Grimes: Why Mitchell’s Eagles criticism is unfair

Former Melbourne captain Jack Grimes believes Tom Mitchell’s critique of West Coast was unfair.

The Brownlow Medallist at Hawthorn and premiership midfielder at Collingwood, who also played for Sydney, whacked Eagles players for showing weakness during a pre-season training session.

In assessing the Eagles who were on their backs or on their haunches after a running test, Mitchell took aim by describing it as “embarrassing” and questioning the team’s leadership.

“Look at the body language. From all reports, they’ve just done their first running test, 11 x 200-meter sprints, which I’ve done that test before. It’s bloody hard,” Mitchell said on Instagram.

“And don’t get me wrong, AFL pre-season is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.

“But look at the body language. To the far left there, there’s a player on his haunches. Just to his right, a player laying on his back. Below us here, four players on their hands and knees and another player below on his back.

“That is serious mental weakness. There’s no leadership there. Thank god they got Jack Viney to stamp out some of this crap. I could not be more passionate about this.

“They’re basically showing all the opposition out there already. That as soon as it gets hard, we’re going to roll on the ground and act like we’re dying.

“This is an embarrassing image. And this is West Coast in this example. But you see this often with a lot of teams around the league.”

Titch added: “And the best teams I ever played on actually had rules around this. Not showing weakness.

“Again, you’re allowed to forget at times and go to your hands and knees. But get straight up. This is embarrassing for the Eagles on day one of pre-season.”

Grimes immediately responded on Instagram, suggesting Mitchell’s comments “were off the money”.

He then joined Kane Cornes and Sam Edmund on Wednesday morning to further discuss the criticism from the 207-game two-time All-Australian.

Grimes, who played 100 games for the Demons, explained why he does not agree with Mitchell’s opinion on West Coast’s apparent weakness.

“I had a very healthy discussion with Tom Mitchell on the side of what a lot of people saw yesterday blowing up on social media,” Grimes said on SEN Summer Run.

“It’s a really interesting one. I’m never one to respond to other people’s content online, but with Tom’s stance on that one I felt the need to.

“Because I’ve been on the receiving end of that so much at Melbourne in my time when we were one of those bottom teams. Everything is so scrutinised about every single thing that we did, as to that was the reason why we were where we were.

“When I saw that come out about West Coast and they’re keeled over on the ground after what looks like an absolutely brutal running test. We’ve been there before as well.

“I just don’t think it’s a fair (assessment). I think it should go the other way. Like look how much these players are putting in to the point where they are lying on the ground afterwards.

“I see it as a real positive rather than a negative. If you’re doing a maximal anaerobic test like that and you’re walking around giving high fives straight afterwards, then you haven’t gone hard enough.”

Grimes recalled one session in particular that he experienced during his Dees days where he and his teammates were physically unable to get around each other.

“We had a similar one at Melbourne, and if you ask anyone in my era they’ll say the hardest running session we ever did was five 300-metre sprints,” he added.

“That’s it. But the first one you did as if you were a track athlete trying to run as fast as you possibly can.

“Then every run after that over 300 metres was on five minutes. So if the first one took you 45 seconds, then you had 4m 15s before the next one.

“The lactate that was running through our system, even after the first run, was just brutal. And you had just enough rest to be able to back it up and do it again.

“We had guys who had dizzy spells, guys with migraines having to be sent home, one guy passed out, guys were spewing. It was carnage after this session.

“To think after that that we would have been walking around giving each other high fives was just literally impossible in that moment if you gave that test another crack.”

Grimes also spoke about his business - JJ’s High Performance - which helps footballers at every level train smarter, perform better, and reach their peak. 

Listen to the full chat below: