I saw on the AFL stats tracker that our 2017 round 20 game against GWS was the highest record distance covered by both teams combined in a game of AFL, 619.6 km were covered that day by 44 players for an average of 14.1 km per player.

That is the most, so not an average game. But yesterday, the two teams covered only 483.6 km, about 78% of that distance. 

Against PA, the two teams ran a little less (470.3 km). Against Brisbane 454 km (73% of max). In the Perth heat in round 1 it was as low as 428.8 km).

For this week's context, North did 8 km more than us yesterday.

 

So what are my take aways? 

Not much from this small data set although it does appear that shorter games correlates to distance run reasonably well. 

Does this mean faster recovery? Less soft tissue injuries?

Does it mean endurance athletes are less important? Or does it make them more important, with a few players running all day and allowing burst players to rotate more frequently? Are any positions doing proportionally more/less?

 

Has anyone had any thoughts on how this is effecting the season?

20% reduced game time is the clear 'gross' factor. Don't think there's much more to take from it as far as raw km run. More info on time spent sprinting vs jogging and walking would be interesting to add.

Possibly may be exacerbating the 'surplus midfielder' problem that is affecting the likes of Brayshaw and Harmes so much. Not much need for a rotation group if your primaries can play most of the minutes.

Edited August 6, 20204 yr by Little Goffy

483.6 + 20% = 580.32. Not that far off really. 

I covered a fair bit of ground in the game day thread, I think approx 20% more than normal. Pretty happy with my efforts.

1 hour ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

483.6 + 20% = 580.32. Not that far off really. 

Yeah that's what i was saying, it's about the same pro rata. But it is a massive loading difference in terms of recovery etc.

2 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

483.6 + 20% = 580.32. Not that far off really. 

Comedian and maths wizard, ET? 

I like the stats focus in this thread, not sure the ground covered tells us a great deal in this case though.

Adelaide, like our game the previous week, refused to switch the ball or look in board and constantly went to contests up the line. This meant that there was less gut-running, since we'd continually set up our zone.

The fact we barely ran at all the previous week would probably account for the slightly lower kms covered against Port.

Edited August 6, 20204 yr by A F

Interesting - I think TMac might need to put the que in the rack for 2020.  His endurance for his size is his biggest weapon - but as you say this is less important in the 2020 game.  Maybe he should spend the next 6-9 months working on his agility / acceleration as that has fallen away for him - most likely due to injuries.