Practice 7/20

utah_heretic · 07-20-2005, 12:26 PM

Well, I just got back from practice at RES...For anybody who is interested in attending any of the others this week, my understanding is that they will practice Thur. and Fri. at 9am also at RES.

On to the guts.

On the whole, the level of frustration on this team is pretty evident. They broke into 4 groups to scrimmage. A lot of people were very chippy with each other. Dunseth and Jamie looked for a moment that they were going to come to blows over some poor tactical play on the part of Jamie. Mathis was very vocal for most of the day. Including some good constructive sections as well as some tirades berating his group for not acting like the scrimmage mattered. Dante jumped dow Dipsy's throat over some bad tactical play as well. It was very physical, some hard tackling going on. The intensity level was actually quite high, thoughnot all of the play level was.

Andy is back in town, which should be a positive. He looked like he was taking it a little easy today. Broome looked pretty solid, though I hope to see a larger field format to see what his pace and conditioning are like.

Some good and perhaps bad news.

Cabrerra is in town...he spent the entire practice doing conditioning. Apparrently there is some hold up relating to his work permit, and can't practice with the team until it comes through. Some are saying 3-4 weeks, but the time lag seems hard for me to believe. Fortunately I don't think they'll have that problem with Gregorio, assuming they sign him, as he's already a US citizen.

For all of you Bulldog fans, Rusty was practicing today. Though I can't see him playing for another couple of weeks.

The talk with the loyalists is that Ellinger won't be starting Cleetus. Not sure how true that is, though he was the first out of the locker room today. I don't know the verity of this rumor, he actually played pretty well today. I guess short of any other information, we'll just have to wait and see.

Kevin Novak actually looked really good today. A change from when I've seen him before. He seems to have gained a lot of confidence over the last couple of months. I wouldn't be shocked to see him play some minutes with the senior squad in the near future.

Cameron Knowles, though he occasionally looks very good, is still getting burned by lapses of concentration or lack of awareness.

I'm still not seeing us utilize the field very well. Benkhe, Akwari, Knowles, and to a lesser degree, Lookingland were all guilty of criminal collapses of defensive shape today. Though it's good to see that they are practicing in ways to expose it. Behnke and Knowles received repeated tongue lashings from Clint when it happened.

We still aren't creating enough space through movement. and several of the squads occasionally looked very flat on offense. The notable exception to this was the squad with Kreis (Superstar) and Kamler on it, which supported their play reasonably well.

I guess that's all I have to report on for now. I'm going to try to catch tomorrow's practice as well. It will be interesting to see how it shapes out after today's. Hopefully more focus, less frustration.

by the way, Props to the people who showed up to watch. Duece, Hibba, et.al.

Aerick · 07-20-2005, 12:40 PM

Excellent analysis man!! Rep to you!!! And a huge help for those of us that can't be there.

bordelais7 · 07-20-2005, 01:06 PM

Quote:

For all of you Bulldog fans, Rusty was practicing today. Though I can't see him playing for another couple of weeks.

Why's that? Did he look a little slow, or was he practicing at full speed? DesNews says he might play? Or are you just assuming that they might want to rest him a little more to make certain that it's healed?

Nice report. Hope to hear more in the future.

HibaIssa · 07-20-2005, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bordelais7

Why's that? Did he look a little slow, or was he practicing at full speed? DesNews says he might play? Or are you just assuming that they might want to rest him a little more to make certain that it's healed?

Nice report. Hope to hear more in the future.

He looked ready to go from my point of view. I think we should see him playing on Saturday. He seems to really want to get into it again.

montgjules · 07-20-2005, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HibaIssa

He looked ready to go from my point of view. I think we should see him playing on Saturday. He seems to really want to get into it again.

Last night Trey said he might be (or was it "ought to be"?) playing on Saturday.

He said we "may see Clint benched" because Coach E is slowly starting to realize that may be the only way to motivate him to perform, or something like that. It wasn't anything definite and from hearing Coach E talk once or twice, anybody ought to know he doesn't make final decisions until the moment he has to. So nobody knows at this point.

Jose Luis Luviano · 07-20-2005, 02:27 PM

Octavio Zambrano used to bench "Cowboy", as we called him Back In The Day. Clint usually responded with a good performance.

The 1998 Galaxy only ended up winning a Supporters' Shield and a Best Dressed Coach award; but that's more than RSL would have if the season ended today.

utah_heretic · 07-20-2005, 02:29 PM

Last time Rusty came back after 3 weeks, and hadn't done more than touch the ball before re-injuring. I remember seeing Rusty play "full speed" before that game as well. Game pace really is different than practice pace. I read the article which talked about the strength imbalances which contributed to his propensity. If the trainers think the problem is solved, it probably is. I just think in the back of my mind, if I'm Ellinger, I'd rather wait the extra week than have Rusty risk re-injuring the hamstring again by playing too soon. After all, he's already shown he's not a good judge of when it's healthy.

Aero · 07-20-2005, 02:44 PM

I agree. As much as I'd love to see Rusty back, I think that they should leave him out of this game. If they do, then we have the all-star break off and it would give him two more weeks to recuperate fully. That way we would know that he would be good to go for the rest of the season. I'd hate to see him go out again and tweak it 15 minutes into the game and we lose him for 6 weeks or something. Hopefully, Rusty and the trainers know what they are doing.

Mango Jam · 07-20-2005, 04:45 PM

Good job on the write up, thanks! I have been to one practice total. I think it's interesting to hear who is talking it up during practice in relation to their game time performance.

Hey Aerick...

:bday: