Unfortunately, work has prevented getting some posts up this week. Our TCT correspondents have been in attendance and sending through some observations, so I’ll do my best to briefly summarise tonight. My thanks go to Geoff for getting down to Saleyards.
Thursday
A stinking hot day that would better suit a cricket session, but this is what the pre-season regularly serves up. A couple of injuries were observed today. John Folau has a wrist injury and Cam King is in a moon boot (no word yet on the nature of the injury). ASADA were making one of their typical visits to a football team.
Absolutely precision passing drills today. The backs then worked on their kicking and catching skills, with the focus on the outside two backs getting their combinations correct to catch the high balls. Plenty of talk out there today, which was great from a team spirit perspective and for working out their calls. Across this session, Michael Jennings was a standout.
Michael Jennings impressed on Thursday.
During this time the forwards were also working on their shapes and combinations. Hitting their passes under pressure has been a key feature of the players work up the middle and we are developing their skills so that we aren’t relying solely on “noted” ball players.
Friday
This was a big conditioning and skills session. Thankfully the heat was gone but it was replaced by strong winds. The conditioning work saw the squad split into 2 groups with repeated runs up to 50 metres. This sort of work really pushes the players because there’s little time for recovery – it’s just effort on effort and exactly what you want the players to dish up on match day.
A further split into 3 groups saw one group continue with conditioning whilst the other two groups concentrated on ball work in the quarter. There was a bit of contact and some nice moments from French during this drill.
French caught the eye on Friday.
The session finished off with more conditioning work and 100metre sprints.
My thanks go to Geoff for attending.
Eels forever
Sixties
All images courtesy of the Parramatta Eels
Thanks for the reports again. Any feedback on who are the fastest over 100 metres?
100m runs are not done for speed but rather endurance. They are not a sprint but are still done at good pace and as a group. These are always done at the end of the session as well.
Thanks mate. If they ever do competitive 100 metre runs I would be curious who the top ten fastest are and by what margins
Another good one thanks Geoff and Sixties.
The first session was like the one up here on the coast.
I would back Jennings and French and Semi 3rd…..