The “fitness arms race” in Australian Rules Football. Is it justified?
There has been an amazing amount of press about fitness gurus in the AFL recently. Obviously the saga at Essendon Football Club with Dean Robinson and the injury rate has created heaps of discussion. Now we have the rush to get the services of Darren Burgess, who is currently at Liverpool. Rumours surround the signing of Michael Malthouse and possibilities with David Buttifant from Collingwood. Western Bulldogs signed Bill Davoren a few years ago who was head coach for the AIS Triathlon Program. Guru status often gets bestowed on whoever wins the finals series. Clubs are jostling for the next panacea in Sports Science. I don’t want to comment on the competencies of fitness staff and individual decisions. Tough gig AFL and many good people involved. ( Maybe not gurus!) Just the business practices ( or lack of) and often total lack of scrutiny with CV’s etc. Often very smart business people on Boards throw out all their objectivity when involved in sports such as AFL and jump on the percpetion based, panic buying, profile chase to keep fans and media and stakeholders happy for another year. Then hope with fingers crossed that they will make finals!
Darren Burgess Liverpool Fitness to AFL again! $350,000 plus?
It is difficult to know what a club like Essendon spent on fitness in 2011/2012? But huge amounts! Winners are grinners. Do well & justified! Thats life.
Only as far back as 2003 at Geelong pretty much the fitness budget would have been 140/150,000 tops for all staff. Maybe 10,000 approx for equipment. The odd consultant. Wee bit of sports science money, maybe 10 to 15,000 max…I cannot remember exact amounts but simply not a lot. Anyway that was the key period for the development of the super Geelong Team of 2007 onwards. How did I manage it? Simply paid heaps of part timers small amounts to oversee varied functions. Mark Spivey was F/T but on a low wage and Chris Dennis was very much part time. Tahi Reihana received next to nothing to help with weights and tackling and same with John Minns in the gym. Then I had a yoga teacher come in and varied consultants like Mark Sayers pop in for very lowly paid consultancies. There were a few other small gigs and some work experience students doing odd jobs. OK different era but by 2006 the job was almost done with this team.
Now there is a rush to not miss out. But is best “business practice” and “Sports Science practice” being observed.
How many of these gurus have coached over long periods? Decades? Have they just slotted into transient positions and fell into well organized clubs and more so developed and talented elite athletes. In the end coaching is the key component , not Sports Science.
Are some of these very inexperienced Football Managers not doing due diligence on scrutinizing past Coaching experience and simply making assumptions? Do these managers ( many who have never managed business or organizations of any relevance) understand the difference between Sports Science and Coaching? Are many just trying to hang onto highly paid jobs!
And by giving some guru massive salaries, who is going to do the work? Supervising Pilates sessions, weights sessions, pool sessions etc. Does the club then have to draw the line on accessing consultants for specific needs because a Guru has sucked the budget. Can the club afford a sprint coach and quality massuers and simply expertise to underpin the multifactorial fitness and rehab needs of an AFL Footy Department.
My model would be to pay a competent quality person a good salary but leave heaps for lots of expertise in the fitness area so that all individual needs can be met. Spread the money. In the end it is the law of diminishing returns. For every extra 100,000 one pays a GURU one gets less and less value. Pay 195,000 a year and get a really really good person and have thousands left over.
Sports Science is critical and costs money, rehab experts and consultants are critical and should be called in on demand. Different periods of the year need different staff. Pay someone 200,000 and have 150,000 left over and wow get some amazing expertise out there. If an assistant deems themelves a guru and wants double then say ciao!
In a micro fashion that was how I operated. Training started at 2pm and at 12 30 all my part timers arrived and had specific gigs. And at 5pm off they went. We are talking elite operators.
But inexperienced managers get handed millions and then go for profile and perception to justify positions to Boards, the media and fans. And this approach works in the short term. But now we are seeing many failures since the mid 2000’s. Boards should ask staff to justify every cent. There is no panacea in exotic treadmills or amazing machines. Running on grass is the number requirement for an AFL fitness program. What is needed is Expertise and access to the amazing amount of varied knowledge that exists now in the Sports Science and Rehab Community. A guru cannot do it all. But a smart manager can access the best minds and then pull together a program but more so cater for the fine tuning needed. A football department now cannot do it all, let alone a guru. The next big thing is simply accessing people on demand.
I wrote a an article on if a possible model exists for success in the AFL. Certainly finances pay a part, as does talent, but there does seem to be a general model that can be adhered to. In fact Essendon and next Richmond represent ideal age structures to fit the model around.
Model for Success in the AFL. Does one exist?
I think Club Management and Accountants and CEO’s need to go through the rationales for buying equipment, panic hiring of “gurus” and indiscriminate “profile” based staff recruitment and objectively ascertain whether due diligence was adhered to.
But in the end winners are grinners so whoever wins will be copied. Odd when we are talking about a sport only played in a few states of Australia. So I do think the ARMS RACE is justified in AFL for fitness but beware the GURU and beware panaceas. The trick is how to spend the money and who is given the credit card!
No comments yet.
loris bertolacci 
Leave a comment