Crows plan closed doors scratch match

Adelaide Crows football list manager David Noble says there is nothing sinister in the club's decision. Picture: Ray Titus Source: The Advertiser

ADELAIDE will hold its major internal trial at AAMI Stadium on Friday - but fans will be kept in the dark.

 In a move which will upset some supporters, the Crows will play behind closed doors as they fine-tune their 2013 game style and experiment with some positional moves.

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In contrast, hometown rival Port Adelaide will open its internal trial up to its fans, incorporating its 5.30pm trial game on Friday with its annual family day.

List manager David Noble defended Adelaide's the decision to lock fans and the media out.

Crows want Buddy

"There's nothing sinister to it, we just want to work on a few things away from prying eyes,'' Noble said.

The match is expected to be held at about 10.30am.

The Crows have plenty of competition for spots, with only bulldozing forward Jared Petrenko on their long term injury list.

However he is recovering faster than expected from end-of-season shoulder surgery and is likely to be fit for the start of the AFL premiership season.

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Suns play down stoush

Shane Crawford channels his inner Liam Neeson when he discovers Gary Ablett is 'taken' and tries to organise a swap with one of his mates

Campbell Brown and Maverick Weller were involved in a training stoush today. Source: The Courier-Mail

THE NAB Cup can't come soon enough for the Gold Coast Suns with tensions today spilling over into a training stoush between Campbell Brown and Maverick Weller.

No punches were thrown but the pair had to be separated several times by senior players Karmichael Hunt and Jarrod Harbrow during a running verbal battle that lasted for a couple of minutes.

It came close to re-erupting as the players walked from the field for a drinks break when Brown, reacting to something Weller said, spun around and attempted to force his way through several team mates to get to the young defender.

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The veteran hardman predictably played down the incident at the completion of training saying it was evidence the young side were sticking to their pre-season commitment to demand higher standards from each other and to communicate better.

"There was nothing in it, there are certainly no hard feelings,'' Brown said.

"It may not have looked ideal but there was a bit of feedback given and the point was certainly made.''

The Suns are itching for the start of the pre-season competition and the opportunity it provides to carry on the momentum built at the tail end of last season.

The tournament is particularly important for Brown who is suspended for the first six weeks of the premiership season.

He said he had never been a fan of the pre-season tournament, preferring to ease his way into a season, but this year he would be treating the games like premiership matches to give the coaching group a reminder of what he can offer the side.

"I got myself into this predicament and I'm going to fight my way out of it,'' he said.

The Suns have almost a full squad of fit players and positions for Rd 1 will be hotly contested during the NAB Cup.

The club's biggest concern is the continued absence of vice-captain Nathan Bock from full training.

Bock, who missed the majority of last season with a broken leg, is still limping and looks to be extremely doubtful to be fit for the start of the premiership competition.

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Seven Tigers set for debut

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has chosen a new-look side, including prized draftee Nick Vlastuin. Picture: Chris Hyde. Source: Getty Images

RICHMOND has selected a new-look side filled with recycled talent and exciting teenagers to face the Indigenous All-Stars on Friday night.

Tiger fans will get their first look at forwards Chris Knights (Adelaide), Aaron Edwards (North Melbourne) and rookie-listed ruckman Orren Stephenson (Geelong) in the Alice Springs clash.

Prized draftee Nick Vlastuin, last year's No. 9 pick, has also been selected in the 30-man squad.

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Vlastuin, 18, made an immediate impact at Punt Rd with the competitive beast poised for an early-season debut, most likely on a half-back flank.

Defender Steve Morris recently praised Morris's attitude and said Tiger fans would quickly fall in love with the Brad Sewell type.

Draftees Matthew McDonough, Kamdyn McIntosh and Cadeyn Williams have also been picked.

Knights, 26, crossed to the Tigers as a free agent, while Edwards was acquired in the trade period.

Star midfielder Trent Cotchin will make his debut as captain against the Lance Franklin-led All-Stars.

The match will be played at Traegar Park at 8.30pm AEDT and will be aired on television network NTIV.

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Maxwell set to lead Pies again

Collingwood skipper Nick Maxwell. Picture: Michael Klein Source: Herald Sun

COLLINGWOOD is expected to announce this morning that Nick Maxwell will continue as captain for the fifth straight season.

Former Pies' premiership captain Tony Shaw had voiced his support for Scott Pendlebury's leadership claims, but the star onballer is tipped to remain vice-captain.

It will also be the fifth season Pendlebury, 25, has held the position.

Onballer Luke Ball is also set to play a key role in the leadership group this season.

Heath Shaw, Travis Cloke, Dale Thomas and Harry O'Brien rounded out the group last year.

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Cloke is Lynch's No.1 fan

Collingwood recruit Quinten Lynch works up a sweat in pre-season training. Picture: Wayne Ludbey Source: Herald Sun

TRAVIS Cloke has lots to be excited about.

With last year's contract circus behind him, the Collingwood spearhead will enter 2013 with a clear mind and niggle-free.

But there's something else that is giving the Magpies' chief goalkicker plenty to smile about as the club stepped up its pre-season with a solid one-hour match simulation session yesterday.

The man who replaced Chris Dawes as Cloke's new key forward partner, Quinten Lynch, has been one of the standouts of Collingwood's summer.

While the 30-year-old may not have attracted as much pre-season hype as some of the other club's big-name recruits, the West Coast premiership forward's physical game style is set to bring an imposing and versatile edge to the Pies' forward setup.

Cloke, who ranked No.1 in the AFL for contested marks last season, yesterday warmly welcomed the aerial support Lynch is poised to provide.

"He's going to help us out and and obviously 'Jolls' (Darren Jolly) and 'Huddo' (Ben Hudson) in the ruck, so he's a massive plus for the team and also myself," Cloke said.

"I'm looking forward to working with him. He's an amazing (physical) specimen and he's a very big man and he can run all day, so it's great.

"I got to know him quite well the last couple of months, he's a fantastic man and a lovely family man."

Adding to their Magpies' delight, fellow free agent Clinton Young, from Hawthorn, joined in on the match simulation after spending much of the summer carefully managing his recovery from foot surgery.

Jordan Russell and Ben Hudson also impressed in the full-ground workout at Victoria Park, adding vital playing depth to the club's premiership tilt.

Picture gallery: Collingwood family day

After booting 33 goals mainly playing deep forward for West Coast last year, Lynch yesterday said he was relishing the move to the Westpac Centre.

" I just feel there's a hunger in this group at the moment to succeed and it's really exciting for me," Lynch said.

"I've obviously come in as a tall forward to help Clokey out up there and that's exciting and no doubt I'll have a little bit of a run through the ruck if needed, so there are two good roles there," he said.

"These boys made the prelim final last year and hopefully I've come over here and we can go one better."

Cloke, who kicked 59 goals last year, downplayed the distraction caused by his contract saga, which looms for Hawthorn and its superstar Lance Franklin this season.

"I spoke to Bucks and said earlier in the year: 'Mate, this is what I want to do and he knew the whole way along what was happening'," Cloke said yesterday.

"And I had faith in him and he had faith in me, so we knew what was happening, it was just a matter of getting pen to paper."

These boys made the prelim final last year and hopefully I've come over here and we can go one better.

Midfield dynamos Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan continued their impressive build-up to the season yesterday as Dale Thomas and Dayne Beams watched the match practice from the sidelines.

Beams, whose enjoyed a career-best year last season winning his first Copeland Trophy, said he had overcome a few niggles in the pre-season.

"(I've had) a couple of little hiccups along the way, but it has probably been one of my better pre-seasons," Beams said.

Luke Ball and Lachy Keeffe continue to make solid progress in their comeback from knee reconstructions, training away from the main group yesterday.

Andrew Krakouer, who had a quick-fix type of knee surgery to repair his ruptured ACL, also looked in excellent touch with a bag of goals deep forward.

Summer Barometer: Magpies injury, training latest

Hoping for a better run of injury luck in 2013, coach Nathan Buckley is expecting more welcome headaches picking the Pies' best 22 this season.

"The great thing we have got is we have competition for spots, so we'll spend the next two or thee weeks in practice matches and through the early part of the NAB Cup working out who is going to be putting their hand up to play senior footy early in the first couple of rounds," Buckley said.

"We've probably got 30-35 blokes that we're trying to squeeze into 22.

"You will be rewarded in selection for your efforts."

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Country rookies in high demand

TALL TIMBER: Young giants Darcy Cameron (of Albany) and Scott Jones (from Busselton) have their eye on an AFL future. Picture: Stewart Allen Source: PerthNow

WA will provide the two tallest players in this year's national draft pool, with towering ruck pair Scott Jones and Darcy Cameron capturing plenty of attention at yesterday's inaugural WA Talent Day.

The duo, who are both 17 and stand at 203cm, are set to form a powerful ruck combination in this year's under-18 championship and are predicted to be hot property come November.

State Academy manager Raff Guadagnino said it was rare to have teenagers of that size with clean hands and high overall skills.

"They are definitely the best ruckmen the WAFL has produced at an under-18s level since Nic Naitanui," he said.

"They possess intelligence, quality hand-eye coordination and are mentally-tough athletes."

Jones, from Busselton, said he had always embraced his height.

"I love being tall, it's who I am, and I love ruckwork," he said.

"I'm making the move up to Perth to get my footy career up and going and have a big year with East Perth and with the state 18s again, so hopefully if that goes well I'll get drafted at the end of the year."

Albany product Cameron also has his sights set on an AFL career.

"I'd love to get there and I'll work real hard for it," he said.

"I was always fairly tall but then I had a bit of a growth spurt in Year 9 and got a lot bigger and I've been playing ruck since then."

The best 50 prospects from around the state completed combine testing and interviews with recruiters from 16 AFL clubs yesterday.

They also played a north v south of the river match at Arena Joondalup in front of scouts.

The first WA Talent Day came after criticism of the state's development system last year.

"It ensures that we're the first in the nation to promote our under-18s players to the AFL clubs, but more importantly ensure that they get a good quality education throughout the day," Guadagnino said.

"We want to be at the cutting edge and this is part of making sure that our players are better developed going into 2013."

AFL talent manager Kevin Sheehan said it was too early to make judgments regarding the depth of this year's crop of potential draftees from WA.

"Kids change so much over a period of three or four months: they change athletically and get bigger," he said.

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Sharrod denies Buddy pact

Lance Franklin tells Hawthorn he will not discuss a new deal until the end of the year, sparking fears at the Hawks that he may walk.

New Eagle Sharrod Wellingham believes Lance Franklin will remain a Hawk despite putting off contract talks. Picture: Stewart Allen Source: PerthNow

LANCE Franklin's good mate Sharrod Wellingham believes the Hawthorn champion will remain a one-club player, despite stunning the Hawks by putting off contract negotiations to the end of the season.

Hawthorn had been confident of securing Franklin's signature before Round 1 in an effort to avoid a drawn-out Travis Cloke-style saga providing a distraction.

Fremantle and West Coast management refused to comment yesterday, and the WA clubs are set to publicly pour cold water on Franklin talk throughout the season.

The Dockers and Eagles will be buoyed by the twist and are likely to ask privately what it would take to bring the competition's biggest name back home.

Wellingham, Franklin's former housemate, denied the pair had planned to play for the Eagles together from 2014 and said he did not know why Franklin, 26, had walked away from contract talks with Hawthorn.

"I've sensed that he would like to finish his career at Hawthorn," Wellingham said.

"We'll find out at the end of the year.

"He'll make the decision in due time.

"I'm not sure why he's done that.

Summer Barometer: See how the Eagles are tracking this pre-season

"It's probably similar to all the stuff we went through last year over at Collingwood with Travis - put it at the back of his mind and worry about footy through the year.

"It's just going to be one of those merry-go-rounds throughout the year, I suppose.

"I haven't been in his ear yet (about coming to West Coast). I'll have a whisper in his ear, but I'm not sure how far it'll go."

Wellingham and Franklin will play together for the first time when they run out for the Indigenous All-Stars in Alice Springs on Friday.

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Hamstring scare for Judd

Chris Judd is experiencing some tightness in a hamstring. Picture: George Salpigtidis Source: Herald Sun

CARLTON will take a "super cautious" approach with champion Chris Judd after a tight right hamstring forced him off the training track on Friday.

The setback reinforced Carlton's decision to rest its former skipper from an intraclub practice match on Wednesday, although they hope Judd will be ready to play in Round 1 of the NAB Cup in Sydney in three weeks.

"It was just some tightness in his right hammy and he felt it coming on so he decided to come off the track," Carlton's general manager of football Andrew McKay said on Sunday.

"The medicos think he'll be fine, we're just going to be super cautious. We'll see how he pulls up. If it doesn't free up in the next couple of days we'll send him off for a scan."

McKay said Judd would be one of several senior players rested from match simulation on Wednesday, the same day the Blues plan to reveal their new clash jumper.

Carlton's opening NAB Cup involvement is a twilight engagement with the Swans and the Giants at Blacktown on February 24.

Meanwhile, Blues ruckman Matthew Kreuzer believes he has learned to listen to his body, and hopes to have put three injury-interrupted seasons behind him.

Knee, hip, foot and muscle injuries have limited Kreuzer to 45 games since 2005, and have at times reduced his effectiveness.

"You don't want to miss a game if you can, so you've just got to cope with it and find ways around it," he told the club website.

"Some weeks you do this and other weeks you do that, and you work out what works best for you. I learnt a lot about how I've got to manage my body, so I'll take a lot of things from last year and put them in place this year.

"It was a tough year but I took a lot out of it. And it was like that for the whole club because we had a lot of injuries and had to play a few players out of position."

Kreuzer, 23, conceded that injury niggles meant he "wasn't the greatest kick" last season, but hopes that will have been addressed by off-season surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee.

"Last year it was just hard to find time to work on it because I was on a tight schedule as to how much (training) I could do during the week," he said.

"Hopefully this year I wont have any of those problems and I can do every session. If that's what happens, I think my kicking will definitely improve, and everything else will too."
 

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Daisy in doubt for Round 1

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley reveals star midfielder Dale Thomas is no certainty to be fit for the start of the season following ankle surgery.

Collingwood stars Dale Thomas, Heath Shaw, Dane Swan and Ben Johnson talk shop at training yesterday. Picture: George Salpigtidis Source: Herald Sun

Injured Collingwood star Dale Thomas remains in doubt for Round 1. Picture: George Salpigtidis Source: Herald Sun

COLLINGWOOD coach Nathan Buckley has cast doubt over Dale Thomas's availability for Round 1.

The midfielder has yet to resume full training as he recovers from ankle surgery.

The news comes as Buckley accused his onballers of being downhill skiers at times last year.

"He is still a couple of months away," he said of Thomas.

"He will need to get some solid training in and get up to speed before he is ready to play some games of footy, whether that is late in the NAB (Cup) or early in the home-and-away (season) will depend on the speed of his recovery.

"He has had a modified pre-season and has got a lot of fitness work in, but not on legs. So we will have to judge that as we go."

As the Magpies gear up for Round 1 against North Melbourne on March 31, Buckley said yesterday players who could not instil defensive pressure all over the ground would not be selected.

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Brownlow medallist Dane Swan has been criticised for his one-way running, but Buckley felt he was not alone.

"We were too offensive out of stoppages and with our transitional running at times," he said.

"And not clean enough to support that offence. If we were cleaner and more efficient inside 50, you can run forward all you like. The ball is never going to come back. But when you come up against other sides, the ball comes back at you more often and you need to be able to handle that.

"I believe in team defence. You need 22 players to be defending. We improved our transitional defence as the year went on and we were better for it. We have some real depth now in our squad.

"If you are not going to tip into the defensive aspects, you are going to struggle to get a game of footy for us."

Buckley said the club's review of 2012 also identified the need for a tagger and that the Pies kicked to Travis Cloke to often.

He said the club had scored on only 40 per cent of its inside-50s, despite going to Cloke 80 per cent of the time.

"We need to be more aggressive with our ball movement," he said.

The off-contract Thomas said last week he was in no rush to start negotiating a new deal until he recovered.

But he said he was wary of letting contract talks turn into the "circus" that engulfed Cloke last year.

Buckley said: "We have got about 40 per cent of our list coming out of contract this year and we will deal with those guys, appropriately, at the right times."

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Buddy suspends contract talks

HAWTHORN superstar Lance Franklin has told the club he will not discuss a new contract until the end of the season, sparking fears he may leave.

Franklin is a restricted free agent at the end of the year, meaning he can entertain offers from rival clubs.

The Hawks said yesterday they made a "very good offer" to Franklin -- understood to have been between $900,000 and $1 million a season for up to four years -- and were stunned when told this week all negotiations were off until the end of September.

The offer also included a healthy slice of the club's marketing allowance.

"Buddy has made it pretty clear he'd prefer to leave the discussions to the end of the 2013 season," Hawthorn's head of football Mark Evans said.

Franklin's manager Liam Pickering said last night: "Buddy has 12 months to go on his contract and he wants to concentrate on playing.

"He said he didn't want the distraction of a contract and he has advised me talks are off until the end of the season.

"He doesn't want to entertain discussions and, whilst Hawthorn aren't happy, that's how it is, unfortunately."

Will Buddy be the next Gary Ablett?

Hawthorn is unable to pay Franklin market value as skipper Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell are on massive contracts, and Cyril Rioli, Jarryd Roughead, Grant Birchall, Brian Lake, Jordan Lewis and Brad Sewell are on sizeable deals.

Fremantle has been linked to Franklin, though the Dockers have not spoken to Pickering. Last year the Dockers offered Collingwood's Travis Cloke about $1.1 million for five years, but failed to land him. 

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The expectation is Franklin, who is from Western Australia, would be offered more than Cloke.

The Hawks yesterday confirmed six months of discussions had hit a brick wall this week.

Evans admitted Franklin's decision had rocked the club and already there were fears the constant talk about Franklin's future would become a major distraction, as it did at Collingwood with Cloke.

"It is not an ideal situation because we'd prefer to close off the distraction for Buddy, for the club, for supporters, for Pickers, and have a free run at our 2013 campaign," Evans said.

"We've been having a number of discussions over the past 5 1/2 months, and we've put together what we think is a very good offer, and Pickers is on record as saying it is respectable.

"Obviously, we had a few things to sort out.

"We know our offer is a strong offer, but at the moment it's not that the offer hasn't been accepted or rejected, it's only the discussions have been put off until the end of the season."

Lance Franklin tells Hawthorn he will not discuss a new deal until the end of the year, sparking fears at the Hawks that he may walk.

The Hawks accept Franklin can explore free agency.

"He's a free agent at the end of 2013 and he's got every right to proceed with contract discussions as he wants to," Evans said.

Despite Franklin's decision to cease discussions, the Hawks said they would endeavour to keep contact.

"We need to make sure we have regular contact with Pickers and Buddy and, should the situation change, our door is open," Evans said.

Pickering also manages Gary Ablett, who left Geelong for Gold Coast after announcing at the start of 2010 that contract talks were on hold until the end of the year.

Greater Western Sydney's Tom Scully said the same, then left Melbourne.

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