It’s been a while since my last Report; in fact it’s been so long three players have got married, and one very smart player popped the question and got engaged. So what has been going on?

In a nutshell, running, lactic acid, eat, lift weights, eat, sleep, then repeat.

Despite this cycle a few other events have taken place; here’s just a few:

Christmas Carols
Christmas has well and truly come and gone, and I tried my best to get a final practical joke in before Christmas last year, but unfortunately it never eventuated.

I heard that a company called Uber were doing a special for the last Friday before Christmas. Uber were driving small choirs around Sydney and for a small fee you could book them to come to your workplace.

I initially thought about sending a choir over to GWS to send Shane Mumford some Christmas spirit, however with us having a big lactic running session booked in that Friday, I thought why not try and organise the choir to be situated on the finish line for our running session that last day?

Strategically, the plan was to not tell anyone about it, and then just as our running session would begin at 10am the choir would mysteriously appear and start singing as we belt out repetitive 200 and 400-metre sprints.

I decided not to tell anyone about it, as even though I thought it would be a bit of a laugh, part of me was aware that if Horse didn’t like it then I could be in a spot of bother. By remaining anonymous, if he asked questions I could just blame Kevin Sheedy, which I thought actually sounds quite likely!

Well, it wasn’t meant to be. Uber were starting the promotion at midday and we’d be off the track by 11am.

Back to the drawing board!

New Players
Well, we’ve picked up a new guy from Hawthorn by the name of Buddy Franklin. Heard of him? He’s played on me a few times in the past. Well, as much as I like to think that he played on me, there’s a fair argument that says it’s the other way around!

We had more media at his first training session at the Swans then we’ve had in a long time. I think the last time we had that much media at a training session Barry Hall had punched someone!

Looking forward to playing alongside him this year (but not looking forward to the intra-club practice games for obvious reasons!).Cricket
Cricket was back in a big way over summer and it was no different at the Swans. Whenever we got an opportunity, out came the bat and ball, and a few of us snuck in a quick game.

As has been happening for years, Nick ‘Phil Tufnell’ Smith is still throwing down his unique ‘spin balls that don’t spin’ deliveries, which time and time again get the treatment they deserve, and more often than not result in a lost ball.

Nicknames
New player Aliir Aliir seems to have a nickname that has stuck. Credit to Dane Rampe as I believe he was the first to start using it. Now we all call Aliir, ‘Chand’ Aliir.

Other new recruit Tom Derickx's surname is a unique one. The ‘x’ is pronounced as an ‘s’, so for what it’s worth I could be Ted Richardx. The name Derickx is Dutch, so I thought that we could try and bring ‘The Flying Dutchman’ title back after one of my childhood heroes Paul Van Der Haar. However, it doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue that quick, so that didn’t stick, and a few of us just call him T-Rex. Keep a look out for T-Rex running around with number 19 on his back.

Best pre-season so far
Ben McGlynn. For me, this guy has had an incredible pre-season and has been the best on the track by far.

Congratulations
A big congratulations to Mike Pyke who has been promoted from the Australia ‘rookie list’ - as a resident - onto the Australia ‘senior list’ as a fully fledged Australian citizen!

Congratulations ‘Aussie’ Mike Pyke!

Song of the Week
I’ve set up a SoundCloud account. From now on each ‘Song of the Week’ will be added to my playlist, along with other songs I like that don’t get a mention on here.

This week’s song is by an Australian group; ‘Drag Me Home’ by World’s End Press.

Here’s the link - https://soundcloud.com/tedrichards

Until next time,

Ted Richardx
Twitter: @tedrichards25
Instagram: @tedrichards25