“Inness has accepted a new opportunity at another AFL club that includes an expanded portfolio and career growth.”
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Or maybe he just reads blitz and other media and rwalizes Essendon supporters are morons.
Yep. Dodoro has failed to condition the players he drafted. He should be in the gym with them. On the teack eyc eyc
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Since we are making up roles left right and Center lately maybe he comes to us as head of strategic fitness monitoring or something ridiculous
West Coast Eagles finalise replacement for departing fitness boss Warren Kofoed
The Eagles have headhunted Western Bulldogs high performance boss Mathew Inness as they seek to halt a run of costly injuries, reports DANIEL CHERNY.
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less than 2 min read
September 12, 2023 - 3:55PM
Matthew Inness is the latest Bulldogs staffer is leaving the club. Picture: Michael Klein
West Coast has landed long-time Western Bulldogs high performance chief Mathew Inness.
The former first-class cricketer will depart the Whitten Oval after a decade at the club, including eight years at the helm of the Dogs’ sports science and physical performance department.
It is a homecoming of sorts for Inness, who finished his first-class career in Western Australia before taking on a strength and conditioning role at the WACA.
Inness replaces Warren Kofoed, whose departure from the Eagles after 15 years was announced mid-season.
Matthew Inness first joined the Bulldogs in 2014 as the club’s VFL high performance manager. Picture: Michael Klein
Former Victorian star left-arm paceman Inness joins coaches Rohan Smith, Marc Webb and Travis Varcoe in leaving the Bulldogs after a season in which the club missed the finals despite stated top-four aspirations.
While Eagles coach Adam Simpson survived board debate about his role, the future of chief executive Trevor Nisbett remains murky, while there could also be change on West Coast’s coaching panel.
Inness is a former cricket teammate of Eagles director Justin Langer, who played a key role behind the scenes to save Simpson.
West Coast has been ravaged by injuries in recent seasons to the extent that it was at one stage forced to call on retired premiership defender Will Schofield to plug a hole in its undermanned WAFL side.
Inness had been a mainstay at the Dogs during Luke Beveridge’s time at the club, taking over the senior high performance role after Justin Cordy’s mid-year defection to the Gold Coast in 2015.
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The toilets in the Hangar reception weren’t working last week. Apparently Dodoro broke them!
If our players aren’t embracing the AFL lifestyle, how much of the inability to get buy in from the players is on the fitness staffs ability convey the importance of the message?
Alternatively, if you have the best in the business or even the eighteenth best in the business offering expert insight and unwavering expectations, and you arent taking that on board, you probaly dont deserve to be in an elite position.
If its a mix of both, well we have some work to do.
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Has been crap. Do you want to keep him a la the Dudorderer - for 20 years plus? No, should have cut our losses and shown him the door. Surely there are better options available.
He’s been there three years compared to your mate dodoro being there for twenty, so iam willing to give murphy one more until we find an adequate replacement
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Well, now that Rutten, Brasher, X, Mahoney and Dodoro are gone looks like he’s the next in line to take all the blame for everything
@Lawry was it you that posted a few weeks ago that Murphy had been extended?!
(Apologies if not, I can’t remember who said it)
Yes that’s what I was told. The same person at the club said he thought they’re would be big changes- which we’ve seen with Dodoro
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Last scalp we need to take us to the promised land (finals). Let’s make it happen Blitz.
The fitness department and been under review most of the year. Scott got the guy from Brisbane to take a look at what was going on and was gonna report back to the board?
Effectively, that’s a pretty big change in itself even without him officially leaving.
I’ll be amazed if he’s been extended though.
Talking to an ex-Hawks official, he couldn’t speak highly enough about Murphy. Basically says he knows his stuff. Interesting.
Some players at Essendon are uber fit. Earlier in the year, thinking more emotively, I was under the assumption that the fitness department weren’t up to scratch. I am thinking more of player buy in now to keeping fit. The club only has a limited amount of time with the player each week. My gut feeling is way too many players were just doing what they needed to do at the club, and unlike a proper professional athlete, didn’t maintain it outside the club. Just a thought.
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Not quite.
Players are only allowed one day away from the club per week. That day ends up being community work (some shared on socials, some not) and for some it’s university / education.
So four days per week, they are there from 8am to 4pm. Training in the morning occurs twice per week. Gym work is pretty much the rest of the time with some video work every here and there.
The club has a lot more access to it’s players than 20 years ago.
It got very demanding around a decade ago and that’s why the AFLPA have demanded time off during the week and longer breaks between the end of the season and the beginning of pre-season training.
If you’re too invested in AFL (i.e. don’t have a life outside of footy), you will burn out very quickly and spat out by the competition.
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Thanks for the clarification on that. I agree with the burn out factor to an extent. Always need a balance in life. So maybe not so much the training during the year, it maybe an off season problem? Thinking out aloud here. An athlete can’t keep up the high intensity 12 months a year. The body will eventually break down. Knowing a amatuer triathlete though, he will take maybe 4 week break every year. However, he mixes it up with some cross training, just to maintain fitness, at a much lower intensity. Otherwise he is playing catch up when he resumes training. What do you think yourself, Blummers?
You know what would help keeping up[ high intensity all year. Scott using a few more players in the 22 and managing players via sub or missing games.
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In all honesty, the break for an AFL footballer is about right.
Mentally you need to switch off.
And I don’t mean from your normal day to day training.
I mean the mental anguish that comes from being a footballer.
It is incredibly mentally challenging when all your mates can freely post photos on social media and you have to be ultra careful what goes up and who it’s shared to.
We can all say that’s AFL life and what you have to sacrifice to be a footballer, but it’s still a large mental hoop to jump through.
It’s something that 90s and 2000s footballers didn’t experience.
You also need to realise that education university schedules are rigid, whereas AFL training is based on when you play the following week. So trying to set yourself up for life after footy is also a lot more difficult than you think.
And we’re talking about 18 to 22 year kids who need to transition to this level of professionalism. Not everyone is capable of doing that in their first few years.
The other factor is sleep. Once you realise that as you exercise you are breaking down your muscles and body and it’s during recovery (resting and sleep) that you strengthen back up, you realise how important it is. Both for your mind and body.
I havent followed much of a pre-season in the past, so I’d be interested to know what they do between training days. I think it’s more flexible and players are allowed to do gym work away from the club. I think for memory Weid lives nearby Tulla so for him he prefers just rocking up to the club and using the gym.
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Players should not stop training, all year. If they are professional athletes (far too many AFL players are most definitely not professional athletes).
But they don’t train at intensity all year. Their training is periodised.
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