Roast Medical/Fitness Team

[Cheesewheel]

I'm kinda with Banker on the extra running bit. We needlessly chased the myth of Ports fitness and cooked ourselves come finals.

This off season I'd rather the team spent the extra session practicing their field kicking and ability to spot players in the open. We keep letting teams stay in the game with our constant turnovers and we burn so many of our players with s**t kicks into the forward 50. If we played smarter football we wouldn't have to run as much.

Edit: Kinda reminds me back in 2011? when everyone was ordered to bulk up in one off season so we had bigger bodies at the contests, then by the end of the season all we had was a massive injury list. Excessive fitness on players in a short amount of time doesn't work out.

 

[scon]

The face of stained success.

 

[Nickos66]

What a rubbish strawman argument.

We had majority of our best 22 play 2 matches in 4 weeks, bugger all soft tissue injuries or knees and almost a blank injury list going into the finals. Fatigue didn't cost us, skill errors did.

 

[Andy Brennan]

Would rather roast Dawson & Silvagni for getting suspended (stupidly) late in the year when we may have been able to rest Luke.

So much this. Bloody idiots. Both stupid, deliberate acts.

 

[Banker]

Does anyone think we shouldn't do the same preseason as last year?

We seemed to be absolute cooked 2nd half of year and never got any where close to our initial form. I think the main reason a hard preseason doesn't suit the club, is because the game plan requires every ounce of energy from the players, which is why Ross favours many elite runners over skilled players.

 

[not_working]

Does anyone think we shouldn't do the same preseason as last year?

We seemed to be absolute cooked 2nd half of year and never got any where close to our initial form. I think the main reason a hard preseason doesn't suit the club, is because the game plan requires every ounce of energy from the players, which is why Ross favours many elite runners over skilled players.

How do you conclusively link extra pre-season work with a drop-off in the second half of the season, ie three months later? Maybe other clubs caught up with us then, but there is no physical reason why extra training would impact you three months later? (other than through injury)

For me the biggest issue, and it's funny that this doesn't seem to get mentioned often, has been Fyfe in the weeks after Tasmania. According to him, his issues started from adopting a slightly different running style after the corked leg, and then groin injury, and one thing led to another. So with hindsight, he should have been rested for the appropriate amount of time then, until he was able to go back to his normal running style and only resume playing/training then. Of course easy with hindsight, but IMO exactly the sort of thing that should be picked up pro-actively!

 

[Belnakor]

Does anyone think we shouldn't do the same preseason as last year?

We seemed to be absolute cooked 2nd half of year and never got any where close to our initial form. I think the main reason a hard preseason doesn't suit the club, is because the game plan requires every ounce of energy from the players, which is why Ross favours many elite runners over skilled players.

I'm not sure we were cooked, i think it was simply because Fyfe got injuries, ie: after round 14. After that point, we just came back to the field. Before that we only won 2 games where Fyfe didn't poll 3 votes.

 

[Belnakor]

For me the biggest issue, and it's funny that this doesn't seem to get mentioned often, has been Fyfe in the weeks after Tasmania. According to him, his issues started from adopting a slightly different running style after the corked leg, and then groin injury, and one thing led to another. So with hindsight, he should have been rested for the appropriate amount of time then, until he was able to go back to his normal running style and only resume playing/training then. Of course easy with hindsight, but IMO exactly the sort of thing that should be picked up pro-actively!

yup and i think this decision ultimately cost us a crack at the premiership.

after the cork they should have given him 2-3 weeks off to get cherry ripe. instead he played 2 games at 50% and was injured for the rest of the season.

 

[Allikat]

I agree that Fyfe shouldn't have played straight after the cork - it was clearly troubling him. But I don't think any medico would've expected the chain of events that led to him breaking his leg. They managed him a lot better after the Norf game, but if you're a club chasing a flag, or a player with as much drive & determination as Fyfey, I can see why they took the risk. Unfortunately it didn't work out either winning the game, or coming out uninjured.

Nat talked about the injuries he had on Talking Footy after the Brownlow. It's worth listening to if you haven't yet (plus he's adorable in it) http://www.fremantlefc.com.au/video/2015-09-29/fyfes-continuum-improvement-talking-footy

So I don't think our medical staff can really be called negligent. It was a calculated risk that didn't turn out. And we really did well on the injury front during the year.

I do think there's one issue that needs to be looked at though - and that's the amount of stress related injuries in our young players. Including Fyfe & A Pearce. But I think this may be a bulking/training/load issue.

 

[Eski3]

The reality is it's very hard to keep players over 30 on the park for an entire season. We relied too much on Pav and Johnson in the end. We need fit durable KPPs.

 

[FreoRicci]

I'm kinda with Banker on the extra running bit. We needlessly chased the myth of Ports fitness and cooked ourselves come finals.

This off season I'd rather the team spent the extra session practicing their field kicking and ability to spot players in the open. We keep letting teams stay in the game with our constant turnovers and we burn so many of our players with s**t kicks into the forward 50. If we played smarter football we wouldn't have to run as much.

Edit: Kinda reminds me back in 2011? when everyone was ordered to bulk up in one off season so we had bigger bodies at the contests, then by the end of the season all we had was a massive injury list. Excessive fitness on players in a short amount of time doesn't work out.

That was a joke that season. Pavlich, Mundy, McPharlin, Barlow and Sandi were all out and not even 5 games til the finals. Bulking up does nothing, good contested but get killed with the top heavy style

 

[FreoRicci]

yup and i think this decision ultimately cost us a crack at the premiership.

after the cork they should have given him 2-3 weeks off to get cherry ripe. instead he played 2 games at 50% and was injured for the rest of the season.

If you want to look at it in a better light, Fyfe got the 2 votes that won him the Brownlow..
But definitely agree that with a groin/cork the injury layoff is 3 weeks. Wonder, though, that Fyfe pushed through the barrier because he is still young and wants to play every game at 100% no matter what. Hope he learns the lesson for next season.

 

[FreoRicci]

The reality is it's very hard to keep players over 30 on the park for an entire season. We relied too much on Pav and Johnson in the end. We need fit durable KPPs.

Hawthorn are doing it very very well in that regard. Lake, Mitchell, Hodge and Gibson don't seem to be bothered by being 30+

 

[Banker]

How do you conclusively link extra pre-season work with a drop-off in the second half of the season, ie three months later? Maybe other clubs caught up with us then, but there is no physical reason why extra training would impact you three months later? (other than through injury)

For me the biggest issue, and it's funny that this doesn't seem to get mentioned often, has been Fyfe in the weeks after Tasmania. According to him, his issues started from adopting a slightly different running style after the corked leg, and then groin injury, and one thing led to another. So with hindsight, he should have been rested for the appropriate amount of time then, until he was able to go back to his normal running style and only resume playing/training then. Of course easy with hindsight, but IMO exactly the sort of thing that should be picked up pro-actively!

Just looking at Port from last year, fatigue is bound to set in at some point. For every action there has to be a reaction, of course 1st half of year = out running opponents, but you pay the cost at some point. AFL is one of those sports where they seem to already run at their limits, which is why I found Port running program intriguing and not viable.

Yep Fyfe was mismanaged, the club seemed desperate for the minor premiership.

 

[Banker]

Hawthorn are doing it very very well in that regard. Lake, Mitchell, Hodge and Gibson don't seem to be bothered by being 30+

Would be interesting to see how many km they cover and at what speed?

I think their game plan has prolonged some of their careers.

 

[Scham]

Hawthorn are doing it very very well in that regard. Lake, Mitchell, Hodge and Gibson don't seem to be bothered by being 30+

Or Burgoyne.

 

[Scham]

Far too many calf and lower leg injuries over the last few years for my liking.

Need changes in this area of the club too IMO.

 

[Banker]

And Silvagni's suspension too. The two guys who were needed fecked up with pure ill-discipline.

Yep, but I think the club needed to take the short term pain- potential loss of 1st spot to gain more in finals. It didn't make sense to risk Luke, when he only played on for finals.

 

[malpaso]

Hawthorn are doing it very very well in that regard. Lake, Mitchell, Hodge and Gibson don't seem to be bothered by being 30+

Yeah but they get rest during the season by getting suspended.

 

[not_working]

Just looking at Port from last year, fatigue is bound to set in at some point. For every action there has to be a reaction, of course 1st half of year = out running opponents, but you pay the cost at some point. AFL is one of those sports where they seem to already run at their limits, which is why I found Port running program intriguing and not viable.

Yep Fyfe was mismanaged, the club seemed desperate for the minor premiership.

I must admit I don't understand the Port reference, I thought Port did pretty well last year?

I also think that the overall argument is flawed, there isn't some sort of odometer on players that they can only run that many kilometers in a season. Fatigue and stress injuries do not work in such long cycles - the concern with extra training would be during pre-season or maybe beginning of the season, ie injuries would show up when the higher volume of training happens. If you overtrain, your physical level actually goes down but such an effect is not visible after months, even if you run a marathon at competitive speed.

 

[SHill Shall]

[QUOTE="Banker, post: 41237799, member: 153385]
Yep Fyfe was mismanaged, the club seemed desperate for the minor premiership.[/QUOTE]

So you're saying our medicos should have been able to project that a bad corky in his right thigh would transfer to a stress fracture type condition in his left shin?

 

[Ripper]

Crikey! We have to sack the fitness team as well as the coach and half the playing group now.

 

[Reginald Perrin]

All past intel points to it being Mark Harvey's fault.

 

[yoong]

Preseason is the only chance for the team to do the extra running they need to build up their fitness level. The only danger of the extra mileage is soft tissue injuries. If I remember correctly, only Dawson and Silvagni got soft tissue injuries at the start of the season, and we have the most numbers of players available in round 1 for the past few years, so I'll say the extra running program was planned pretty well.

May be hindsight, but I do agree we have to rest players like McPharlin, MJ, Pav and Sandi during the season before they actually break down.

 

[Scham]

Crikey! We have to sack the fitness team as well as the coach and half the playing group now.

We need to improve Ripper. No ones calling for mass sackings but we do need to improve in most areas including coaching, playing and sports science. I think Ross highlighted that point beautifully in his post match press conference on Friday. We can't stand still.