SINCE we last reported we watched the repeat sprint test, which is a test of anaerobic capacity. The key to that test is for players to be able to maintain their speed for as long as possible.
It’s run over six repetitions. Some players might be able to produce one repetition, but it’s important in an AFL game that they can repeat that over the course of a match.
It’s an important test and it can be very taxing on the players, because they’ve got to run hard and pull up quickly. Quite a few of the boys pull up sore, so it’s a fairly demanding test.
On Thursday morning, we saw a new activity brought in - it was a handball test. Last year, a kicking test was also introduced.
The score was not necessarily crucial, but certainly if they could hit targets under that pressure, it was a good sign.
The handball test, which Matthew Lloyd implemented, saw the ball being rolled out three times for guys coming at it. They were then scored on how clean their hands were and how accurate their handball was to a call target.
That was a test that I was particularly interested in and I thought it went really well.
In some respects, it was more meaningful than the kicking test - but that’s just a personal opinion.
Later on, we watched the shuttle run.
A lot of players didn’t participate in it, due to injury, so that wasn’t what we were after.
In some cases, you have to refer back to previous shuttle run scores, for further information.
There were some really good scores, with Hayden Hector, who can be claimed by GWS, broking the record. He actually could have kept going and had a better score, but he pulled up after breaking the record.
The high scores in the shuttle run was an impressive part of the camp.
In the afternoon, we conducted 12 interviews.
Some of those players included Shaun Atley (Murray Bushrangers), Scott Lycett (Port Adelaide Magpies), Ben Jacobs (Sandringham Dragons) and Josh Green (Clarence).
We try and get as many interstate boys as we possibly can, because it’s the only real chance Dean Bailey will get to interview them.
We’ve got through 32 interviews at this point and we’ve got some more on Friday.
Psychomotor testing was an interesting part to the day, where testing reaction time and competing against one another is part of the process.
We were able to observe a few of those players under pressure situations away from the football arena.
Overall, it’s been a busy day. There was a lot of testing and information to go away and process.
We also spent four to five hours interviewing players, so it was a particularly long day.
But what we get out of it is particularly critical.
There is a lot of evenness in this draft and a lot of decisions that have to be made.
