Reeva’s Pre Season Wrap

It has been a while since my last wrap, I thought now would be an opportune time as we move from the preseason grind, into trial games, and into the last part of preparation for our clash with Port Adelaide. The preseason, from my perspective, has been really enjoyable, with fantastic weather providing the opportunity to complete a series of strong and consistent training sessions. Our playing group have embraced everything we have thrown at them and have got themselves into great condition.

We entered the main part of preseason through January and February with a plan to focus on gameplay and scenario training. We believed that we had reached a point where we were clear on what we wanted to do and how to do it, which enabled us to put the players in game situations as much as possible. Our group love to compete and some of our match-sim sessions have been brutal in the way they have competed against each other. Over the past few seasons, we have done a fair bit of this type of training, but we have certainly done a lot more over the last few months and with greater intensity this time round. It is great to now move into playing against opposition instead of each other and that was on show in our trial games last Friday night against Sturt.

As we have done over the last few seasons, there is a lot of planning around game time and what each individual needs to be doing in order to be ready in a few weeks. We don’t get too concerned about results or the scoreboard in these games, but focus more on ensuring that we are getting game minutes into the players. Having said all of that, we were certainly pleased with how both teams went about the games on Friday. Our league group had a number of players playing at that level for the first time, including a few new Club players and guys that have had strong preseasons finally getting an opportunity.

Our first half lacked a little bit of urgency and were a little reactive to Sturt, but pleasingly our second half looked much closer to how we want the game to look, and we were able to finish off with a good win against a reasonably strong Sturt team. The learnings we take away from the game will be crucial to the younger players making their way through the coming weeks.

While our Reserves group fell a little short on the scoreboard, the way the group went about the game was strong, fielding only one player that had played Reserves football last season. It was a really young group who played some strong football, and most importantly, got an understanding of what the next level looks like. There are plenty of positive things to take away from both games.

We head into our second and final trial against Centrals at Elizabeth this Saturday where we will see a number of players returning to both grades for the game as we reach the pointy end of pre-season. Again, the result will mean very little to us at this stage, with our focus drawing on the opportunity to have a good hit out against a strong opposition and coming out of it feeling ready to go in 10 days’ time. X-Convenience Oval (Elizabeth Oval), with its ground size and the forecasted weather, is a really good situation to be in at this point as we put the finishing touches on our preparation. We are looking forward to getting stuck in.

While there is a big contingent of players coming back into the teams this weekend, we will still have a couple resting, focusing on being ready to go or close-to-ready to go for round 1. Jarryd Lyons, after having a super preseason and impressing everyone with how he had attacked every moment, had a little hamstring-niggle a few weeks back. He is back running and getting back to it, and will hopefully head into full training next week. Patrick Parnell had a little foot-niggle and had been off legs for a week or two, but is now into full training again and will be ready to play round 1. Karl Finlay is progressing well and will progress into full training next week also. No risks were made with any of these, and we are confident in the work and training loads from each of these players, and the way they attacked the issues, that they will be ready to face the season head-on.

It’s getting to an exciting part of the season with Round 1 getting closer. We look forward to seeing all of the Bay’s supporters at Alberton in a few weeks’ time and then back at home for our Round 2 clash with Centrals the week after.

I’m sure everyone has seen the advertisement for The Bay’s Lotto, if you haven’t jump onto our website or socials, I encourage you to get involved.

GO THE BAY’S

Darren Reeves

Senior Coach

Trial Game 2 – TIME CHANGE

Glenelg v Central Districts

Saturday 15th March

Reserves 9:00am | League: 11:45am

X Convenience Oval, Elizabeth