Its a good point.
We have been like this for the last few years. Its like our preparation sets us up for an injury riddled year, which has happened (yet) again.
We need a review into this by an external expert.
…probably wont happen.
DONATE TO THE FLIGHT PLAN
You will get an internal review (led by X) AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.
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Funny this…recently I was sitting next to the South African womens Hockey team’s sports science guy on the plane trip from London to Barcelona where they were playing the world cup that just finished last month, and we were chatting about how much sports science has come along - where he happened to mention, its also become a bit like the evolution in IT (eg: new technologies are rolling along so quickly, that the key decision makers are seduced by the new shiny thing thinking it will solve all the problems + the sales guys will ensure they leverage this and keep putting mayo on top - even though they don’t understand it completely)…
His point was that the core principles will always remain the same. i.e running is the base for all running games and irrelevant of what progress we have made in terms of recovery techniques/ strengthening techniques/ nutrition…etc, we shouldn’t compromise on the core principle and keep pushing the dial on it.
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Perhaps the club is simply to mean to pay the dollars to what the best of the best want for renumeration. So we just get what we get and we will like it whether we like it or not.
Until the club betters itself on all levels, not much will change. Our expectations will never be met.
AFL Soft cap.
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Which raises the interesting point - would you rather the Club spent next year’s extra soft cap on better/more fitness & rehab staff?
Or on Clako?
There were a bunch of guys who got covid at a wedding in the preseason from memory, may have had an impact
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Is there a buffer in the soft cap like the salary cap where you can pay over or above over the limit and smooth it over a number of years?
It’s called a soft cap for a reason. You can actually exceed it, any club that can afford to pay the extra (plus whatever additional taxes you have to pay the AFL for going over) should IMO. That’s where you can get a competitive advantage on the bottom feeder clubs, and keep up with the big hitters.
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@smooth is going to pay for it too! So we can get the competitive advantage.
Game-specific training is the #1 thing in S&C, replicate game day actions or movements as much as possible. Its why you won’t find any bicep/arm curls in their program (but the players will add them in anyway).
Its also why I have always been absolutely baffled with the idea of these spongey floors as I have always thought this would fail at replicating the intensity of a proper game on our lower limbs. Good for those sore knees you say? Sure. But I wonder whether excessive training loads on these floors flow on to why we have such high rates of recurrent soft tissue injuries.
Do we have our rehab sessions performed inside? Do these environments not adequately replicate the intensity of game day running loads and subsequently causes an overload and re-aggravation during games?
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Shouldn’t you know the answers to those questions before questioning our lord and saviour, the spongey floor? Adam Cooney would not be impressed.
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If any type of review of fitness department is being done, it should start right here.
Its actually a really easy one. Before and after. It’ll get ticked off though cause who ever signed it off wil be reviewing it anyway. It maybe that it suits some right down to the ground (ha) but aint great for the plethora of young blokes who just want to play footy.
worth a rant.
Fk off X.
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The doctor would make the call on an injury, not the fitness guy.
Putting this here - does anyone have access to the distances covered & sprint efforts from Saturday?
My gut feel was that almost every player looked flat, and there was much less running to provide options or assistance. Was thinking this even at half time.
I know sometimes distance covered can be misleading- especially if you’re chasing the oppositions tail all day, or repeatedly covering the marks from backline chip kicks, but…
Granted it was a 6 day break & a short interstate flight, but I have a nagging feeling Murphy got the preparation all wrong.
Interested to see what sort of “high performance” he can possibly pull out this week.
Anyway, my gut feel.
Don’t know if the numbers will back it up.
Not sure Murphy and “high performance” should ever be used in the same sentence.
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After going for the cheap laugh, I might as well get specific.
Serious about the question re our running performance on Saturday.
And, to be explicit, probably the one thing Murphy has succeeded at is to improve our general fitness & running abilities.
When we can get on the park.
Surely I’m not the only one who remembers the last 10 or 15 years where we regularly struggled to run out games. And there is a connection between how far & fast certain players run when we perform well; Durham Martin 2MP, Merrett the previous game etc etc.
So on a serious note, Murphy isn’t a complete dud.
Where there’s an obvious failure is in the prevention & management of soft tissue injuries.
Now Murphy has oversight of the whole program- but where exactly does the fault lie?
With Murphy?
With specific fitness, conditioning & rehab staff under him?
Both?
Are too many of our players unprofessional slackers who don’t prep or rehab well enough?
Have we tried the “Burgess method” of apparently training through minor soreness, only to get it wrong?
I don’t know the answers, but really hope any reviews- internal or external- looks at this in detail. It’s an area we lagged in for a decade, and unless there’s specific work done I fear the “off with his head” mob will have their way.
Murphy will be sacked. Just like Justin Crowe.
And the same complaints will be made endlessly in the new Fitness Thread, the same way you can pretty much interchange the names Crowe & Murphy in thousands of comments since 2010.
Our soft tissue injury woes have been a problem since we moved to Docklands.
The CEO keeps committing to Docklands as our home ground, because our members want to stay warm in the winter.
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Distance covered
Essendon 278.3km
GWS 283.4km
Total sprints
Essendon 210
GWS 221
We were a little bit down on our usual numbers.