicking skills of the halves and the high ball skills of the outside backs.
One drill that caught Geoff’s attention involved the group kicking to each other in a particular sequence with the aim being to complete as many kick/catches in a row as possible. The team eventually reached a benchmark of 35 completions before time was called.
Robson puts the ball up.
A Bit Of Banter
I’ve written about the positivity within the group and today Geoff commented on the friendly competitive banter that lightened the mood. Like any person would, the blokes enjoyed the game nature of a number of today’s drills. Just as the great Jack Gibson used to divide his squad into teams competing against each other as a method of keeping the work engaging, our current squad enjoys little contests that encourage a competitive edge.
Boys will be boys – plenty of fun banter today.
The Normz and Gutho Show
The opening round of the Premiership is still nearly four months away, but all the talk has been about whether our likely halves combination will be able to effectively steer the team throughout a tough 24 match season. These two blokes seemed to spend large chunks of their time today in each other’s pockets. Geoff noted that they were working specifically on some long passes.
Thanks again to Geoff for the updates sent to me today. Without his attendance and feedback such reports would not be possible.
Eels forever!
Sixties
All images courtesy of the Parramatta Eels
Very very noice guys. The only disappointment is we have to wait 4 months
Fritchard at training makes it all but official. I don’t see him in any of today’s training photos (official site) but if they’re saving his announcement it makes sense not to put his training pics up.
Ahhh Guys, you’ve done it again. Good to hear that FP is definitely with us. On 1eyed, some one commented that Matagi appeared too short for a FG middle forward, how did he compare in size with the other big boys? Many Thanks.
I wonder whether such a comment has been made by someone who’s ever watched him in action. That thought wouldn’t have crossed my mind. He’s 107kg of power. At just under 6ft, I don’t see a problem.
His lack of height only hurts his defence. It probably helps him in attack.
I wonder in regards to what sort of influence that Ron Palmer has in the signing of Matagai and even G Jennings?
BA may have been interested in both but with Ron now the eels conditioner and at the Panthers this year he would have a fair insight into both players as to skill points as well as condition. I only really noticed Matagai in a couple of games last year one being the game against the eels, 2nd round and another one where he certainly made an impact, especially in attack.
Thanks for the update guys. A great read!
these are great mate, keep them up
What is impressing me is there seems to be more a focuse on ball work so far and very early in the training process. Hopefully this may be a pointer that the key playmakers are going to be just that next season with a more open style of play, especially in attack. I certainly hope so.
Thanks Geoff and Sixties; this is great to read and provides us with a real insight into the training and what the players are working on.
Wish I was down there watching. Cheers and I love reading this even if I am at work….
Keep all the traini9ng reports coming guys, good work and very enjoyable.
Was the Fog doing any drills with the other 2 halves?
I just noticed that Normie & Guth seemed to team up as a training pair yesterday for the skills stuff
Most ball playing drills are either left or right as you would see in the game so there tends to be only one half in each play. If you are drilling your LHS the RHS acts as the defence and vise versa
What I will say about the Fog is I have been impressed with the way he has gone about his work at training. He has lead a lot of fitness stuff from the front and does a lot of talk encouraging his team mates to keep up or drive themselves a little more. As good as anyone in the kicking drills, looks the part in ball work and he is a bit bigger than you would think. A couple of time at a distance he has reminded me of John Simon. Best of luck to him
There’s a player in the eels skills session that I think is Fogarty, number 22, if I am correct & it is him, he’s really quite well bulit for a half looking at the sinewy leg muscles is very typical of someone that has done a lot of strength and muscle building up of the legs.
A new video is also up on the eels web site of the training, all looking good, and watching Tim Mannah in a couple of the runs he seems to be less puffed than some of the other forwards and very much in front of them as well.
Timmy is in front for all the running drills. Other guys who lead regularly are Guth Normie & De Gois. All the players are pretty consistent with only a couple behind the others at this stage of the season. Those guys did better this week than last week. Tep looked like he could run forever today. I noticed at the end of the session today Alvaro pushing himself harder at a faster pace for the last couple of laps. Few new guys signed in his position, good to see him show he is not gonna give it up easy
Even the clip showing Alvaro pushing himself next to Tim, Tim finished in front and did not appear to be as puffed either. I think thats a good sign for the both of them especially Alvaro owing to the amount of competition there is in front of him now.
RE the Fog. I would certainly agree with you regarding his weight. think he must have turned the scales down a bit for him to come in under 80kgs. Looking at each set of photo’s with him in them what can be seen is he looks very much a leader and I believe he may surprise a lot of eels supporters and really push for a top spot. Maybe as a 9
Yep No22 is the Fog. well built under the shirt too. There is no way he is only 77kgs