Burnout and our pre-seasons

Was it a master stricken with Da Silva ciz I’d rather we spend money on players on the up curve than putting to many of our eggs in aging guys, Don’t get me wrong, APIs been good for us but we seem to be struggling in terms of bringing through the next level.
Benji is managing the result not the system imo, look at Sticky in Canberra last year when he brought through that group of juniors. Fantastic, unfortunately they're all going through second year syndrome this season, but they’re still dynamic, and will be back.
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You look great Hal.

Can I ask - how does the club treat the old boys? If you knocked on the door, what sort of reception would you get?

We can discuss Hookers later.
 
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You look great Hal.

Can I ask - how does the club treat the old boys? If you knocked on the door, what sort of reception would you get?

We can discuss Hookers later.
Great photo but I’m afraid my actual look at 125kgs would scare you WT although in my playing days I was a slim 75kg.
Just remember HB61 is a “nom du plume”so nobody would know the real me !
 
Sorry mate but I disagree strongly.

Fitness is paramount.

We are not a hard working team at all on the field compared to top teams. The reason we make errors is because we go one out, and the reason we go one out is because the team isn't fit enough to give good running options, go through the line and then get back 15m behind the ball to do it again.

We don't wrestle at all in the ruck after 15-20 minutes because we get tired. We did well at the start of the year when the ruck was super fast but as the ruck has slowed, teams that wrestle with and without the ball have gotten better.

In saying all that, I'm not putting it on the players at all. Jerome, May, Api, Turuva etc have been fit players before coming here.

The performance staff imo are simply under-resourced. You need to spend hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on a big team of physios, strength and conditioning coaches, guest coaches speakers and then be prepared to spend just as much on recovery equipment.

You need sports psychs to teach them resilience.

I don't think the Club is spending any of that money. This money needs to be spent all the way from JF to NRL and the Club just isn't doing it.

Army camps don't really make you fit. They make you resilient and they improve camaraderie within the group. Our team plays better when they play on emotion but that isn't replicable.

We will simply go out and buy players to plug holes because the Clubs almost entire budget needs to be spent on salary cap so we will never actually develop first graders.

Until we get some more money, we will have to rely on emotions, teamwork, mental resilience to get through each season and hopefully one season we get to the Top 8..

Sure pal, happy to see different opinions and you make a lot of good points.

I'm not saying that the team shouldn't be fit. Absolutely not... But jeez we really should be offering more in possession. The point I'm making is... 'OK the guys got flogged at the start of the year, and they're making all their 400m times consistently.... but what good does that do you when your starting spine can't punish an opponent that completes 9 out of 14 sets'. I don't know what it is, but damn, something isn't right.
 
Sure pal, happy to see different opinions and you make a lot of good points.

I'm not saying that the team shouldn't be fit. Absolutely not... But jeez we really should be offering more in possession. The point I'm making is... 'OK the guys got flogged at the start of the year, and they're making all their 400m times consistently.... but what good does that do you when your starting spine can't punish an opponent that completes 9 out of 14 sets'. I don't know what it is, but damn, something isn't right.
Agreed we definitely should be having a lot more in attack but even if you had Katoa or Cleary out there, unless you consistently have numbers behind the ball and multiple options to fool the defender, what can they do?

Your markers like Bronco, yo yo tests, 60m sprint etc are just screening tests, to make sure you are safe to step on to the field, not a marker of performance.

It all comes down to science and I doubt any of us here on the forum are smart enough to analyse that. I have no doubt that the players got flogged pre-seaaon and that has to continue. Each team gets flogged, they all say "toughest pre season". We aren't the only ones.

The difference though imo is diet supplements, emotional resilience, recovery equipment, advanced injury rehab... Stuff that we spend absolutely no money on so how are the athletes going to compete with clubs that do?

Why does the US win the most gold medals? Why does Aus kill it in cricket? Genetics and environmental factors play a big part but funding of high caliber facilities to as much of the population (grades within our club) is the second biggest factor too.

I don't think the Club has money to hire elite performance staff but I hope they at least spend money to upskill the ones that are here. Invest in university students doing sports science, physio etc to do placements and help us with stats. Get current staff to go to NFL teams to see how AI is used in recovery...

I just feel that as fans we should be pushing the club to do that because that's whats going to deliver success 10 years down the track.

Sorry for the rant, I feel strongly about this.
 
Agreed we definitely should be having a lot more in attack but even if you had Katoa or Cleary out there, unless you consistently have numbers behind the ball and multiple options to fool the defender, what can they do?

Your markers like Bronco, yo yo tests, 60m sprint etc are just screening tests, to make sure you are safe to step on to the field, not a marker of performance.

It all comes down to science and I doubt any of us here on the forum are smart enough to analyse that. I have no doubt that the players got flogged pre-seaaon and that has to continue. Each team gets flogged, they all say "toughest pre season". We aren't the only ones.

The difference though imo is diet supplements, emotional resilience, recovery equipment, advanced injury rehab... Stuff that we spend absolutely no money on so how are the athletes going to compete with clubs that do?

Why does the US win the most gold medals? Why does Aus kill it in cricket? Genetics and environmental factors play a big part but funding of high caliber facilities to as much of the population (grades within our club) is the second biggest factor too.

I don't think the Club has money to hire elite performance staff but I hope they at least spend money to upskill the ones that are here. Invest in university students doing sports science, physio etc to do placements and help us with stats. Get current staff to go to NFL teams to see how AI is used in recovery...

I just feel that as fans we should be pushing the club to do that because that's whats going to deliver success 10 years down the track.

Sorry for the rant, I feel strongly about this.
I do agree about the under investment you can probably jag a premiership here and there without the significant investment because you get lucky with generational talent and other environmental factors aligning (see 2005) however you are not able to sustain success without the funding (see almost every other year before and after 2005).
 
I do agree about the under investment you can probably jag a premiership here and there without the significant investment because you get lucky with generational talent and other environmental factors aligning (see 2005) however you are not able to sustain success without the funding (see almost every other year before and after 2005).
Or in our case, we may be able to jag a Top 8 spot here and there..
 
Was it a master stricken with Da Silva ciz I’d rather we spend money on players on the up curve than putting to many of our eggs in aging guys, Don’t get me wrong, APIs been good for us but we seem to be struggling in terms of bringing through the next level.
Benji is managing the result not the system imo, look at Sticky in Canberra last year when he brought through that group of juniors. Fantastic, unfortunately they're all going through second year syndrome this season, but they’re still dynamic, and will be back.

Tallyn was under contract for this season, and at the time it was quite obviously a mistake to move him on without having a viable alternative. Hope was clearly never close to being that, regardless of contract amounts.
 
I do agree about the under investment you can probably jag a premiership here and there without the significant investment because you get lucky with generational talent and other environmental factors aligning (see 2005) however you are not able to sustain success without the funding (see almost every other year before and after 2005).
Riccio the other night said the Broncos spend $1.5m on pathways alone.
I think thats about our total budget for everything
 

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After the Knights game... The team look emotionally and physically burnt out. To me it looks like the brutal pre-season that had us as the fittest team in the comp early on, has caught up and is costing us.

I love the idea of driving standards -- but I would gladly pass on the army camps next season if everyone is coming back and passing fitness tests. I don't think that stuff is what our team needs anymore. We need to get better at scoring points instead of carrying jerry cans from here to there with 3 hours of sleep. It's not about effort areas anymore, we just need to play better footy.
I think theres a bigger correlation to the injuries we have had rather than the army camp. I did pre seasons at a junior level and it was bloody intense. My point being, most clubs are doing similar things across all grades - they just havent made a doco about it, so it woudlnt come into question.

Also, we effectively only have 2 byes this season with the first one being in round 1. Less time to recoup compared to other teams who have had a more favourable draw.

If we were fully fit, we'd be top 4/5 and not even having this convo.
 
How to Avoid Burnout? - get em into Pre-Season Training in the Pathways as early as possible so it becomes second nature to them. Sneak Peak at some Tiger Cubs from the Cambo Creche:

 
No more boot camps
No more documentaries
No more season hyping crap
Just a normal pre season like every other club but without the vapes
🤣 💨
Many of the other clubs do some sort of boot camp so we’re not unique there.
Documentaries can be interesting, especially to compare. Have you seen the Panthers pre season doco- maybe someone can find it and post, I thought very informative.
Maybe it’s just the size of the heart we’re lacking !
 
I actually think Pete Moussa knows how to get these blokes into shape, but he hasn't got our blocks right and our draw hasn't particularly helped him.

what I would propose is this.

Hayden Knowles is a coaching consultant nowadays. he doesn't belong to one particular club at the minute and he knows what high performance looks like in successful environments.

I'd love for Knowlesy to come into camp during preseason and offer his expertise to Moussa and the rest of the high performance staff to ensure we're timing our run in the right manner.

again I don't think Pete should be sacked, he just needs to tweak the approach. having Hayden around might help.
 
I actually think Pete Moussa knows how to get these blokes into shape, but he hasn't got our blocks right and our draw hasn't particularly helped him.

what I would propose is this.

Hayden Knowles is a coaching consultant nowadays. he doesn't belong to one particular club at the minute and he knows what high performance looks like in successful environments.

I'd love for Knowlesy to come into camp during preseason and offer his expertise to Moussa and the rest of the high performance staff to ensure we're timing our run in the right manner.

again I don't think Pete should be sacked, he just needs to tweak the approach. having Hayden around might help.
We need an academy not just for players but all staff.

We need to upskill everyone in the organisation. We clearly cannot afford to buy elite staff so need to teach them.

Hope Shaun or whoever else is in charge of the clubs entire operation can go to NFL clubs, EPL clubs, go to Sydney swans or a rugby union franchise in another country to see how their systems are.

Good clubs churn out good players because they churn out good S&C staff, physios, coaches, trainers, statisticians etc.
 
Teams like Storm build for top down. They've got a "winning" NRL team and they set those standards. Ponisi makes sure these standards are followed all the way down to all their grades.

We cannot build from the NRL because they're crap.

Gus/ whoever is in charge (with the help of a lot of money) has built panthers and Dogs from the bottom. They've produced these academies of coaches that they insane amounts of professional development (Webster, Barrett, Ciraldo, Wallace). I've first hand seen the amount of development their Doctors, physios and high performance staff has done. You grow as a professional when you teach others which is what they do.

I hope we can do something like this, probably not to this extent, but to some extent. The biggest restriction will be $$ and HBG, but let's see..
 
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