Vipercrunch

Loading gets raised so often as an alternate view to those who accuse the players of simply not trying hard enough or being complacent. Or those who want to make drastic changes to our gameplan or who believe bringing in a debutant (JVR) will cause so much excitment within the paying group they will start to play better. Or who, like someone did after our most recent loss, wants to remove our coach and throw everything after Clarkson.

Our suscess in September last year came because we were the fittest team in the AFL at that stage which allowed us to excecute a game plan that relies heavily on defence and grinding the oppenent into the dirt with hard two-way running. It is impossible to maintain that level of fitness for the entire season plus finals. Human bodies just don't work like that. If you accept that, then you also have to accept that to ensure you are at the fitness level required in September to excecute the game plan, you have to sacrifice performance at stages before September to reach the required level. It doesn't mean fatigue caused by loading is the only factor in our perfromances, but when a team can't execute their gameplan for entire games because of fatigue, it is not surprising at all that they get picked apart and overun, especially if their gameplan in centred around being fitter than the oppisition. And as has been said many times before, loading came up long before we lost a game this year. Binman (and perhaps others) raised it before the season started. It's not a knee jerk reaction to make people feel better about losing.

Here's the rough map of how I think our loads could have looked using the 10 Percent Rule, which is the rule of thumb for improving running milage. This method is all about increasing milage (and therefore fitness) without risking injury. Like many rule of thumbs, there is a lot of conjecture about this one, especially that is is too conservative for experienced and elite runners (which AFL players would be), but it is still a useful principle to look at the method athletes use to increase performance. Round 1 to 9 (WCE) on May 15th we were in maintenance phase at whatever level was reached after our shortened preseason, with minimal (if any) increase in load. Round 10 to 13 (NMFC, Freo, Syd, Coll) - the first phase of the build, incrementally increasing the training load by 10% each week. If 100% is our maintenance week load, we would have gone 110%, 121%, 133% then 146% in the week before the Collingwood game. 9 day break with the BYE Round - Recovery phase, so reduce training amount by two-thirds of previous week, meaning we are back to 98%. Come out looking the freshest we have looked for many weeks against Brisbane. Round 16 to 19 (Adel, Cats, Port, Dogs) - Back to loading, starting with a 10% increase from our previous load week (146%) so it is 161%, 177%, 195% then 214% of our original maintence training load. Round 20, reovery week, so back down to 144%, which because of the work done over the previous 9 weeks, the players can now manage easily, meaning we come out looking fresh against Freo. Hopefully. Round 21 onwards - back to a maintenance program, which could be at the 214% level, or they might hold at a lower level given they want to maintain "peak" for 8 weeks. All of this is load is monitored using GPS (recording distance and intensity of milage), plus other metrics that ensure the individuals are reaching but not exceeding the desired fatigue levels. Using GPS monitoring in games and at training means they can better handle loads despite varied length of breaks between games etc. If the increased load AFL players can safely manage is actually say 15%, the peak week of the program outlined above would be 306% of the original starting load, which is incredible.

More conjecture of course, but I've often thought about this point. Loading in season is rarely executed exactly as the fitness boss would like as there are so many non-fitness goals that also come into play. One of them is team psychology and the ever elusive "belief". I think last year our team needed to prove itself against the best to cement the belief that would have been growing after the first 9 rounds. So I think despite the games you mentioned being right in the middle of the pre-bye loading phase, we perhaps deviated from the ideal training loads in those weeks to give ourselves the best shot of winning. So at that particular period of the MFC journey, the need to cement belief within the playing group trumped the need to perfectly nail the loading. Steps would have been taken to minimise the long term effect of that deviation, but it was still deviation. This year, as reigning premiers, the belief is there, and although no professional athlete or orgnisation likes to lose, the losses we had during this years loading period against other contenders would not create doubt in the team because they have rock solid evidence that at our best, we are good enough. This meant the coaching group could execute the fitness plan with less deviation from the ideal, knowing that losing would not shake the belief of the team. Grand Final day is the 24th of September, so it's less than 2 months to go to see how all this conjecture stacks up. Despite where all our views land on this, I hope we are all celebrating then.

Exactly. Just because some of us have this theory doesn’t mean the players will somehow get complacent or something.

My reference to opportunistic was to do with his comment that they added additional load based on how many days break they had between games. It is “as opportunity allowed”, where because of our wins banked early, we could go harder and more planned, regardless of the draw (opponents and days break). Nothing to do with McRae’s time at the Lions. Collingwood (5-5) and Geelong (6-4) weren’t in a position to allow loading before the bye, where us, at 10-0 were. As had been said all along, 10-0 gave us the luxury of being able to do more and risk more.

I found this interesting during the week. After a very long winded statement/question by Andy Maher starting at 2:30 in (showing how little he understands modern AFL) McRae talks about the version of loading Collingwood have been doing. They have used 7 and 8 day breaks to do extra sessions, putting additional kms into the legs and there had been measurable negative cost in games, all to improve fitness and performance in finals. The key take away for me was it seemed for them (CFC) to be a very opportunistic approach rather than a long term plan which I believe the MFC have implemented. The obvious reason for this is we were 10-0 while they were 5-5. I predicted we’d go 2-3 post bye, so I’m not at all surprised no obvious improvement has yet been seen. We actually had a better record than I thought. It is nearing crunch time though, and the next month will either leave me with egg on my face or otherwise.

Great news today, but I’m not giving the AFL any credit for something they should have done 15 years ago. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-issues-warning-to-clubs-players-on-high-tackles-20220719-p5b2p4.html

Excellent post.

As undoubtedly exciting as he is, I really can’t see JVR coming in this year. Very rare for any first year player to come in for top of the table teams, even more so for big forwards. The tank required for big forwards, especially playing our game style is massive. They get so far up the ground then are expected to get back at speed. I think he’ll need another preseason at least to be ready to play consistent AFL games. IN: Oliver, Petty OUT: Bedford (still work to do), Tomlinson (a bit unlucky but Petty still ahead)

30th July, day after the Freo game 🤞🤞 We were very bursty today. Periods where it looked like we were running in treacle with concrete boots on, then we activated for 5 minutes and put a few goals on the board with high pressure and gut running forward chains. Call it momentum or whatever, but it was a strange one. So happy for Kozzy too. Put on an absolute show.

A game plan can’t be assessed as working or failing if the players are simply too fatigued to execute it. Any game plan that doesn’t fit a teams fitness level (and skill and experience level) always looks dysfunctional, but because we are wedded to the game plan, we continue to use the same one during this period of fatigue because we want it to be purely instinctive for the players. Yes, there could be better short term outcomes if the game plan is changed while we are fatigued, but only at a possible loss to long term performance. When the fatigue isn’t there, the hope is that all the pieces that currently look so dysfunctional will come together. From a speculative point of view, perhaps one of the reasons why loading appeared to stop 3 or 4 weeks before finals in 2021 was to give the coaching group some weeks of non-loading affected games to properly assess how the game plan looked to allow some tinkering if needed.

Very compelling game tonight. Would be a massive upset if Queensland get up. Shame they don’t have a more non-NRL fan friendly commentary option. I’m clueless with most penalty and 6 again calls.

Rightly or wrongly, our coaching group love consistency in the senior team and dislike resting players, so I don’t think he’s a good fit.

Debunked??? That’s hilarious. You provided an opposing view which I doubt would have changed any minds. During the middle part of last season we were virtually unscathed by injuries, scoring less, being scored against more and playing and losing to worse opposition teams than we have been playing his year. It is only your imagination to think we were in better shape.

Note to future self. Avoid threads with subjects in all caps. They are full of nonsense.

100x this. We all knew it was a blight on the game and went against everything the AFL claimed to be doing to protect the head when Selwood started doing. Now kids have grown up practicing and perfecting the “art”. Gutless by the AFL. Unfortunately no one is surprised.

Being 10-0 and 2 games clear of everyone else gave us the opportunity to go harder than any one else. The Cats were 6-4 so they couldn’t go as hard as us (despite Scott saying they were risking making the finals).

I’m not an expert so hopefully others who are better qualified also chime in. All physical work done when fatigued has increased risk of injury, and the main side effect of loading is fatigue. So, absolutely, it is a risky proposition, but when done by professional athletes with all the sports science that brings, those risks are mitigated. GPS records distance and pace run during games and training sessions. Strict recovery processes would be enforced. Massage. Diet and hydration. Proactive reporting of all niggles. And I’m sure there’s other things done to mitigate the risks. Each individual player would also being doing their unique program depending on their age and fitness profile (Trac vs Langdon vs Gawn etc etc). We have had more injuries this year than last year, but still very few sort tissue injuries, so compared to our past years and other clubs currently, it appears we are in good hands with our current fitness and medicos.

This is all pure speculation but.... During the H&A season last year, I think we needed some wins against top sides to prove to the players and coaches that our system stacked up. However much trust and faith there was in what we were doing, there also had to be some doubt, doubt that wins against certain oppenents would quell. I think this could have led us to set ourselves from a training load point of view for some games at the loss of some potential longer term fitness gains we could of had. In amongst our poor losses to lowly sides, we also had some strong wins against some very good sides. This year, post premiership and the confidence that brings, there are no lingering doubts. There is strong belief based on what happened last September that our best will beat anyone. This means the team can stick more rigidly and umcompromisingly to their loading plan, believing that the footy IQ on the coaching staff combined with the primed fitness and talent of the playing group will put us in the best position to go back-to-back in September. The risk of belief and confidence however is that it can very lead to arrogance, selfishness and complacency, which the leaders on and off the field will have to be constantly vigilant against. Reminder, that is all pure speculation.

If a club is utterly convinced loading is vital to them winning everything, then they will be prepared to miss the Top 4 and back themselves to be able to win 4 in a row. And I agree, I think Melbourne under Goodwin and still influenced by Darren Burgess fit into that category. Personally, I agree with that stance, and think we’ll begin to see it happen more frequently in the coming years. My confidence about Melbourne this year won’t waver if we don’t make top 4 unless we have injuries to multiple key players which no amount of loading can help.

Going back a bit here @coach, but I’m curious how long athletes can maintain peak performance? In other words, in an ideal world, how far out from preliminary final weekend would a team want to finish loading? I say ideal world because every team will act according to their ladder position and what significance they place on finishing top 2, top 4 or just happy to make the finals. Last year we won the last 4 rounds but it’s hard to draw too much from those results with much confidence of what was happening. We smashed the Suns but it was the last minute change of fixture and they had dialled it in for the year. Then we beat WCE but they finished much stronger after the lightning strikes. Then a solid win over Adelaide but they were also cooked. Then the wonderful after the siren win against Geelong. Very hard to definitively draw any conclusions about that.

One thing some are missing is that many of us that are strong on loading being very significant right now are not doing it in hindsight, rather they have predicted well before the event that we would be in the middle of a poor stretch of form and results right now. @binman especially was very open and clear before the season started that we would have another mid-season slump. I predicted that we'd play poorly and only win 2 out of the 5 games post bye in a prediction thread. It's not a case of making excuses after the fact "to help us sleep better" as several have repeatedly accused. Also, seriously, are people really losing sleep right now about dropping some games in June/July???

They pay those as head high frees all the time. Stiff, like when a player trips into an oncoming oppenents knee, but they stll pay them. No one would blink an eye if it happend in the second quarter. And, waaaaay more there than the one McCluggage got earlier when he got tackled fairly but threw his head back and the umpired guessed.

Neither side of the loading debate is going to concede anything until the season is over, (and even then many won’t). And why do you care about what “narrative” is being created? Do you think the opinions shared on a forum such as this affects what happens in the field?