Fitness / Conditioning / Luke Meehan appointed Physical Performance Manager [merged]

[Tigeritis™©®]

 

If Lynch, Tarrant, Nank, Biggie, Bradtke, Soldo, Brown, Smith and Colina were all running around in the 1s or 2s, would this even be an issue? None of these injuries can be slated home to Meehan, yet he gets criticised for us having a long injury list.

Does he get credit for Short coming back from 3 weeks off and playing as well as he did? No, I didn't think so.

Lots of ill-informed 'fitness experts' on here with opinions that aren't worth a tinkers in my book.

Facts are facts FFV.
Ask yourself a question
Can we currently execute our game style for four quarters?

If the answer is no it’s a fitness issue plain and simple. You don’t need to be a fitness guru to know that.

Also if you’re not fit enough in any industry whilst working are you more prone to injury?

Ask yourself this: we won 13.5 games last year, and were an arc decision from facing a weakened Melbourne in a semi final. Were we only fit enough for 13.5 games and not fit enough for the other 8 or 9?

I don't buy any of this malarkey. It's got much more to do with personnel available at the moment, the number of kids with only one or two preseason in them, and a lot of aging champs.

When things aren't going right on field, the fitness staff are just an easy target. "Must be fitness" is a cheap shot. It's much more complex than that and that's the point I'm trying to make.

Well unlike yourself I’ll actually answer your questions.

No we weren’t fit enough last season in order to play our game for four quarters. That’s why we only scrapped into finals and didn’t win any.

[Simonator]

Have a look at Collingwood fitness compared to ours, they just destroyed bombers in the last quarter. First to every contest and in numbers… how have they done it ? Even their older players at playing well unlike ours

[FooffooValve]

Poor old Essendon must have to sack their fitness staff now.

[FooffooValve]

If Lynch, Tarrant, Nank, Biggie, Bradtke, Soldo, Brown, Smith and Colina were all running around in the 1s or 2s, would this even be an issue? None of these injuries can be slated home to Meehan, yet he gets criticised for us having a long injury list.

Does he get credit for Short coming back from 3 weeks off and playing as well as he did? No, I didn't think so.

Lots of ill-informed 'fitness experts' on here with opinions that aren't worth a tinkers in my book.

Facts are facts FFV.
Ask yourself a question
Can we currently execute our game style for four quarters?

If the answer is no it’s a fitness issue plain and simple. You don’t need to be a fitness guru to know that.

Also if you’re not fit enough in any industry whilst working are you more prone to injury?

Ask yourself this: we won 13.5 games last year, and were an arc decision from facing a weakened Melbourne in a semi final. Were we only fit enough for 13.5 games and not fit enough for the other 8 or 9?

I don't buy any of this malarkey. It's got much more to do with personnel available at the moment, the number of kids with only one or two preseason in them, and a lot of aging champs.

When things aren't going right on field, the fitness staff are just an easy target. "Must be fitness" is a cheap shot. It's much more complex than that and that's the point I'm trying to make.

Well unlike yourself I’ll actually answer your questions.

No we weren’t fit enough last season in order to play our game for four quarters. That’s why we only scrapped into finals and didn’t win any.

When we overran the younger (Darren Burgess trained) Crows in the last quarter on their home deck in round 2, were we fit enough then, or no?

BTW, you didn't come anywhere near answering the question. You just said the same thing again.

[Francois Jackson]

You are reaching. We played poorly in a fair bit of that game against the crows IMO and again didn’t play 4 quarters.
Possibly 2 and a half, and won because the crows played one quarter.

[HKTigerB]

Agree. Not good enough

Was it this bloke insisting no balls be used until February?
.......

We were training full ground drills with the football in December.  Burge was the guy who had us doing football free December.

Our GPS numbers are up measurably over this pre-season.  Including for repeat sprints/high intensity efforts.  Just a couple of facts.

[The Machine]

Agree. Not good enough

Was it this bloke insisting no balls be used until February?
.......

We were training full ground drills with the football in December.  Burge was the guy who had us doing football free December.

Our GPS numbers are up measurably over this pre-season.  Including for repeat sprints/high intensity efforts.  Just a couple of facts.

Facts don’t go down well with some on here

[Francois Jackson]

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

[HKTigerB]

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

From a coaches briefing and my own personal viewing and timing training this pre-season and last.

[Simonator]

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

From a coaches briefing and my own personal viewing and timing training this pre-season and last.

So are you suggesting our fade outs are between the ears rather than a lack of fitness ?

[HKTigerB]

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

From a coaches briefing and my own personal viewing and timing training this pre-season and last.

My take is too many players with only one or two pre-seasons. 7 guys last night pretty much in their first or second season.  Melbourne had 1 or 2 such players.  For the game Melbourne ran 4k's more than us, 283km vs 279km.  That;s 1.5%.  Their high intensity stuff was better but that's mature bodies, imho.

So are you suggesting our fade outs are between the ears rather than a lack of fitness ?

[FooffooValve]

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

From a coaches briefing and my own personal viewing and timing training this pre-season and last.

So are you suggesting our fade outs are between the ears rather than a lack of fitness ?

I'm not sure the premise of 'fade outs' is totally accurate. We didn't fade out in Rounds 1 and 2. One could argue we were finishing stronger than Carlton in the last quarter. We smashed Adelaide in the last quarter. We got off to a bad start against Collingwood and actually closed the gap in the second half. We were with the Dogs all night and went down in a close one. Last night it was less of a fade out than a possibly bad sub decision and bad kicking for goal that cost us. Sydney was a fade out, but we had a kick to get within a goal early in the last, and they got us from there.

I get that people want a simple explanation for being 1 and a half wins after 6 games, but isn't it possible that the answer is more nuanced than "the fitness guy" or "between the ears"? We are definitely renovating this side, and there will be some poor games and bad days along the way. Hopefully some good days too. Guys like M Rioli, Clarke, HRS, Cumberland, Ryan, Mansell, Young and Miller are not immediately replacing the hardened premiership players that have left over the past couple of seasons. Sheeting a bad win/loss record right now all to one fitness guy is nonsense IMO.

[lamington]

I get exactly what you’re saying. Purely from spectating you do wonder with Collingwood being able to run Essendon into the ground in the last quarter it’s still worth entertaining the idea are our cubs fit enough? This is elite sport so 2-5% difference can be massive in grinding out a win.

We were so good on the spread in our premiership years but it could also be that we had kane lambert who made everyone around him better. For me I think his departure is the one we haven’t come close to replacing and has crippled us the most. Collingwood still have a fit Sidebottom doing the between the arc running.

[Francois Jackson]

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

From a coaches briefing and my own personal viewing and timing training this pre-season and last.

with the greatest of respect that tells me absolutely nothing factual about how we cant run our 4 quarters, especially the latter part of your reply. id like to see how our numbers stack up against teams who are finishing 4 quarters of football.

Il also add that we had the same issues in a lot of games last year. Whilst not this blokes fault he was part of the system with Burge. I'm interested in who oversaw this football free rubbish.

Agree. Not good enough

Was it this bloke insisting no balls be used until February?
.......

We were training full ground drills with the football in December.  Burge was the guy who had us doing football free December.

Our GPS numbers are up measurably over this pre-season.  Including for repeat sprints/high intensity efforts.  Just a couple of facts.

Can i please confirm which year are you referring to here?

if it was pre season 2022 Luke was in charge

https://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/1248069/luke-meehan-appointed-physical-performance-manager

up "considerably" and yet still behind the best in the comp and as a result cant run out 4 quarters.

These facts are according to who by the way.

From a coaches briefing and my own personal viewing and timing training this pre-season and last.

So are you suggesting our fade outs are between the ears rather than a lack of fitness ?

I get that people want a simple explanation for being 1 and a half wins after 6 games, but isn't it possible that the answer is more nuanced than "the fitness guy" or "between the ears"? We are definitely renovating this side, and there will be some poor games and bad days along the way. Hopefully some good days too. Guys like M Rioli, Clarke, HRS, Cumberland, Ryan, Mansell, Young and Miller are not immediately replacing the hardened premiership players that have left over the past couple of seasons. Sheeting a bad win/loss record right now all to one fitness guy is nonsense IMO.

 

did anyone actually say that? What people have said its an issue, amongst others things like performance of senior players, discipline issues, personnel issues etc

Wake up please.

[lamington]

I take back my precious post. I just remembered a dyl and friends podcast with Nathan Jones. He said when they were in peak shitness that was actually when the club was at its fittest. They had close to 3/4 of their top 22 running ~10min 3km. He said because their skills and structure was so poor the fitness didn’t do enough to negate just their poor execution of ball movement.

He said they ran considerably less once Oliver, petracca viney got settled and Paul Roos/Goodwin made wholesale changes

I know it’s hyper specific but considering our long kicking game has been terrible id say we’re having parallels with what Nate Jones experienced