The Coaches Corner

WAFL Swan Districts
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By Greg Harding
Tuesday, 9th October 2012

The season is officially over now after Shaun Hilderbrandt was named as the Swan Medallist for 2012 on Friday night.

The event capped off a successful year where we dragged ourselves up the ladder and gave ourselves a chance to win the competition by finishing 2nd at the end of the regular season. Whilst bowing out in straight set is never a good thing, we were up to our eyeballs in both games and had our chances to go further but it wasn’t to be. In any season you need some luck to go your way injury wise and unfortunately for the second year in a row we were dealt more than our fair share and if we can turn this injury rate around next year, we will be stronger again. Pratt, Miles, Jacky, Harvey, Van Groningen, Riggio, Robinson, and Davis would have been handy inclusions for the finals, as would Walters if AFL results had have fallen our way. However, the boys that played had a real crack and some of our young kids did a huge job. Stephens, Outridge, Faulkner, Newman, Blight, Manton and Garlett formed a group of youngsters with barely a season of WAFL footy under their belt and will only improve as they mature physically. The experience of two high intensity finals played against some big, strong AFL bodies will also hold these boys in great stead for the future. With names like Howard, Latch, Jukes, A.Smith, Daniels and Broad continuing to come on, the future looks bright.

Our Swan Medallist had a superb finals campaign to round out a most consistently brilliant season where he averaged 26 disposals a game. His ability to exhaust himself on a footy field is without peer and he was a deserved winner of the Best and Fairest. Kyle Hams had another great year to run second. His performances in defence on some of the best small forwards in the competition were outstanding with his epic battles with Paul Medhurst being one of the match ups of the year at WAFL level. Marlon Motlop capped a stellar first year at the club by running 3rd. His efforts through the midfield this year have been extremely strong and his silky skills and speed have made us so much better in 2012. High Wycombe favorite Justin Simpson showed his versatility with a top finish in the fairest and best after a full year at center half back. His strength and courage were a standout in the back half and he arguably had his best and most consistent year to date. Rounding out our top 5 was Tim Geappen. His defensive tackling and chasing went to a new level this year and when he added these skills to his armoury, he became one of our most important players.

Nathan Blakely and Fraser Miller took out the Reserves and Colts Awards respectively and they both have bright futures after coming out of our strong country zone. They along with many other young up and comers, will form the core of our group in 2013 and beyond. With up to 4 Swans boys now ready to go next year, recruiting has already begun. Casserly, Pratt, Miles and Robinson are all excited about the season ahead and they will make us stronger. Im sure a few more new names will find themselves in the black and white in the weeks to come.

Pre-season is only a month away and we cant wait. 2012 has provided us with a great platform attack the next season with real confidence.

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Good work George, I’ll get around to making it so we can post articles to the main page so as they don’t get lost. It will be quite easy for you to post this way too.

While we are on the subject, I might make a separate area where we and the fourm faithful can submit ideas. If I’m smart enough we’ll be able to implement some.
:cheer:

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Sounds great

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By Greg Harding
19/11/2011

It has all begun again and at our first training session, we had 82 keen players on the track ready to start the long road that is a pre season.

There’s been a few changes since the end of the season in regard to personnel with Cam Shepherd and Paul Vines shooting down the road to join the now Fremantle aligned Peel Thunder. These two coaches have been replaced by a number of experienced heads, all with history at the Ducks.

COACHES
John Laurito (97 games), Mark Piani (137 games) and Clint Hampson (81 Games and State CHB) have re-acquainted themselves with the club, along with newly appointed Reserves Coach Andrew Pruyn. All four of these men have had long affiliations with the Swan Districts footy club and are fantastic additions to our coaching team.

LOSSES
As a person and player, you couldn’t get a more professional bloke than Ash Hansen and after 99 Games in Black and White he has decided to retire and return home to Victoria. He has accepted a coaching/development role with the Western Bulldogs and has already started pre-season last week. We wish him well and thank him for the superb contribution he made to the footy club over a long period of time. James Embley received limited opportunity at senior level in the past couple of years and has a burning desire to play senior footy. After being a great servant of the footy club, we wish him all the best in his endeavours in 2013 with West Perth.

We also lost Marlon Motlop and Jarrhan Jacky abruptly who have also joined Peel, and Ray Daniels who has joined Subiaco.

GAINS
We begin our pre-season excited about what lies ahead. We get Luke Pratt, Brett Robinson and Luke Miles back after 12 months out with injury or work commitments. Travis Casserly returns fresh and ready to go, and we have already secured a hard inside midfielder in Aaron Elari from Perth Football Club.
Further announcements are imminent in regard to further recruits, which will be confirmed after the National and Rookie drafts are completed in the next week or two.

We have a week under our belt already which culminated in a very hot and humid morning on Monday which saw a handful of boys lose their brekky after a tough running session at Steel Blue. All good fun though and part of the process of going a couple of steps further than our effort in 2012.

GH

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I had heard around the traps that we were going to lose Ryan Davis, but he trained last night i heard so that was re-assuring, also heard Riggio is a big chance to get drafted..i hope not and he stays with us and WP dont try and poach him again

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Monday, 26th November 2012
By Greg Harding

Week 2 is behind us after a pretty heavy week which culminated with a beach session on Saturday morning. The boys are pretty sore as they get back into things after a 6 week break since the Prelim.

It’s the worst part of the whole pre-season to be honest. Your body basically goes into shock as it tries to deal with running and kicking loads in these first few weeks. When you throw contested work in on top, plus weights and then a different type of training like our beach session and muscles start to have an almighty whinge! With every pre-season program, you load the boys up and then give them a nice easy week before you launch again. We have a big 4 sessions ahead of us over the next 7 days, and then we’ll ease off so the players still have a fortnight of pain ahead of them until their bodies settle into the routine.

That’s the thing about WAFL footy that sometimes people forget. With clubs like CFC and East Freo boasting 8 or 10 AFL listed players every week, our club needs to prepare like an AFL system or it can’t be even remotely competitive physically. But all of our players also either work or study so it’s a massive commitment for them compared with the AFL listed boys who have the whole day to prepare their bodies, and then spend the time on recovery etc. That’s the business we find ourselves in, and to stay competitive and to push further than last year, that’s just what we have to do day in and day out.

Tonight we see 4 favourites return to the track. Luke Pratt begins running for the first time since his second knee op. Brett Robinson rejoins full training after a minor knee flare up. Travis Casserly had a little calf strain and returns to full training along with Luke Miles who hasn’t played for 18 months after going through the Fire Brigade school.

All 4 look very fit, and should have a massive say in our fortunes in 2013.

GH

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Monday, 3rd December 2012
By Greg Harding

3 weeks into preseason and last week was a belter. All up over the 4 sessions we nudged almost 40kms for the week with hard running skill drills being complimented by our conditioning program which saw volume go through the roof.

Saturday was brutal with a 1 and a half hour program seeing the players take on one of Perths most iconic training facility, the DNA tower at the top of Kings Park. We started with a 1.5km warm up by running from the bottom of the hill up to the stairs and then we started the hard stuff.

5 x flat out efforts up the tower followed by 5 x 250m sprint efforts up the incline to really test the legs. After this set the boys were buggered but we went again and did another set which ended up totalling just under 10kms for the morning. It wasn’t the length of the session that was so difficult but those hill runs and tower test so many different muscles that don’t get used as much on the flat. There were more than a few weird running actions on the warm down afterward as players tried to get their legs to function normally again.

Matt Riggio continues to really set the bar in terms of the pre-season. His running capacity continues to improve and if he stays injury free, he should be in line for an even better season than his 2012 effort. Tony Notte is also in great shape and he will be extremely important this year given that Ash Hansen has gone to the Western Bulldogs and we need him to really step up as a genuine key tall up forward. Wayde Twomey is also a long way ahead of where he was at the same stage last year. He battled a knee problem for the entirety of the season but his movement and fitness look to have really stepped up a notch and he’s got his sharpness back. Theres a young pup from the Pilbara called Charlie Cameron who is also going great guns! He looks a little bit like Keith Narkle and his speed and tackling are top shelf for a kid that has played very little footy. Look for him to start with the colts but he will be a chance of playing some senior footy by years end if he keeps progressing like he is now!

Light week ahead as we try to rebuild the bodies we have broken down over the past 2 weeks of hard slog! The players will be looking forward to this one…

GH

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Sounds like good news coming out of pre season training and it looks like we are going to offset a couple of our player losses nicely

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not sure about that Swandog we have lost 3 of our best players - Hansen, Jacky and Motlop and replaced them with Elari so far..

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I was thinking about the return of Pratt, Miles, Robinson, Casserly, a fit Twomey..yeh we have lost 3 gooduns but its not doom and gloom for sure! Plus Riggio burning it up after i heard once again West Perth were sniffing around, unsuccessfully i might add, to try and poach him away

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We need a ruckman or two though because i heard big Wes is gone country or something, maybe snare a Mitch Andrews or Andrew Ruck?

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Wes has a big offer on the table from Josh Pullman’s club in qld..

the returning blokes you mentioned are all coming off long lay offs - Pratt has done 2 knees, Miles 1 and Robbo 2 so i’m not holding my breath on all getting back to their previous levels in 2013..

as for Cass he went up to Darwin to play and is injured already..

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This is one of the best things going around, Harding is doing a great thing with this, pity other clubs can’t do the same!

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Early days mate im not as pessimistic as some..i was wondering what had happened to Joshy Pullman, i liked him and feel he didnt get much of a run at it, would love to have him back

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Great to hear Nottey is impressing enough to be highlighted. After a terrific 2012, he shapes as an increasingly more important player for us in 2013.

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Agree with Swandog on this.

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Tuesday, 11th December 2012
By Greg Harding

Last week we eased up a little in terms of training load after 42km the previous week. We ended our week with a hill session at Lake Monger where we completed a short but intense 6km hit out in very warm conditions.

This week we ramp things up again, and last night the running component was especially brutal. Repeat effort running in the muggy weather really tested a few, but the boys got through it really well.

It was a disappointing result today in the AFL Pre-season and Rookie Draft on a number of counts and we copped a couple of kicks to the guts. Former Colt and Melbourne Demon Jamie Bennell was listed by West Coast which is great for him, but under the new AFL alignment system, he will now don the blue and black of East Perth. It makes me crook to be honest to see our players have to play for the enemy. Imagine 2014 when potentially Nic Natanui and Andrew Embley’s WAFL clubs become East Perth as well!

Kyle Martin had agreed to terms with the club to come across as an elite inside mid from Frankston, but when Collingwood snapped him up we obviously lost a pretty good player. And the AFL world turned their collective backs on Dayle Garlett which is devastating for the kid. Hopefully he can show some of that scintillating talent for the Ducks next year and prove the many critics wrong.

2 weeks till christmas and the players are starting to feel the benefits of the tough program, and by the time we break in 10 days time, our squad will be in really good shape physically.

GH

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Monday, 17th December 2012
By Greg Harding

An uneventful week followed the rookie draft where the players have well and truly fallen into the rhythm of a tough pre-season. We have testing tonight to see how all of our hard work has paid off beginning with the obligatory skin fold tests and ending with a 3km Time Trial. Given the work we have done over the past 5 weeks, we are sure to see huge improvements.

Bad news today with the retirement of club legend Josh Roberts. Theres not too much he hasn’t done in his playing career with State selection and a Premiership as Captain thrown in amongst 2 Swan Medals as one of the more dominant midfielders of the early 2000’s. One of his greatest assets was his hardness and disregard for his own safety. Every week he put his body on the line for the club and his teammates and it is that unwavering hardness at the footy that we will miss most. Im sure he’s still got 1 or 2 good years left in his old body, but ongoing work commitments in the Real Estate game meant that something has to give and unfortunately thats footy.

So the in’s and outs of a footy club continue, and with it comes the opportunity for young players to step up and take on more responsibility. It always hurts when good players come out of the system, but at the end of the day all young players need sometimes is a chance to succeed. For players like Faulkner, Burnham, Boekhurst, Smith and Outridge etc, that chance to be a player that a club is built around is now upon them, and it will be great fun to watch them take on that challenge.

One week to go before christmas before a well earned break. To all of our supporters, Merry Christmas. Stay safe if your travelling on the roads and lets look forward to attacking the 2013 season in Black and White.

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Sad to see a WAFL champ in Roberts retire, thanks for the memories

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Tuesday, 8th January 2013
By Greg Harding

After a great christmas break the players returned last night to the usual round of fitness testing and body fat screenings. For WAFL players, who have to juggle work and footy and who don’t have the luxury of being full time athletes, this 17 days away from the club is the most important time of year.

Use it well and the 6 week block of training prior to the holiday season is worth gold, both in regard to endurance and injury prevention. Use it poorly and the previous 6 weeks is a waste of time! 17 days of being sedentary can quickly wipe away all of the hard work that has been done and put players so far behind the 8 ball that they never recover. These breaks are more a chance to freshen up mentally and they are not an opportunity to eat and drink and sleep as much as possible. Across this down time period, we held optional sessions on 6 occasions which involved pure running sessions at Steel Blue. We were extremely happy to see up to 26 players on some days, use these sessions effectively in order to hold their fitness levels.

Yesterday, our 3km time trial results showed that almost all of the boys have shown a great level of professionalism. Brett Robinson continues his great pre season form by winning in 10.15 and was followed closely by Tim Geappen. Many players held or improved their times with Kyle Hams most impressive with a 30 second improvement. This was all done in scorching conditions and on grass which also slows down times a fair bit. We are in good shape and exactly where we want to be. Training will ramp up quickly with only 5 short weeks before intra club matches begin!

Cant wait for the season to start already!

Greg