Some thoughts in the relative inexperience of the team and list depth. 
 

Windsor, Kolt, Howes, Woey 2.0, Chandler,  McVee, and JVR. All debuted playing at senior level in the last 2 seasons That is higher than 25% of the selected team. 
 

Chandler being the exception, from memory played 9 games mostly as a sub. 

Edited April 14, 20241 yr by Demonsterative

Binman, I put all of my super on the Crows game, but then lost all of the winnings on the Lions game. Should I quit now while I'm even, or roll the dice a third time on the Tigers match? 😂

Interested to get thoughts on the new attacking gameplan. Binman has mentioned in earlier pods that he thinks goody will have an early season game plan and then another for later.   Last year we also started the season taking a lot of risks from the defensive half.  In fact, at the end of round 9 in 2023 we were #1 for scoring and #1 for scoring from defensive half (40 points a game compared to 30 points a game this year).  Last year, following consecutive losses to Port and Freo, we changed it up in round 10 resulting in slow safe ball movement and inside 50 bombing to pockets to setup repeat entries. It had immediate effect when we restricted Carlton to 44 points. 

Can binman elaborate on what he things the other game plan will be and when it will happen?  I personally would like to see us persevere with the attacking brand all season and wear the setbacks.

So if we have been developing a red and blue-print, would the team like to consider the blue and red-print? (that is, is there a blueprint for how to beat the Dees based upon what you have seen so far)?

Was the loss situational, or systematic?

What do we need to do to overcome these losses becoming more common?

On 11/04/2024 at 22:31, sam6172 said:

Disappointed but not surprised. Brisbane with plenty to play for and we just weren't quite at our best. 

More of a vent than a question. 5 day breaks. We have 2. I did a bit of research and there are 9 teams who have one 5 day break through their season. 5 teams have zero 5 day breaks and we are one of 4 unlucky ones with 2. 

Is there any rhyme or reason to how these are given out? They are a blight on the game and without going overboard, I feel like they are dangerous. These guys aren't playing lawn bowls, it's an extremely intense, rough and unforgiving sport and the AFL are playing with players wellbeing, not to mention the quality of the game, purely for tv viewers and Ad revenue. 

We weren't at our best tonight and I certainly don't believe that was purely fatigue. There are areas we need to work on but 3 games in 13 days is less than ideal scheduling to put it mildly. The boys had to be feeling the effects of that. 

I think this bye will be great for us. 

All the more reason to make sure every Team gets the same treatment when its their turn.

@monoccular you certainly are a thinking person. You must get tired of a night thinking so much 🤔🤔
 

😜😜😂😂🤪🤪

On 11/04/2024 at 21:23, Nairobi_Demon said:

Watched the game on replay this evening and I thought we looked slow and indecisive from the beginning. So much so that I started wondering whether we decided to take advantage of our 4-1 start and the upcoming bye to put some extra miles into the legs during the week. I went through the Sunday and Wednesday training threads but I couldn’t find any suggestion that they were heavy sessions with extra loads. Do the stats confirm our fitness was down and, if so, do you think it was because it was their third game in 13 days or is it possible they were also assigned extra running outside of the two main training sessions this week?

Following on from my question:

Can the panel discuss whether there are alternative, better approaches or strategies to fully utilise the list for these matches during the season when we know our best 22 will be 10% or even 20% below their usual output because of the fixture. 

For example, the following players were available this week:

- Hunter (who has been best 22) was available, could he not have replaced Windsor who was understandably down on his past performance?

- Laurie also available, could he not have replaced a tired and indeed injured Oliver?

- He’s not “best 22” in normal circumstances, but could not Schache have come in for BBB who really looked exhausted this week (and that’s not to knock his performance the past few weeks)? 

You get the drift …  Given the importance of fitness to the outcome of games these days as well as how well everyone is drilled on our systems, I just wonder whether we could more strategically use our second string of players to manage the long season.  

I'm going to lock the thread now. I'll reopen it just prior to air time.

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@binman keen to get your thoughts how much benefit the Lions had from having their bye 3 weeks prior, given their pressure levels were incredible.

Based off this we should be in a pretty good physical condition for the Cats and Blues games, which hopefully can see us get wins in both games.

1 hour ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

@binman keen to get your thoughts how much benefit the Lions had from having their bye 3 weeks prior, given their pressure levels were incredible.

Based off this we should be in a pretty good physical condition for the Cats and Blues games, which hopefully can see us get wins in both games.

Impossible to say really given how opaque the whole high performance regimes are, however they were def up and about. Interesting that Fagan say that was the best they had played for a long time. 

Each clubs' high performance program would be different. So i don't think we can take too much from the Lions experience. 

For example we might have targeted the Port and Crows games and the Lions may have targeted the dees game, which i assume means managing the program and loads to be in optimal shape for those games, potentially at the risk of not being in optimal shape for other games. 

That said, each program would share some key similarities, one of which being taking advantage of the opportunity to rest players the bye creates to increase loads - ie heavier than normal training block (aerobic, strength and power) then deloading.

The benefit of this would be felt over a number of post bye games, and potentially of most benefit two to three weeks after the bye (my sense, and this could well be wrong, is that we haven't always had as much zip the first week after the bye, but get te benefit in the following matches). I'll be curious to see how much zip the swans and pies, who both just had a bye, have this week

All that said, I think there is every chance we will target both the Cats and Blues game. In previous years we have played the Cats at Kardinia park around the bye period and looked flat, suggesting to me at least that they were not target games. But this year we play them at the G and given they are direct rivals i think we target that game. Ditto for the blues game. And the timing of the games, coming three weeks after our bye, should mean we can go into the games running on top of the ground.  

The other thing to consider is we get another bye in round 14, the week after we play the Pies. The opportunity for two lots of in season loading and deloading, as opposed to just one represents a massive change to the high performance program for the 8 teams that played in OR.

Who knows what impact that might have, but lets say two byes gives those teams a competitive advantage. That would be yet another example of the AFL creating fixture that is inherently flawed and putting money (gate receipts, TV ratings, trying to one up the NRL etc) ahead of fairness. 

Further to the above, i found this page  on the AIS website interesting in terms of the complexity of high performance programs and the challenges of getting them right:

Training load in relation to loading and unloading phases of training

From the page:

Sports performance is multifactorial in nature with exercise training, recovery, heath, nutrition, psychological skills and skill acquisition as key factors in athletic preparation.

Systematic training prepares the athlete for the demands of their sport such that physical abilities and sport specific skills are enhanced.

Well-planned training loads promote structural and metabolic adaptations that underpin training outcomes such as improved physical performance, injury and illness resistance, and optimised mental and physical health.

Rest or ‘unloading’ may be defined as a substantial decrease in training load from the normal. A decrease in training load can be absolute (no training) or relative (as a percentage drop from normal load). Long periods of absolute rest cause a detraining effect and a reduced physical capacity.

Mathematical modelling and retrospective data analysis have assisted coaches, sports science and sports medicine personnel to better understand the training dose-response relationship in elite Australian athletes. Key findings support previous anecdotal evidence:

• Effectively planning load and monitoring the individual training response can enhance training exposure and improve performance.
• Consistent training availability increases an athlete’s capacity to perform in both team and individual sports.
• There is an increased risk of illness and/or injury when reloading after a planned, or unplanned period of unloading if the volume, intensity and frequency of training are accelerated quicker than the athlete’s ability to adapt to the training stress.
• The time required to return to a full training load is proportionate to the length of the reduced workloads and the amount of training completed during the unloading period.

Lions and pies got hit with the shortest preseasons probably in AFL history with the 30 Sep grand final into 8/9 Mar opening round games. I think they both started under done and will start coming into full fitness now. Lions are probably there now. 

We categorically did not do anything extra in advance of the lions game, doing additional work on top of playing 4 games in 19 days would be grounds to fire the fitness staff for incompetence. I think what happened is pretty simply we were cooked by 3QT in the Adelaide game and didn’t come up for the Lions. 

No way we would’ve voluntarily chosen a path that would leave us less than fully fit to play the Lions at the G - taking 4 points off Brisbane at home is way more valuable than beating the Crom in Adelaide. We now face the risk of going 0-2 against them as we need to play them at the Gabba and that gives them a massive leg up on us in terms of the top 4. Port and Crom took more out of us than we hoped or planned for and that left us flat. 

The plan would’ve been to get through to the first bye as healthy as possible, recover and then potentially players that need it do some heavy work prior to the Tigers. Reset and prepare for the next 7 games to our other bye. 

4 hours ago, Fromgotowoewodin said:

Lions and pies got hit with the shortest preseasons probably in AFL history with the 30 Sep grand final into 8/9 Mar opening round games. I think they both started under done and will start coming into full fitness now. Lions are probably there now. 

We categorically did not do anything extra in advance of the lions game, doing additional work on top of playing 4 games in 19 days would be grounds to fire the fitness staff for incompetence. I think what happened is pretty simply we were cooked by 3QT in the Adelaide game and didn’t come up for the Lions. 

No way we would’ve voluntarily chosen a path that would leave us less than fully fit to play the Lions at the G - taking 4 points off Brisbane at home is way more valuable than beating the Crom in Adelaide. We now face the risk of going 0-2 against them as we need to play them at the Gabba and that gives them a massive leg up on us in terms of the top 4. Port and Crom took more out of us than we hoped or planned for and that left us flat. 

The plan would’ve been to get through to the first bye as healthy as possible, recover and then potentially players that need it do some heavy work prior to the Tigers. Reset and prepare for the next 7 games to our other bye. 

All good points.

But I disagree that we we would not voluntarily choose a path that would leave us less than fully fit to play the Lions at the G.  

As i noted we have done so, in my opinion, against the cats.

And i also disagree that we can categorically say we did not do anything extra in advance of the lions game. I agree it is probably unlikely, but i think we might have. 

The other possibility is that we didn't do a heavier block of training, but rather our normal regime instead of an easier week designed to allow players to recover from 3 games in 13 days in order to be as fresh as possible for the lions game (at the possible expense of program as a whole). 

We had a full week to recover from the Adelaide trip. If it was just accumulative fatigue the game would have looked more like the crows where we started ok and ran out of gas late (much like the lions did).

But we were completely flat from the get go.

Edited April 16, 2024Apr 16 by binman

44 minutes ago, binman said:

All good points.

But I disagree that we we would not voluntarily choose a path that would leave us less than fully fit to play the Lions at the G.  

As i noted we have done so, in my opinion, against the cats.

And i also disagree that we can categorically say we did not do anything extra in advance of the lions game. I agree it is probably unlikey, but i think we might have.

We had a full week to recover from the Adelaide trip. If it was just accumulative fatigue the game would have looked more like the crows where we started ok and ran out of gas late (much like the lions did).

We were completely flat from the get go.

I don’t believe it’s possible or would be at all sensible to target specific games at the expense of others.

We win one more game last year and we get a home final against the lions instead of an “away” final against the pies. There’s no margin to drop games against other finals teams. No way we put at risk 4 home points against the lions for some potential fitness advantage a month down the road, that will wear off by finals anyway. 

Thats on top of the danger of soft tissue injuries if we were to overwork them.

I think your point on the pod regarding Goody’s game style is correct, we play the way we want to play and we play it all year and we don’t chop and change mid-game and we don’t tailor it for different opponents week to week. It’s all about preparing for the end of the year and I think that applies to fitness as well, it’s all about getting to the end of the year in the best shape, not peaking at different points through the year against various opposition - win as many games as we can to get top 4, get to the finals with run in our legs to take advantage of that.

1 hour ago, Fromgotowoewodin said:

I don’t believe it’s possible or would be at all sensible to target specific games at the expense of others.

We win one more game last year and we get a home final against the lions instead of an “away” final against the pies. There’s no margin to drop games against other finals teams. No way we put at risk 4 home points against the lions for some potential fitness advantage a month down the road, that will wear off by finals anyway. 

Thats on top of the danger of soft tissue injuries if we were to overwork them.

I think your point on the pod regarding Goody’s game style is correct, we play the way we want to play and we play it all year and we don’t chop and change mid-game and we don’t tailor it for different opponents week to week. It’s all about preparing for the end of the year and I think that applies to fitness as well, it’s all about getting to the end of the year in the best shape, not peaking at different points through the year against various opposition - win as many games as we can to get top 4, get to the finals with run in our legs to take advantage of that.

They absolutely target specific games at the potential expense of others. All clubs do. They have to because its not possible to be at the same level of physical readiness every game.

Of course teams never go into a game not wanting to win it, but that's not the same as ensuring they give themselves the best chance of winning  every. Calculated risks. It's about winning the war not the battles. 

Take the lions game. 

If you accept fatigue was factor in the result, then logic suggests if the lions was a must win game they could have had super light week on the track to give players the chance to recover from 3 games in 13 days(and 4 games in 19 days) in order to be as fresh as possible.

Which is what they did between the Port and Crows game - albeit that was only a 5 day break so they had little choice. 

That approach would have maximized our chances of beating the Lions but potentially also thrown the high performance program out of whack (a super complex regime that is planned down to the minute) decreasing our chances of winning future games and peaking at the right time. 

Perhaps they did do that. But if so, it was a massive fail.  

But lets say that rather than giving the players an easy week on the track they just completed their normal regime with standard loads, giving players no chance to recover from their demanding schedule and making it all but certain we would come into the Lions game in less than optimal shape. 

In doing so they would be prioritising future performance at the expense of our performance in the the Lions game.  

Edited April 16, 2024Apr 16 by binman

2 hours ago, binman said:

But lets say that rather than giving the players an easy week on the track they just completed their normal regime with standard loads, giving players no chance to recover from their demanding schedule and making it all but certain we would come into the Lions game in less than optimal shape. 

In doing so they would be prioritising future performance at the expense of our performance in the the Lions game.  

That’s different to where you started though, you were talking about heavy training to prepare for later in the year - training normally to maintain the same level of fitness is something else. That I don’t really disagree with. 

They train to play, and potentially train harder over the bye to play harder later on - they aren’t going to train harder between games to rest on the bye. 

They monitor each players loads individually, and players will go up or down depending on where they need to be that week, you can’t plan for the whole team to be 95% in 3 weeks and 100% the week after that because it doesn’t work like that. Players have interrupted preseasons (Oliver, Petty), old age (Brown, McDonald), injuries (May, Salem), changing loads (Salem going down would’ve changed the loads for McVee, Rivers, Woewodin and they’ll need to account for that) - there’s no one fitness level it’s about maximising the chance of winning each week. No point targeting a game 3 weeks from now and finding out when you get there you’ve got half a vfl team in the 1s and you’ve lost 3 in a row.  

It’s a dynamic process, I’m sure there’s a very detailed plan at the start of the year but as per Iron Mike everybody got a plan til they get punched in the mouth. It’s a week to week proposition to get as many of the best 22 on the park as possible, as close to 100% as possible to win as many games as possible. Hopefully we get a chance to do some extra work later in the season before finals but there wouldn’t have been extra work this week.

Another fantastic pod guys!  As an interstate member, the pods give me far and away the most informative and balanced overview I can get of every Melbourne game, without actually attending most games (I 100% agree with @binman view of the football media).  Thanks once again for your great work!

2 hours ago, Fromgotowoewodin said:

 

2 hours ago, Fromgotowoewodin said:

you can’t plan for the whole team to be 95% in 3 weeks and 100% the week after that because it doesn’t work like that. 

 

They can and they do and it does work like that (if they get it right).

But I've been in this movie before and my experience has been that i have a low success rate of changing people's mind on this topic. 

So let's agree to disagree and move on.

Edited April 16, 2024Apr 16 by binman

Love the pod, and especially love the annual chat around loading/tapering/sports science. Mainly because it has me challenging my own view of elite sports and training. 

Binmans logic is sound and ready for a challenge as usual,  its round 5, not round 15! No doubt we're fatigued from a number of highly intense, contested games. But I couldn't get on board with any of the suggestion that 'maybe' we decided to put additional load into the players. 

We had an off game. We went in sore and tired - we carried too many half fit guys into the game and lost Salem early. Up against last year's runners up who are starting to hit their stride after a shortened preseason. That's the analysis imo. Additional loads? Yeah, nah. 

 

 

15 minutes ago, binman said:

They can and they do and it does work like that (if they get it right).

But I've been in this movie before and my experience has been that i have a low success rate of changing people's mind on this topic. 

So let's agree to disagree and move on.

Have you lived it 10 times or more?

 

Edited April 16, 2024Apr 16 by DeelightfulPlay

So I took a bite out of the bullet, did what the cool kids are doing and listened to this ep at 1.5x speed. Not bad, nice way comsume a big episode with limited time and a nice way to see through time without the use of a DeLorean. 

Excellent ep guys thought the system and tactics discussion was really on the money this week.

Binman I have NEVER heard you better! I'm wondering if you're using a new mic as well. 

5 stars and um... I'll be back next week.

Thanks Andy, Binman and George_On_The_Outer another great listen although I didn’t quite get through to the end of the Pod. Great questions from posters and great explanations, responses from you all.