I hadn’t heard if I was accepted for the volunteer job as a tweeter so I decided to make myself feel better about last week’s loss to Essendon and watch the Round 3, 2007 game where the Blues were down by 48 points and came back to win by 3. Great stuff. Plus by the end of it I had been picked to do the training tweets.
The training session was what I would call light. I am a fan not an analyst or professional by any means so bare with me. It was the usual warm up kicks while the group made their way one by one onto the ground. All the players were stopping to give the fans autographs and photo opportunities.
After a warm up lap with stretches in between, it was a three man weave style exercise. I didn’t see a dropped handball and the speed was ridiculous. As in ridiculously good. It is great to watch that in training and even better during the games. It is a wonder that those boys ever get tackled. Then ducking and dodging the trainers as they put up some light defence.
Their kicking looked great, on the run and from set shots. Even Ratts still has a great kick. It was a warm day and seeing some trainers sitting in the shade of the WACA light towers proved it. Armfield was clearly chilly with his long training skins and Eddie Betts’ training shorts are as baggy as his match shorts.
Jarrad Waite and Dennis Armfield practice their set-shots.
Once they hit full flight up and down the Lillee Marsh wing with kicks, handballs and impressive marks it was hard to see them being beaten tomorrow night. If they play as good as they train and hit targets like they can then tomorrow is going to be a ripper. The only downside to the morning’s session was that Chris Yarran was sitting in the shade of the stands and not running out of defence like in the games. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery for him, Carrazzo and Laidler who have all become solid pillars of the Carlton structure.
I hope that after last week’s loss they are as thirsty for victory as I was for a beer standing out in the sun during the training session. Good luck tomorrow night boys.
Brendon Bin Salleh
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