From my position in the midfield I really liked the battle between Mark Seaby and young Daniel Currie in the ruck. It was a very competitive ruck display, they probably broke even so it was an interesting tussle.
Young Irishman Chris McKaigue was also good. He kicked a couple of goals around his body Gaelic style, but it is the only way to learn, to play games. And Trent Dennis-Lane and Jarred Moore were both fantastic around goals, kicking five each.
I had to wear a GPS tracking device which made it even hotter, and we didn’t have enough players to interchange so we had to play the whole game in the midfield which was a bit tough, but it was great for our game fitness ahead of next week’s first pre-season Cup game against Carlton.
But we dealt with the heat really well, just taking in as much fluid as possible so you can keep on running because that’s what the game is about these days.
This pre-season is as good as I’ve ever felt. I felt a bit stronger out there and my running was good and I’m feeling really confident. I’m looking forward to a big year!
We had official umpires today so it was interesting to see how they handled a few decisions.
There were three 50m penalties in a row because opposition players came too close to the guy who had been awarded a free kick when they were running past. And there was another interesting moment when Roosy ran onto the field to ask the umpires about a holding the ball decision against Byron Sumner. We loved it because the game stopped and we got a breather!
There had been a tackle on Byron and the umpires paid holding the ball, and Roosy wanted to know why. The umps said it was because Byron had not made a real attempt to get rid of the ball. It seems like they’re going to give us more time to get rid of the ball, but if you just take the tackle and wait for a ball-up, they’ll pay it against you. It seems like it’s ok even if you sort of throw it out, as long as you make an attempt to get rid of it - so that will be interesting!
What today showed though is that the guys are itching to play. We’ll have Goodesy and a few of the other guys playing next week against Carlton so we’ll have a big target up there and then some exciting young guys so we are really looking forward to it.
Next week we’ll go back to training in the afternoons, preparing for the season proper. And I’ll be preparing to play on one of the fantastic Carlton midfielders. I’m sure I’ll be running around on Chris Judd at some stage and they say he’s ready for a big pre-season competition because he’s suspended for the first few regular season games. Roosy reckons he’ll be looking to stock up with 40 possessions a week, but hopefully not against us!
Clementine and I are going out tonight with Marty Mattner and his girl because they helped us a lot with our recent wedding and we want to pay them back. So we’ll have dinner, and then I think it might be early to bed for me…
