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In Season - Loading/Periodisation: Put your conjecture here.

Engorged Onion
Engorged Onion
in Melbourne Demons

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35 minutes ago, A F said:

Nonsense. No one ever called it a panacea, just that it was a major factor. Talk about re-write history...

Panacea was wrong word, although you probably won’t agree with the edit.

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    Correct, I don't, but each to their own.

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    2 hours ago, Neil Crompton said:

    Von, every team has injuries and is banged up at this time of year. That’s not a valid excuse in my view. We’ve been overrun / outscored in 12 of our games this year, including 4 of the first 10 games when injuries / players being banged up were not an issue; and another 8 in the last 12 games of the year - and obviously again last Friday. While I agree with you that fitness and pressure are linked, but, as I said in my previous post, I don’t know why we’ve had these failures this year. 

    Let the season unfold before we look for excuses/reasons.

    For all the handwringing on these boards we still finished 2nd at the end of the home and away season.

    ..and we're still in the race.

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    12 minutes ago, von said:

    Injuries are the #1 factor for how well you can go throughout the year. If last year was our ceiling(for arguments sake), with the same list, how could we expect to be better this year given the difference in injuries to key personnel. We weren’t banged up this time last year. We had an incredible run. We all know the injuries we’ve had. Our continuity this year has been poor. Our stars bar Oliver have struggled to get going. How can you refuse to use injuries as a reason for why we aren’t where we were last year? It’s not the sole reason but it’s a big one. You could also say dysfunctional forward line for example, but who’s missing? Tom Mac. Why? Injuries. A few percent off this time of year can be everything. We don’t have endless depth.

    Maybe we should think of it in the opposite way - dream run with injuries contributed significantly to our win last year. 

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    11 minutes ago, monoccular said:

    Maybe we should think of it in the opposite way - dream run with injuries contributed significantly to our win last year. 

    That’s it. Amazing luck last year, and just an average run with injuries this year - not overly bad, not overly great. 

    Other unknown is to what extent or otherwise we have been able to cover the loss of a world class fitness boss. 
     

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    12 hours ago, von said:

    Revisionist

    it could be argued that the pro loading community were the ones crying out for a more nuanced look at the game and our form etc. those who were allergic to it just preferred the channel 7/fox footy talking points that are overly simplistic and lack context.

    Hardly revisionist. I remember talking about our lack of forward pressure or enterprising ball movement and that argument simply eschewed by a loading devotee.

    I don’t disagree that this board can be more nuanced than broadcast footy talk - my opinion is that it dominated the discourse on here to the detriment of actually seeing what might happen if it was wrong. 

    And I am much more polite than JimmyG ;)

    Edited by rpfc

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    13 hours ago, rpfc said:

    Panacea was wrong word, although you probably won’t agree with the edit.

    It has to be said though, panacea is a great word.

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    13 hours ago, 1964_2 said:

    That’s it. Amazing luck last year, and just an average run with injuries this year - not overly bad, not overly great. 

    Other unknown is to what extent or otherwise we have been able to cover the loss of a world class fitness boss. 
     

    And maybe I should also have mentioned the fact that we had a full finals season 2021, and a correspondingly 5 week shorter off season / preseason compared to all but Footscray who have also struggled.

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    On 9/9/2022 at 7:43 AM, rpfc said:

    Hardly revisionist. I remember talking about our lack of forward pressure or enterprising ball movement and that argument simply eschewed by a loading devotee.

    I don’t disagree that this board can be more nuanced than broadcast footy talk - my opinion is that it dominated the discourse on here to the detriment of actually seeing what might happen if it was wrong. 

    And I am much more polite than JimmyG ;)

    I agree with your assessment that a lot of our mistakes around games style have been coaching-related - too conservative with ball movement, forward pressure dropped away completely, lack of anything resembling functionality in the forward line, 

    I think the simple reality is that the impact of training load management would vary so much from player to player that it's impossible to understand how it has impacted performance and results for individuals and the team without being inside the club. 

    One of my observations of this thread has been a fundamental misunderstanding of what loading is though, which seems to be common and present on both sides of the debate, with the exception of a small handful of posters 

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    Given the extra two weeks we should nail our training loads next year. 

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    Close thread. About the only thing going for it was the "conjecture" in the title, as that's all it ever was.

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    1 minute ago, bing181 said:

    Close thread. About the only thing going for it was the "conjecture" in the title, as that's all it ever was.

    I agree.

    There is no evidence to support the argument that we lost those mid-season games because we were loading.

    Other than corroborative evidence from the club, which doesn't exist and didn't exist at the time, the only evidence that could have supported it was displaying superior fitness in the last 6-odd weeks of the season. That didn't happen. As such, IMO there is no basis to continue to run this argument. 

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    7 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

    I agree.

    There is no evidence to support the argument that we lost those mid-season games because we were loading.

    Other than corroborative evidence from the club, which doesn't exist and didn't exist at the time, the only evidence that could have supported it was displaying superior fitness in the last 6-odd weeks of the season. That didn't happen. As such, IMO there is no basis to continue to run this argument. 

    You really don't understand what loading is though do you? 

    Just because we didn't see an uptick in performance doesn't mean we didn't load...

    You're one of the best posters on here, TU, but this is a strange position to take.

    Loading didn't happen because we were banged up. What?

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    16 minutes ago, A F said:

    You really don't understand what loading is though do you? 

    Just because we didn't see an uptick in performance doesn't mean we didn't load...

    You're one of the best posters on here, TU, but this is a strange position to take.

    Loading didn't happen because we were banged up. What?

    TU is talking about the tying to performance, which your second sentence seems to agree with…

    This thread hey?

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    12 minutes ago, A F said:

    You really don't understand what loading is though do you? 

    Just because we didn't see an uptick in performance doesn't mean we didn't load...

    You're one of the best posters on here, TU, but this is a strange position to take.

    Loading didn't happen because we were banged up. What?

    Are you serious? Now you are trying to change the whole narrative.

    Very few dispute that we and other clubs undertake loading of some sort. The whole conjecture was whether our 3 losses midseason were the result of loading. It's was binman's belief that it was a major factor, and we would steamroll teams come the end of the year due to our superior fitness base.

    You and the other hardcore "loadists" like binman and von, believed that our fitness levels would incrementally improve until we reached our optimal level on GF day. Just a shame that we never made it. 

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    1 minute ago, rpfc said:

    TU is talking about the tying to performance, which your second sentence seems to agree with…

    This thread hey?

    TU said "there is no evidence to support the argument that we lost those mid-season games because we were loading."

    I disagree with this. They're not mutually exclusive positions. 

    We were loading during those games *and* the loading didn't pay off...

    I'm not saying they were the only reasons for the losses. Losing personnel in key moments IMV had huge impacts in the losses to Freo, Sydney and Collingwood.

    But loading was a key factor too.

    It's not a myth. It doesn't need the club to come out and admit it.

    Loading is a well known industry practice.

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    3 minutes ago, mo64 said:

    Are you serious? Now you are trying to change the whole narrative.

    Very few dispute that we and other clubs undertake loading of some sort. The whole conjecture was whether our 3 losses midseason were the result of loading. It's was binman's belief that it was a major factor, and we would steamroll teams come the end of the year due to our superior fitness base.

    You and the other hardcore "loadists" like binman and von, believed that our fitness levels would incrementally improve until we reached our optimal level on GF day. Just a shame that we never made it. 

    See my post above.

    No goal posts changed.

    Only those inside the club know how much of an impact the loading had on those games.

    The claim from TU seems to be that since we didn't see an uptick in performance (like last year - although R23 was pretty good evidence of it) and our coaches haven't come out and said we were loading, it didn't happen.

    This is a ridiculous position IMV.

    Edited by A F

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    7 minutes ago, mo64 said:

    Are you serious? Now you are trying to change the whole narrative.

    Very few dispute that we and other clubs undertake loading of some sort. The whole conjecture was whether our 3 losses midseason were the result of loading. It's was binman's belief that it was a major factor, and we would steamroll teams come the end of the year due to our superior fitness base.

    You and the other hardcore "loadists" like binman and von, believed that our fitness levels would incrementally improve until we reached our optimal level on GF day. Just a shame that we never made it. 

    Yes I do believe that, with all things being equal. But they weren’t equal this year. We got injured. Doesn’t disprove anything. Just that there are multiple things to look at, which no one disputed. This was never a one or the other conversation, it was an as well as. Do you think we would try and be at less than peak fitness come finals? Remember Chris Scott’s comments regarding training loads this year? He would rather miss finals trying to peak at the right time than come in with no hope. I do enjoy your insistence on getting revenge on those who thought the idea had merit though. I hope thinking you are right and I was wrong brings you the comfort you need this off season. Go dees. I look forward to more constructive conversations next season.

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    13 hours ago, A F said:

    You really don't understand what loading is though do you? 

    Just because we didn't see an uptick in performance doesn't mean we didn't load...

    You're one of the best posters on here, TU, but this is a strange position to take.

    Loading didn't happen because we were banged up. What?

    13 hours ago, A F said:

    TU said "there is no evidence to support the argument that we lost those mid-season games because we were loading."

    I disagree with this. They're not mutually exclusive positions. 

    We were loading during those games *and* the loading didn't pay off...

    I'm not saying they were the only reasons for the losses. Losing personnel in key moments IMV had huge impacts in the losses to Freo, Sydney and Collingwood.

    But loading was a key factor too.

    It's not a myth. It doesn't need the club to come out and admit it.

    Loading is a well known industry practice.

    13 hours ago, A F said:

    See my post above.

    No goal posts changed.

    Only those inside the club know how much of an impact the loading had on those games.

    The claim from TU seems to be that since we didn't see an uptick in performance (like last year - although R23 was pretty good evidence of it) and our coaches haven't come out and said we were loading, it didn't happen.

    This is a ridiculous position IMV.

    The quote of mine in the middle post is correct. 

    There is no evidence to support your argument that we lost those mid-season games because we were loading. 

    It is possible we were loading, and it just didn’t work. But there is no evidence to support that argument because there is no evidence we were loading. All you have is your views on industry practice and the assumption you have drawn that we must have done it as a result. You might be right. But I don’t believe there is any evidence you are actually right, and us not running out games well late in the year does not support your argument. 

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