What a difference a couple of days makes! On Friday, the conditions were possibly more challenging than the 6km that the players covered during the session. Today, cool and overcast weather made training substantially easier for the squad. It’s unlikely that the fellas will have too much time feeling comfortable with their trip to Alice Springs awaiting tomorrow.

Nathan Brown made his return to training on Friday, and today it was Danny Alvaro. Polar looks to have kept himself in good shape during his break. To be honest, would we expect anything different?

Weekend Rumours
I want to address this from the perspective of what I witness at training. Every aspect of what happens at Old Saleyards flies in the face of the claims of rifts or tensions. Not only are the players ripping in, they’re doing so with every bit of the team spirit and harmony on display throughout the last 12 months.

An apparently disgruntled Corey Norman.

With respect to the rumours surrounding BA and Corey Norman, I almost consider such talk as even unworthy of a response. However, let me simply say that Norman was again a training standout whilst being his usual talkative, laughing self – which evoked both praise and amusement from Arthur.
The subject requires no further comment.

Organisation
The session saw both ends of the oval used simultaneously, with the squad split into forwards and backs and then alternating between conditioning with Lachlan Wilmot and skills with Brad Arthur.
Before this, the warm ups, stretches and mechanics were done as a squad. Rubber bands were the order of the day, as the players worked individually and in pairs to strengthen the quads.
It was then time to build that balance and create force through their legs as the group pushed off from each leg.

The vision seen in Lachlan Wilmot’s Sports Science video here gives you an idea of what the squad were doing. The drill is designed to have the players capable of producing force when driving off either leg, without having to think about it.

Conditioning

Lachlan Wilmot leading the conditioning drills.

There was quite a bit of up and down off the ground this morning.
Tackle pads were laid out on the ground, with the players repeatedly hitting the pads and springing up, before getting up to run about 50 metres before returning for more of the same.
Without checking with the coaching staff, this seemed equal parts defensive and conditioning. From this layman’s perspective, it appeared to be a variation of the up and down drills conducted by Ronnie Palmer last season.

Skills
In the previous weeks, Arthur had been more of an overseer during the skills session. Today, the head coach was more hands on and there seemed to be a tactical component to the drills.
There were different drills for both the forwards and backs.

BA thinking about the weekend rumours.

The backs kicked off with simple one on one grid work, with the ball carrier trying to get past the defender. Short side drills saw the defender trying to push across on looming overlaps. Attacking plays with overlap opportunities followed.
The forwards appeared to be working on defensive decisions with A and B defenders and variations around the ruck.

Marata hits it up.

After about ten minutes on their drills, the groups would swap between Arthur and Wilmot.

Extras
A mixture of laughs and hard work took place at the end of the field session. Much of this is driven by the players as they work on aspects of their game that they want to improve.
Before they got into their extras, Bevan French and Corey Norman had a quick goal kicking competition. As they got organised, Will Smith drilled his only field goal attempt from out wide. Normz then nailed his first shot from the sideline before narrowly missing his second. Bev had a bit too much hook on his first shot which he looked to compensate for in positioning his second. It was an extravagant correction which drew plenty of questioning laughs from Corey and Will Smith. The result was exactly as Normz predicted!

The session rounded out with with the dummy halves working on their kicking skills, our backs fielding some high balls and Kenny Edwards and Tepai Moeroa completing their own sets of conditioning runs.
Tomorrow the squad head off on their visit to Alice Springs. Open training sessions and coach the coaches will be the feature of a trip concluding on Friday.
Eels forever!
Sixties

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