Burning Around The Park Of Blues

The morning after the Blues stunned the heavily favoured Cats, the early group of Lions gathered at the starting point for the time trial event at Carlton, exactly one month since the first giving us a reasonable indication as to where our fitness levels are at. Reflecting back to the 8th of July, to have six players in the 12 minute range was enouraging, as the senior group prepared the sense of competitiveness amongst some was evident.

The thoughts from Fagg questioning the suitability of a milk based breafast already consumed began to fade as the group took off in the Brunswick direction, Stockdale presenting himself in slim line attire and Duckworth resorting to the iPod for extra motivation.

As expected, Mash would deliver something special (11.49) around the 3.2km circuit, an early suprise though was that Dickson not far behind (12.18) in a remarkable effort that shaved nearly 4 minutes from the previous attempt that was shortly after back surgery. Stockdale, Sheehan and Bremner were also in the 12 minute range with Duckworth (13.05) just over but a reduction of more than one minute. This group then moved onto a beach catching session as the exotic Mauritian arrived with the Whitefriars master realising that they had made an error on time judgement.

The Mauritian (Augustin) put the head down and blasted out his annoyance (11.20) but was just pipped by Jack Blyth - a Lovell discovery - at the very end (11.17). Credibly overall, ten players are now in the 12 minute range or less, with twelve players recording an improvement.

Moving onto the vast expanses of Royal Parade ovals, more in kind with a space known as a common in London, the introduction of the football for lane work allowed the energy to emerge with nary a skill error as handballs flew amongst the vocal group.

Fielding circuit to warm up completed before moving into dynamic, attack drill that did take some time to arrive at a standard of intent under the blue skies with the outfield now dry. Agressive diving by Kimberley, Court and Almatrah lifted the level as a halt was called with the stumps hit. Extra running around the park was a notable choice by some, others worked on target throwing while the new lads were given the chance to expand their learning as to what is expected of a Lion.