Fitness Team — are we reviewing?

[Mr Miyagi]

Injury management. Key player and recurring injuries killed our season. You can’t compete for a flag using 38-40 players on your list. I don’t know what happened this year but it’s been a complete disaster compared to the previous two seasons where we were elite in managing fitness and injuries. We made tough calls on players coming off injury and didn’t rush them back - to the point Tay Adams cracked the shits and requested a trade. De Goey shouldn’t have played vs Carlton in hindsight — but we likely would have lost if he hadn’t.

Honestly, missing finals might be the best thing for 2025. Especially as we had a ridiculously short preseason this year.

And I echo Black and White Lion wanting us to kick on when we’re in the lead and bury the opposition. All the close games we won the past two seasons produced some complacency I think, players expecting we could do it again —- but lady luck is fickle, and the other teams have improved.

[What'sinaname]

Change the fitness staff

3 years of not being able to play 4 quarters of football. Last few years it was Q2 or Q3 that we dropped off completely. This year it's Q4

[SLORT]

Whatever we did fitness wise 2022-23 we didn’t this year, and I’m hoping we do a review. The round zero bullshit didn’t help and i hope Jeff getting stuck into the afl about it gets us a better draw next year.

We’re really not that far off having another crack. Just need 2 players of a certain type, better injury luck and we’re contending

"Collingwood has lost two key figures from its high performance team. St Kilda secured Ben Shipperd to head its physio dept, while West Coast appointed Paul Turk to lead its strength & conditioning." ~ Jay Clark, Herald Sun, 1st Nov 2023.

[slangman]

^ what we need to learn from the Buckley era is that recruiting B grade staff to save money is not conducive to getting optimal performance from the playing group.
Decisions like appointing Jordan Roughead as defence coach with zero experience (AFL assistant coaching) is not the type of approach that we should be taking if we are serious about aiming to be the best.
I’m all for him being a 2IC to a much more experienced and better credentialed coach to gain the experience and for the club to also be able to evaluate his value as he develops with promotion only being granted on the back of results.
Who can ever forget the disastrous decision to surround a rookie coach (Buckley) with predominantly inexperienced assistant coaches. It was a recipe for failure which coincidentally turned around with the appointment of a very well credentialed and respect assistant coach in Longmuir.

This can also be said for both our VFL and AFLW teams.

[Mr Miyagi]

We lost a couple of key fitness high performance team personnel last year. St Kilda poached Ben Shipperd to head its physio, and Paul Turk went to West Coast. It’s no coincidence we had a horrid injury run this year. Is the club reviewing this? I feel like we should be making this a priority just as much as the trade/draft if we’re going to have any success in 2025.

[Pies2016]

The first thing you review in injury management is the breakdown between soft tissue injury vs collision/ impact injuries. You can’t avoid impact or collision injuries in a contact sport, so the focus switches to our soft tissue injury rate. For mine, that was quite acceptable and only slightly worse than the close to zero tissue injuries we sustained in 2023.
Add in two forced retirements during the 2024 season and we were always going to be stretched, especially when we became a revolving door of players in concussion protocols.
These guys are elite athletes and primed to within an inch of their lives. It’s not easy to find that perfect balance of peak condition without going over the edge.
Yes, the sports science Dept will be reviewed, as all depts are but for mine, they have done little wrong. We just didn’t have much luck when it came to bones and upper body contact.

[Mr Miyagi]

The only big mistake was playing JDG for Pendlebury’s 400th when everyone knew he’d be wide open to tearing a hammy after groin rehab. Should not have played.

[Pies2016]

^^^
That’s fair enough and yet his 2 goals and centre clearance work before his re injury was likely the difference between a win or loss.
The major mistake we made in 2024 was bringing Miochek back to early from his hammy. That’s very un Collingwood like and they will review that on its own. Sometimes it’s not always the sports science guys fault either. The sport science team might have said Miochek is at 95 % optimum capacity but the club decide to roll the dice on those numbers. I’m not defending them but this stuff happens all the time and that’s why we have reviews. Then there’s the potential the issue was the coaches not listening to what the medicos were advising.
If you look at our fatigue related injuries in 2024, we weren’t perfect but there’s a standard set in 2023 to also suggest we don’t have to do much different going forward.

[Mr Miyagi]

Yeah De Goey likely won us the game against Carlton —but we might have won without him. We definitely would have been a chance with subsequent games.

[RudeBoy]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The fact is that medical diagnoses are rarely 100% accurate. Mostly, doctors and fitness staff are basing their judgements about recovery times, on statistical analyses of previous incidents. But every case is unique.
Overall, our fitness and medical staff have done an amazing job over the last couple of years, so I wouldn't be looking for any changes in that area of our operations, because a couple of players may have been brought back a week or two prematurely. We'll never know, perhaps they would have been re-injured just the same if their returns had been delayed another couple of weeks.
In De Goey's case for example, I suspect a complete recovery from his groin injury might have required a 6 month lay-off anyway.
One thing i'm sure of, is that our fitness staff will be examining our 2024 season with a microscope, looking for lessons to improve our health and fitness going forward.