Arrivals
Onfield: Ben Cousins (Port Melbourne), Adam Thomson (Port Adelaide), Tyrone Vickery, Jayden Post, Tom Hislop (Essendon), Robin Nahas (rookie), David Gourdis (rookie), Andrew Browne (rookie), Alroy Gilligan (rookie)
Off-field: Wayne Campbell (midfield coach, from Western Bulldogs)
Departures
Onfield: Greg Tivendale (retired), Chris Hyde (delisted), Danny Meyer (delisted), Travis Casserly (delisted), David Gourdis (delisted), Tristan Cartledge (rookie), Cameron Howat (rookie), Clayton Collard (rookie)
Off-field: -
Pre-season training started: Monday October 27
Medical room
Numbers in the rehab group have fluctuated wildly in the last couple of months. Initially large, with players recovering from pre-season operations or getting over injuries carried through the season, the numbers have thinned as those players move back into the regular squad.
Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls, Adam Patterson and Angus Graham had operations.
The club has been very careful with some calf soreness in young midfielders Trent Cotchin, Daniel Connors and Alex Rance and has had them on modified programs.
Kane Pettifer is rehabbing from a knee reconstruction and Graham Polak from his tram incident, while Mark Coughlan is training well after his mid-season hamstring treatment in Germany.
Who's burning?
Daniel Jackson (12:36) and Matthew White (12:37) both smashed through the 13-minute mark for a lap of the Tan last week, something assistant coach Brian Royal hadn’t seen in his time at the club. With White being one of the quickest players off the mark, to have him also excel at the longer distances is great news for the young midfielder and for the club.
Pre-season training camps
The Tigers had a camp for their first to third year players in Barwon Heads at the end of October and will have their Telstra Community Camp in Craigieburn in early February.
Pre-season training overview
“All in all, we’ve been really pleased with the pre-season. There have been some outstanding contributions from players like Matty White, Daniel Jackson… Luke McGuane has improved enormously – he’s had the opportunity of having a full-preseason, so Luke’s probably advanced more than anyone else.
“Dean Polo, Shane Edwards … Andrew Raines is back on track and has put in a strong pre-season.
“Your normal ones like Brett Deledio and Nathan Foley have continued to be outstanding. Chris Newman, as new captain, has really led by example, and is showing some really strong signs that he’s going to take another step up this year.”
- Assistant coach Brian Royal
What assistant coach Brian Royal says
“We’ve been training footy – there’s a few things in our gameplan that we felt that we needed to change so we’ve focused on that throughout the last eight weeks in particular.
“There’s got to be a fitness component focus as well as a strength focus, but also the components from a footy point of view. I guess we felt that we needed to improve the defensive aspects of our game.
“Certainly there’s a skill component that you’ve got to improve, and you’re continually working on that, but the major part of the pre-season is implementing things into our gameplan which will help us defend better.
“If you look at the offence, we’re one of the better teams in the competition, but defensively, we’re one of the poorer teams, so that’s the area that we’ve been focusing on. But I can’t give you too much detail about that, unfortunately.”
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
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More 2009 pre-season reports
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