Darren Burgess podcast

[bing181 9,245]

4 minutes ago, dieter said:

We should never underestimate the contribution Burgess made to this club.

We should never underestimate the contribution Simon Goodwin made to this club. That remark from Burgess that Goodwin backed him and the fitness team 100% and not once in 2 years questioned him about players' fitness, bodies etc. etc. Also, his remark that Goodwin has no self-interest and only does what's best for the club/team was revelatory and reinforces what we saw with the players backing each other with their "team-first" approach. (rather than just trying to get 30 touches).

Perhaps the best behind-the-scenes AFL podcast or interview I've ever heard.

[dieter 3,325]

17 minutes ago, bing181 said:

We should never underestimate the contribution Simon Goodwin made to this club. That remark from Burgess that Goodwin backed him and the fitness team 100% and not once in 2 years questioned him about players' fitness, bodies etc. etc. Also, his remark that Goodwin has no self-interest and only does what's best for the club/team was revelatory and reinforces what we saw with the players backing each other with their "team-first" approach. (rather than just trying to get 30 touches).

Perhaps the best behind-the-scenes AFL podcast or interview I've ever heard.

Kudos, great observation. I have always been moved by his emotion at the end...

Edited October 16, 2021 by dieter

[rpfc 28,524]

17 minutes ago, bing181 said:

We should never underestimate the contribution Simon Goodwin made to this club. That remark from Burgess that Goodwin backed him and the fitness team 100% and not once in 2 years questioned him about players' fitness, bodies etc. etc. Also, his remark that Goodwin has no self-interest and only does what's best for the club/team was revelatory and reinforces what we saw with the players backing each other with their "team-first" approach. (rather than just trying to get 30 touches).

Perhaps the best behind-the-scenes AFL podcast or interview I've ever heard.

Yes, Goodwin is the star of the show in Burgess’s mind.

Loved how he spoke about the fact that he was trusted to do his job and not questioned. 

My biggest takeaway had more to do with the EPL having a massive gap in the areas that Goodwin is so great at. If I was to advise any of the rich people, or in the case of Newcastle United, flagrant murderers who own EPL clubs - it would be this organisational culture that is where their deficiencies seem to lie.

[Deeoldfart 8,033]

That was a sensational interview.  Clearly Burgo will be a huge loss, but I have absolute faith that he will have left Selwyn Griffith with the necessary intel to maintain an elite level AFL program at the MFC.

[DeeZone 9,871]

2 hours ago, bing181 said:

We should never underestimate the contribution Simon Goodwin made to this club. That remark from Burgess that Goodwin backed him and the fitness team 100% and not once in 2 years questioned him about players' fitness, bodies etc. etc. Also, his remark that Goodwin has no self-interest and only does what's best for the club/team was revelatory and reinforces what we saw with the players backing each other with their "team-first" approach. (rather than just trying to get 30 touches).

Perhaps the best behind-the-scenes AFL podcast or interview I've ever heard.

Agree 100% bing 181 and thanks to all posters made me sit down and have a quiet listen to hear it from the horses mouth so to speak. I really enjoyed how Burgo explained the way that the coaching staff and the fitness team got together to gain the trust and alignment of the two into one unit under Goody. Prior to bringing the team aboard and how critical Tracc and Max were in getting the team to buy in. Also loved his perfect storm description of the midfield group that broke the game open in the third led by a fresh Luke Jackson and how Max said that he would tear them apart. Train hard and when others are having a spell train harder.💕❤️💙

[Fanatique Demon 2,650]

Anyone with lingering doubts about Goody should listen to how Burgo speaks about him.

[deelusions from afar 1,810]

Another interesting insight was that on matchday Burgo essentially managed who came on and off and when.  Obviously there would be rules about how this works and much of it would be loosely mapped out prior to the game, but it's still a huge responsibility that can have a big impact if done well v done poorly.  The 3rd quarter of the GF shows that!

[Grr-owl 1,220]

Great listen. Great podcast in general. Sounds like a few more are coming up too....

First time I'd heard Burgo talk about being ready to stay at MFC long-term. Pity we couldn't keep him, but you never know, he may be back.

[Cards13 9,117]

Impressive guys those two (Bruckner as well), he’s a massive loss, he’s so measured and assured based on his and the team around him set up of process and procedure.

Something that stood out was his noting the funding ripped out of footy depts last year and how people were just turfed and or had huge pay cuts thrust upon them. Amazing time we are living through. 

[Skuit 10,031]

Will go back and listen to the podcast now. But as a preliminary point, I randomly stumbled across a post of Darren's the other day in the course of my regular professional life where he mentioned he'd been drafted in by a specialist elite sport performance recruitment consultancy out of Melbourne. Thought it might have precluded his association with the Adelaide Football Club, but no-go.

I've spoken before about the loss of this bloke's IP, but it's way more than that. He has the capacity to motivate others like the very best of top-line coaches. Completely irreplaceable in my opinion. Did anyone else notice him chatting to Goody at length on the side-lines sometime around the third quarter when the tide turned, and Goody being completely all ears? For the gamblers here, I would back in Adelaide to be competing for a flag within three years, that's what I think of Burgess. 

[dee-tox 4,835]

Fascinating podcast.

DeeSpencer summarised the main points very well.

The interesting thing I found was that he mentioned the bench was pretty fired up over the Caleb Daniel and Gawn tackle and subsequent stand over. He intimates that this was a major factor in Melbourne coming back. 

First time anyone from the club has acknowledged this. I'm sure it has played a bigger role than what we've said publicly.

[bing181 9,245]

4 hours ago, Skuit said:

Did anyone else notice him chatting to Goody at length on the side-lines sometime around the third quarter when the tide turned, and Goody being completely all ears?

He referenced this in another interview (from the rooms after the game?). He said that he was just confirming the rotations, to check what Goodwin and the coaches needed in terms of availability and confirming that he wanted to stick to the planning that they'd put in place. He's said before that his role on match day is very much around getting the rotations right and in phase with the coaching needs/game plan.

It should be remembered as well that he's the one that has access to all the in-game performance metrics through his technical team, and it's his job to manage that, but also to pass it on to the coaches (player x is close to his game limit for performance factor y, etc. etc.)

But agree, will be a big loss. Though he does speak positively about the high performance team that they'd built, so hopefully we'll be OK. I also presume that he's had input into the pre-season program, both collectively and individually. Could be wrong though ...

[Skuit 10,031]

5 hours ago, bing181 said:

He referenced this in another interview (from the rooms after the game?). He said that he was just confirming the rotations, to check what Goodwin and the coaches needed in terms of availability and confirming that he wanted to stick to the planning that they'd put in place. He's said before that his role on match day is very much around getting the rotations right and in phase with the coaching needs/game plan.

It should be remembered as well that he's the one that has access to all the in-game performance metrics through his technical team, and it's his job to manage that, but also to pass it on to the coaches (player x is close to his game limit for performance factor y, etc. etc.)

But agree, will be a big loss. Though he does speak positively about the high performance team that they'd built, so hopefully we'll be OK. I also presume that he's had input into the pre-season program, both collectively and individually. Could be wrong though ...

Cheers mate. I had advocated before that we find a FIFO solution to retain Burg, mainly around fitness and motivation, but I think I underestimated his gameday role and how much in sync he was with our head coach. 

[Skuit 10,031]

This is the greatest insight we will ever likely have into our drought-breaking flag, at least for the next decade or so until some other player or coach bios filter through. Spine-tingling, the recounting of the grand final. Anyone still not yet to have a listen, I urge you to do so. It resolves a lot of discussions had on here. Goody definitely gets his stripes. Burgess is an absolute key component, I’m so sad to see him go, but maybe there’s chance he will come back someday. If I had the digital wherewithal, I would turn this podcast into a documentary with video footage. Anyone with such skills, I will write the script in a joint project. Any takers, @A F @Ash?

[Demons1858 1,760]

On 10/17/2021 at 6:35 PM, Fanatique Demon said:

Anyone with lingering doubts about Goody should listen to how Burgo speaks about him.

That's probably true, but its also true he was complementary of Dave Misson's time at the club which suggests he is being Mr Nice guy at least some of the time.

The contrast between the number of injuries and the levels of fitness pre and post Burgo is stark and its not a co-incidence. We missed finals 1 maybe 2 times in the past due to our prior injury and fitness management

Edited October 19, 2021 by Demons1858

[Mono 455]

7 hours ago, dee-tox said:

Fascinating podcast.

DeeSpencer summarised the main points very well.

The interesting thing I found was that he mentioned the bench was pretty fired up over the Caleb Daniel and Gawn tackle and subsequent stand over. He intimates that this was a major factor in Melbourne coming back. 

First time anyone from the club has acknowledged this. I'm sure it has played a bigger role than what we've said publicly.

On reflection, the Daniels stand over was a real turning point. Daniels thought the dees were done, but it woke the slumbering beast.

Thanks Caleb. 🤡

[Skuit 10,031]

1 minute ago, Demons1858 said:

That's probably true, but its also true he was complementary of Dave Misson's time at the club which suggests he is being Mr Nice guy at least some of the time.

The contrast between the number of injuries and the levels of fitness pre and post Burgo is stark and its not a co-incidence.  

And that's true too. But listening will give anyone a fair gauge on the the difference between professional courtesy and genuine praise. Anyone still doubting Goody as the key architect of our flag needs to give up now. The weight of evidence continues to mount against them.  

[deelusions from afar 1,810]

4 minutes ago, Skuit said:

And that's true too. But listening will give anyone a fair gauge on the the difference between professional courtesy and genuine praise. Anyone still doubting Goody as the key architect of our flag needs to give up now. The weight of evidence continues to mount against them.  

I agree - and I think perhaps the reason why the selflessness approach taken by the players this year worked so well was that that is how the coach has always approached his role - so they had a good leader / role model to follow.

When the players speak up (particularly the stars) they always talk about how much they love goody and the impact he has had on them as a player and as a person.  Yes it's in their interest to do so - but they seem to go above and beyond which to me indicates it is genuine.

[Watson11 2,241]

I've got into listening to the Burgo podcasts.  For those that are interested in the hard science this one has a lot of interesting info. Burgo and Coutts (Sports Scientist)

It's a bit of a technical listen.  The amount of stuff they measure is mind boggling.  Burgo had 70 people reporting to him at Arsenal, so I guess that is what they do all day.   

Brukner mentioned that despite the science soft tissue injury rates have not changed in 30 years.  So what they do with teams right now is a huge experiment based on experience, understanding the science that doesn't work, and theories they come up with.  Burgo has a PhD and I suspect could go against the grain with MFC. We may have been an experiment based on what he has learnt over the years. A few interesting things from the podcast:

1. Burgo mentioned that Arsenal had 7 years of detailed player data (from 45 games per year) and the data scientists could not find any correlation between the data and injuries.  This says to me that all the managing players, pulling from training when sore or tired etc etc didn't work.  At MFC, Burgo trained players through soreness, fatigue, etc to build resilience.  It may have been the first time he ever did that and may be his most important professional achievement.

2. Coutts talks about a few of the things they do know for sure.  One is training variability leads to injury.  This goes against what elite athletes have done for ever with hard weeks/easy weeks, and the AFL tendency to do super hard AFL preseasons then back off when the games start etc.  At MFC Burgo seemed to take the attitude to just train hard all year, even in the lead up to the GF.  The Burgo/Coutts theory seems to be that doing so reduces the risk of soft tissue injury.

Listening to Burgo you just have to have a lot of respect for his appetite for the science, and how he used all the data and experience to put together the 2021 season.  I hope a lot of this has rubbed off on Selwyn but he has giant boots to fill.

[rpfc 28,524]

On 10/19/2021 at 3:29 AM, dee-tox said:

Fascinating podcast.

DeeSpencer summarised the main points very well.

The interesting thing I found was that he mentioned the bench was pretty fired up over the Caleb Daniel and Gawn tackle and subsequent stand over. He intimates that this was a major factor in Melbourne coming back. 

First time anyone from the club has acknowledged this. I'm sure it has played a bigger role than what we've said publicly.

I doubt it. Petracca on the Sunday Footy Show was asked by Barrett that question and he was incredulous; I ran past Gawny and said “alright get up” and thought ‘you can’t be doing that, he’s 5’7 and you’re 6’11, c’mon mate’…

32.15 mins in

 

[Roger Mellie 4,034]

Great listen! It would've been great to see the roles reversed and Burgess interviewing Bruckner about the medical side.

It was sad to hear Burgo say to lock him in for 10-15 years and now he's (understandably) gorn! Hope he comes back!

The Selwyn Griffith podcast is worth a listen too. At the start of it, I was thinking WTF,  but this guy's body of work is enormous and as Burgess says, having good people at the club is uppermost and he certainly is.

 

[dee-tox 4,835]

13 hours ago, rpfc said:

I doubt it. Petracca on the Sunday Footy Show was asked by Barrett that question and he was incredulous; I ran past Gawny and said “alright get up” and thought ‘you can’t be doing that, he’s 5’7 and you’re 6’11, c’mon mate’…

32.15 mins in

 

Yep was aware of what Petracca said. But also interesting what Burgess said.

Sometimes PR,  positioning or framing play a part in these things as well.

This is not the official line obviously, but if I was a player and saw my captain slung to the ground and then stood over by the smallest guy on the field I'd be a touch fired up! Sometimes in sport it just takes a spark. Maybe it wasn't a factor but Burgess thought it was significant enough to mention in his answer as to why Melbourne suddenly turned things around.

Edited October 21, 2021 by dee-tox

[binman 43,091]

On 10/18/2021 at 11:03 PM, Skuit said:

I've spoken before about the loss of this bloke's IP, but it's way more than that. He has the capacity to motivate others like the very best of top-line coaches. Completely irreplaceable in my opinion. 

Agree.

I rewatched the hell and back 5 part video series the other day/ its almost series about Burgo as it's key focus is preseason training.

The thing that jumped out is the psychological component - being the fittest list is the goal (and you'd have to say a goal met), but just as important, perhaps more so, is that the players BELIEVE they are the fittest list.  

Since that time, including before the GF and after it, i have heard coaches, players, the CEO - and even fans - reiterate that we are the fittest ream, or variations on this theme - eg we were confident we would be fresher in the second half, we finish strongly, we've done the work etc etc.

The other thing about Burgo is how much the players love and trust him. And i can see why. He is all in. The Hell and back videos commence in 2019 at the start of the 2020 preseason, which is when Burgo came on board. Right from the get go his language is all we and us - even when talking about previous years. Total buy in and collective goal setting. Inspirational. 

The other thing i reckon is relevant about Burgo is i don't think it is any coincidence the coaching staff (and even perty) look super, super fit. All in. 

[rpfc 28,524]

2 hours ago, dee-tox said:

Yep was aware of what Petracca said. But also interesting what Burgess said.

Sometimes PR,  positioning or framing play a part in these things as well.

This is not the official line obviously, but if I was a player and saw my captain slung to the ground and then stood over by the smallest guy on the field I'd be a touch fired up! Sometimes in sport it just takes a spark. Maybe it wasn't a factor but Burgess thought it was significant enough to mention in his answer as to why Melbourne suddenly turned things around.

My initial reaction was rolling my eyes and evidently Petracca had the same reaction.

I think Burgess’ mention of his stuff; fresh mids, Jackson primed to dominate, power running Petracca and Oliver and the Dogs mids having spent their tickets - that’s more on why we turned it around.