Your recipe for a productive morning field session at Kellyville.
Entrée
“Sprints a la Elkin”
After warming them up, take the squad through a series of sprints. Some individuals can be placed alongside each other for comparison but most are best to compete against themselves.

Warm ups
Note the performances of those who choose to commence sprints simultaneously.
For example, the small margin between Moses and Brown on finishing. Also the form and response from Gutherson to Moses after almost matching him over 60 metres “had you with a legs tackle”.
Add extra spice with a dash of Usain Bolt impersonations from Brendan Hands.
Main Course
“Lightly Contacted Football With Extra Officials”
Ingredients:
Six coaches, 28 players, three referees
Method:
1. Invite three referees and their supervisor to training. Upon their arrival, identify each (Tood Smith, Belinda Sharpe and Phil Henderson) and allow them to warm up away from the players.
2. Split the squad into NRL and NSW Cup teams. Provide opportunities for more players to shine in the NRL side, such as Matt Doorey and Ofahiki Ogden.

Opposed action
3. Coaches can minimise the infusion of the referees by blowing a whistle when play is to stop. Play can be re-started at a position on the field determined by coaches. Possession of the ball can also be determined by the coaches. This switches the defensive load onto either team.
4. The level of contact will not have the impact of an NRL match, though crash plays and charging hit ups will be met by defensive force.
5. Referees can control penalty or six again calls, offsides, obstructions, knock ons, forward passes.
6. After completing the footy, feedback can be sought from match officials
Monday Specials
* A try to Simonsson who chased down and regathered a perfectly executed grubber kick by Moses.
* Guymer making a half break off an Ethan Sanders pass
* A brilliant cut out pass from Dyl to Sivo for the try. Baz called out praise for Dylan before he even received the ball. Perhaps Dylan made a correct “over call” to hit the left side?
* Close range crash play try for Ofahiki Ogden
* Shaun Russell getting across in the corner off a right side shift in the 20
* Matt Arthur making a clean break from dummy half before finding Ethan Sanders in support for the try
* Matto crashing over off a short ball from Brendan Hands

Players come together after the session
Additional Notes
Mondays are typically a mix of skills and conditioning. The inclusion of opposed work to the point where it took up most of the session is indicative of how close we are to the first of the trials. It should be noted that today’s “footy” did not include long periods of continuous play.
Consequently, there were a couple of line breaks by the NRL team that were pulled up before a try could be scored. Setting up attack or defence from particular points on the field looked to be the focus.
Referees would appreciate being included in sessions such as this. With three in attendance, they were able to rotate being the main official and taking on touch judge roles. It’s the best possible training that they can have during a preseason.
The club should benefit from seeing if there are any practical changes in interpretation for the upcoming season. At the end of such sessions there is normally an opportunity for questions and feedback.
I’ve spoken to NRL refs at training over the years and they informed me that they are available for all clubs to utilise in their opposed work.
Eels forever!
Sixties
Love the integration of six coaches, three referees and two teams. Really would keep the players focussed.
It was a good session. This is the time of year when we start to see refs at training
Great stuff as always mate. Matt athur seem to be getting some good moments at training.
I’m very interested to see how our nsw cup lineup will be come round 1
Well it would be off the bench so maybe 20min per game to start off with. Still woudlnt mind MA to start the season in flegg
The Eels have the opportunity to keep Arthur, Sanders and Lynn together in the Cup team. This keeps the SG Ball and Flegg combination together. I think there’s a genuine chance of that happening.
How would Lyn be in the cup team? I thought Asi and sanders would be the halves?
At this stage I’d expect Sanders and Lynn to play there.
Asi just a filler, lynn chance going forward , lynn and sanders and ma know each others games and got job done sgball and flegg , makes sense to me, ps. Asi cant tackle
Coaching staff will make right decisions who plays where , they’re the ones at training!! EA is that you electric analysis ??
Why the exclamation marks. I never said the team must do it. Just said what I think they will do and what I would like to see maybe. And yes it is. Why you asking?
All ok ea , just wondering what you base things on , tct boys attend all training and junior rep games , are your opinions just assumptions and guesses like us all?
Boods Arthur is a tough and skilled player. Reads the game exceptionally well.
Is my interpretation correct that Hands has high level speed and that Gutho can almost match Moses?
If so I think a number of people would be surprised by that.
Hands had a bit of fun with the Bolt pose after one of his sprints. Gutho surprised me with his pace. There’s vision of it posted by Eels media.
Thanks as always for your report Sixties. I know that you can’t give away team tactics, set moves and so on but what are you seeing at training in terms of changes to our defensive structures especially out wide? This has been our Archillies Heel for several seasons but doesn’t seem to be improving
Simply a lot of work on communication, structures and technique. Remember, I’m only watching field sessions. They also do contact work on other days.
Was there emphasis on defence? By the reports about the number of tries scored it doesn’t sound that there was.
The Warriors last year went from last in defence the prior year to third. But Webster still not satisfied, wants to be first. Same with Broncos, they massively improved. The two best teams for D last year, Panthers and Broncos. The two teams in G/F, Panthers and Broncos. That is the quantum leap and mind set we need to adopt and develop with us before we can even think about premiership success. Yet year after year our edge defence is poor and we sit well back in that stat. If other teams can do it, why can’t we????
Agreed abt Defence Glenn; we sort this consistently and we make top 8/4. It’s been an issue…
Hey Milo, see my detailed response to Glenn.
Glenn, I put this in a reply to someone else recently and in some reports. When the coaches are determining who has possession, besides providing the opportunity for one team to attack, they increase the defensive load on the other team. Hence there will be prolonged periods where either the NRL or NSW Cup team are forced to defend. The coaches will continue to hand possession to the other team, and find points for them to attack from. Penalties, scrums, line drop outs, kick chases, pinning the opponent on their line etc.
They also practise defence in drills, where rather than NRL vs NSW cup, they work in corridors – left side vs right side. They work on individual technique at field sessions and also do contact work on other days. I have reported on this, and rather than re-write this in every report because it gets repetitive, I mostly focus on attacking highlights. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t included defensive highlights, because I have. However, there are two sides to the game and working on one in drills often means working on the other. If I write that they have an “unopposed” attacking drill, it means there is no defence involved.
Thanks 60s. I’m sure you’ll agree that unless there is a fundamental change to our training to fix our defensive woes we’ll continue to make up the numbers and not be competitive enough to win the premiership. Have you noticed any change to our training this year re defence?
Glenn, there was no shortage of work done on defence in 2023. The problem was players making straight out misses or falling out of the systems. Most teams operate a slide. The difference is how well the players execute
We also had a defensive system that limited six against and penalties, this meant less wrestle. Because the refs have gone back to allowing wrestle in the ruck more and more this meant our markers and defensive line was retreating rather than being set. This means more metres up the middle and an easier chance to spread the ball for our opposition.
I believe we changed our defensive mentality later in the year. With an off-season with this change, if the change is definite we should see more wrestling, which should hopefully see less metres conceded and the edge defence being less compressed. Of course this is going to come with more penalties and six against.
I can’t understand why our wide defence has had the elements of wet tissues for some years now. I’m knocking up talking about it. The only time we look OK is the 4 or 5 games we complete high and concede low errors/penalties,but give the other mob a few freebies and we’re likely to get exposed. We started to improve when Penisini arrived but I think he’s been neutralised by the bigger problem, and some games Moses and Brown scramble like hell and lessen the problem when what we need is a team wide system, capability and attitude. Apols sixties, worn record I know, but fix this and we’re genuine top 4.
Defence a big issue for parra. I don’t have the energy to go through the metres conceded aspect, the edge defence aspect, the line speed aspect, the wrestling aspect like I have on other posts but it suffices to say we have never really be convincing in defence from an eye test perspective. Usually we need really high completions and insane cover defence to give ourselves a shot against any half decent team. We can’t consistently rely on our defence to stick solid under pressure. We historically get skinned so easily on edges.l by teams who are willing to shift early (manly, bunnies etc) and/teams with pace (titans magic round, lpast games against storm etc). I don’t know what will change this year but I sure hope it’s something. Otherwise we risk a miserable 8-13th finish
Ron, I’ve read your thoughts on defence. Totally objective, not just your opinion, supported by stats and accurate recording of events. I just don’t get why we havent closed the gap on the Panthers (ie the benchmark) at all. Without attempting a detailed comparison, the Panthers always have numbers to protect their flanks and if they don’t, the opposition have played great football and earned it. We cough up some really simple stuff, even when we stop them your heart rate has gone skyward. Because of our roster disruption last year, we also got rolled through the middle at times, but I have more confidence here with the right team selection, we’ve got to keep an eye on mobility factors if we think our power game is a winner. I had a chuckle last year when Hopgood got accused of missing tackles in a couple of games when he was the only one with the fitness and mobility to get into position to defend after opposing forwards had played through the ruck. He missed the tackles because our structure was smashed by up tempo play.
Thanks mate. I’m in agreement with what you’re observing. On the one hand parra have been naive at times with tactics so that falls on coaches but, in terms of personnel, there has also been some very ordinary moments aswell. If I was to put my money on things I’d say our props lack of line speed and agility makes the middle very loose when we don’t have momentum (and leads, as you note, to hopgood having to unsustainable amounts of clean up work for the props and thus a snow ball effect esp when ba doesn’t use his bench well enough). The contraction of the line once the props fatigue or just lose momentum all together is then fatal for our edges.
Also, sometimes I note that our edge backrowers also don’t have enough line speed and get sucked in when other teams shift whilst leaving half/centre/winger on an island by themselves. Given the edge defence is dictated by the backrower there is surely room for improvement here.
60s no doubt sees them work on these things (I have no doubt the coaches drill the sensible scheme into players) but until we see some consistency in defensive schemes and resilience on the field it’s not going to count for much unfortunately
There seems to be a theme in responses to this post that the Eels don’t spend time on defence. They do. It gets at least equal treatment as I detailed in my reply to Glenn.
Yum!😋 ‘let them cook’ as the kids say, lol.
I’ll have the captains run T drop as dessert!
What a Monday!!🔥
The captains run gear looks like it’s going to be very popular.
Thanks Sixties for the reports.
Gotta agree with defence as a key issue to address. The mindset has to be tougher this year.
Pete, I’m sounding like a broken record on my response to the replies here. See my detailed response to Glenn. Defence is 50% of the game. It gets no shortage of attention.
sixties have you seen the team practicing short drop outs or changing tactics in response to the new rule changes?