Genetics and footy

Furn2

Norm Smith Medallist
Sep 27, 2012
9,475
15,514
AFL Club
Hawthorn
With the draft on tonight I was talking with some co-workers about the massive role genetics is going to play in everyones lives in the near future with next-generation linear gene sequencing about to explode onto the market.

As it stand, gene sequencing is already very available and affordable with companies already tailoring diets and workouts to fit your genetic makeup.

Now whether these are any more than a placebo is up for deabte as there hasn't been IMO, enough large -scale population sequencing done to draw any real-world conclusions on which genes do what in relation to sports and fitness.

That time is about to end however, with the 100,000 gene project underway in the UK and many more being planned, we will soon know what effects what and what genes do what to a much larger extent and which single polymorphisms effect what traits in people.

So I ask the question ?

to what extent could and should Gene technologies be used in sports ?

Is it ok to ask for kids to be sequencedd at a draft camp ?

And assuming that that sort of screening is seen as unfair what about once a player is drafted ?

Is it ok for a club to gene sequence players in order to find out what is the best training regime, diet and position for them and ultimately whether they should be persisted with ?

Discuss
 
Last edited:

Furn2

Norm Smith Medallist
Sep 27, 2012
9,475
15,514
AFL Club
Hawthorn
we should be using cloning and genetic tailoring to produce the ultimate sportsmen.

At this stage we know nowhere near enough about what genes do what, so it would be a case of just breeding thoroughbreds which as we know with horse is very hit and miss.

but eventually, yes it will be doable.
 

Silent Alarm

sack Lyon
10k Posts
Jul 9, 2010
24,163
26,535
AFL Club
Fremantle
Nic Naitanui proves that height, weight, speed, jump, and incredible physical ability doesn't make a great footballer.

Paul Haselby was only tall by average population standards. Even then, was he really? Was he even six foot? He was constantly overweight and waddled and was a champion footballer.

Genes can be important but at the same time, a lot of footballing ability is stuff you just pick up.
 

Furn2

Norm Smith Medallist
Sep 27, 2012
9,475
15,514
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Nic Naitanui proves that height, weight, speed, jump, and incredible physical ability doesn't make a great footballer.

Paul Haselby was only tall by average population standards. Even then, was he really? Was he even six foot? He was constantly overweight and waddled and was a champion footballer.

Genes can be important but at the same time, a lot of footballing ability is stuff you just pick up.

Sure but someone lke Jarryd Grant might come up genetically as unlikely to put on muscle mass or Menzel may show a genetic link to ACL injuries.

Im not saying it with be a case of replacing recruiters with geneticists but like the draft camp is it fair to make draftees have top give up a gene profile ?

Remember it took 13 years, 800 scientists and $3billion to sequence 4 peoples genomes in 1991, current technology can do it for $1000 in 12 hours and next gen will be able to do it in a few minutes for a couple of dollar on a USB stick.

What we will know about genes and epigenetics is about to go mad.
 

gym4life

Norm Smith Medallist
Melbourne Bolts Player - BFFCL Pokemon is Life
May 22, 2015
5,419
4,464
AFL Club
West Coast
Nic Naitanui proves that height, weight, speed, jump, and incredible physical ability doesn't make a great footballer.

Paul Haselby was only tall by average population standards. Even then, was he really? Was he even six foot? He was constantly overweight and waddled and was a champion footballer.

Genes can be important but at the same time, a lot of footballing ability is stuff you just pick up.
Naitanui shits all over haselby. Naitanui is definitely a great footballer and will continue to be for years.
 
Naitanui shits all over haselby. Naitanui is definitely a great footballer and will continue to be for years.

yep

we still haven't seen the best of nic nat yet. he is and will be a star
 

keithrichards

Premiership Player
Dec 11, 2008
3,299
4,000
Shepparton
AFL Club
Melbourne
I heard Derek Hine present 3 or 4 years ago, and he suggested genetic profiling would be the 'next frontier' of recruiting.

Cost and availability won't be an issue, more around moral and ethical standards, and how quickly it becomes 'normal' practice within society
 

Pessimistic

Cancelled
30k Posts 10k Posts HBF's Milk Crate - 70k Posts TheBrownDog
Sep 13, 2000
86,852
42,951
Melbourne cricket ground. Australia
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Horks
We may even be able to rewrite history as it actually happened through genes.

maybe the catholics were right to hang onto those old bones of 'saints'
 

Furn2

Norm Smith Medallist
Sep 27, 2012
9,475
15,514
AFL Club
Hawthorn
I heard Derek Hine present 3 or 4 years ago, and he suggested genetic profiling would be the 'next frontier' of recruiting.

Cost and availability won't be an issue, more around moral and ethical standards, and how quickly it becomes 'normal' practice within society

This is what im talking about and Im not surprosed recruiters were onto it 3-4 years ago.

Its not about Nicnat.

Blind Freddy can see he has genetic advantages that help him be good at football.

This is about what you can't see, no recruiter can, but its there in ATC and Gs.

Players who have a low endurance due to lack of mitochondria , or are prone to lower back injury or knee injuries or potential muscle mass etc etc.

I doubt genetics will ever be able to find a Mtichell or Pendlebury as far a decision making or a Jack Watts lack of intensity at the contest at least no time soon but the rest is on our doorstep.

So my question again is where and how should it be used if at all ?
 

gym4life

Norm Smith Medallist
Melbourne Bolts Player - BFFCL Pokemon is Life
May 22, 2015
5,419
4,464
AFL Club
West Coast
Haselby got 1 All Australian as a mid fielder, nicNat got 1 all Australian and nobody even knows why
Haselby retired, naitanui is 24 and already had an extra AA squad selection.
 

keithrichards

Premiership Player
Dec 11, 2008
3,299
4,000
Shepparton
AFL Club
Melbourne
This is what im talking about and Im not surprosed recruiters were onto it 3-4 years ago.

Its not about Nicnat.

Blind Freddy can see he has genetic advantages that help him be good at football.

This is about what you can't see, no recruiter can, but its there in ATC and Gs.

Players who have a low endurance due to lack of mitochondria , or are prone to lower back injury or knee injuries or potential muscle mass etc etc.

I doubt genetics will ever be able to find a Mtichell or Pendlebury as far a decision making or a Jack Watts lack of intensity at the contest at least no time soon but the rest is on our doorstep.

So my question again is where and how should it be used if at all ?
I'm not sold on using it at draft camp etc, and using it in the ID process, although it probably also depends on how intrusive a test would be.

Once a player reaches a club, I'd say there is some possible value, particularly around training programs, injury prevention/rehab and the like.

Again, will be interesting to see what becomes the societal norm around such practices too.
 

YES! YES! YES!

All Australian
May 4, 2014
807
1,017
Disputed Western Sahara Region
AFL Club
Melbourne
Awesome Thread!

To be fair, although the price of genome sequencing is becoming affordable for the general public, there is still a lot of work required to decode the human genome itself.

Even when NGS becomes cheap for everyone, you will essentially only have a sequence of nucleotides for 46 chromosomes at your hands with little knowledge about how it fully functions.

Therefore, you will hardly get a good knowledge about the appropriate diet, training regime, etc... ATM.

Plus scientists are discovering that the epigenome plays a fundamental role in controlling the human phenotype. NGS isn't capable of giving details about the epigenome yet.
 

mikeythemoocow

Cancelled
Casey Tutungi Future Fund
Mar 17, 2005
3,170
5,386
Nakatomi Plaza
AFL Club
Carlton
Other Teams
Aussie Ahmed
Haselby retired, naitanui is 24 and already had an extra AA squad selection.


Just stop. Haselby was a far better footy player than NicNat will ever be. Its just that NicNat is tall and not podgy that he even gets by. If you did a stock car version of footy, where everyone gets the same vehicle/body, Haselby would by top 95%, NicNat would be below 20%.
 
Mar 8, 2007
7,537
12,223
Sweep shots don't count
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Other Teams
probably
I always find this concept interesting in a few ways.

For instance, imagine in the future we've perfected gene biotech to the point where every team consists of 18 perfect footballing specimens, all 215 cm, 120kg, athletic monsters with 60m boots, Greg Williams-like handling, Olympic speed.

Sounds like a good concept.

But at what point in that process do we stop watching 'people' - like we do today, 36 folk with effectively as much chance as us to get there at birth - and begin watching 'creatures', 'animals' even, bred for a footballing purpose?

And therefore at what point does it stop being 'football' as we know it, having become some bizarre hybrid of greyhound racing and wrestling?

I mean, someone mentioned the nags earlier - certainly the horses today are far different beasts than they were 100 years ago purely through breeding programs. They are bred to compete far beyond when a normal creature would pull up and say "* this, there is no logical or evolutionary reason for me to run in a circle like this."

Which brings me back to footy - who's to say horse-like intelligence won't make for better footballers? Complete absense of fear of injury? If we're already breeding them for height and weight, why not make them too dumb to question a coach saying "kill yourself going backwards into that pack" every week?

Where is the imaginary line between person and thing bred for our entertainment? When will we cross the line?

Have we already done it?
 

Pessimistic

Cancelled
30k Posts 10k Posts HBF's Milk Crate - 70k Posts TheBrownDog
Sep 13, 2000
86,852
42,951
Melbourne cricket ground. Australia
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Horks
This is what im talking about and Im not surprosed recruiters were onto it 3-4 years ago.

Its not about Nicnat.

Blind Freddy can see he has genetic advantages that help him be good at football.

This is about what you can't see, no recruiter can, but its there in ATC and Gs.

Players who have a low endurance due to lack of mitochondria , or are prone to lower back injury or knee injuries or potential muscle mass etc etc.

I doubt genetics will ever be able to find a Mtichell or Pendlebury as far a decision making or a Jack Watts lack of intensity at the contest at least no time soon but the rest is on our doorstep.

So my question again is where and how should it be used if at all ?
I always find this concept interesting in a few ways.

For instance, imagine in the future we've perfected gene biotech to the point where every team consists of 18 perfect footballing specimens, all 215 cm, 120kg, athletic monsters with 60m boots, Greg Williams-like handling, Olympic speed.

Sounds like a good concept.

But at what point in that process do we stop watching 'people' - like we do today, 36 folk with effectively as much chance as us to get there at birth - and begin watching 'creatures', 'animals' even, bred for a footballing purpose?

And therefore at what point does it stop being 'football' as we know it, having become some bizarre hybrid of greyhound racing and wrestling?

I mean, someone mentioned the nags earlier - certainly the horses today are far different beasts than they were 100 years ago purely through breeding programs. They are bred to compete far beyond when a normal creature would pull up and say "**** this, there is no logical or evolutionary reason for me to run in a circle like this."

Which brings me back to footy - who's to say horse-like intelligence won't make for better footballers? Complete absense of fear of injury? If we're already breeding them for height and weight, why not make them too dumb to question a coach saying "kill yourself going backwards into that pack" every week?

Where is the imaginary line between person and thing bred for our entertainment? When will we cross the line?

Have we already done it?

Sumo Wrestlers

some people have suggested that as the planet gets more and more people, mostly city dwellers, that 'ordinary' people will need to evolve to be much smaller with a smaller environmental footprint

Some of us may choose to exist only as AI in the internet, with the trade off that we could exist forever, and maybe sleep for months until something interesting happens

Time for my bedtime
 
I always find this concept interesting in a few ways.

For instance, imagine in the future we've perfected gene biotech to the point where every team consists of 18 perfect footballing specimens, all 215 cm, 120kg, athletic monsters with 60m boots, Greg Williams-like handling, Olympic speed.

Sounds like a good concept.

But at what point in that process do we stop watching 'people' - like we do today, 36 folk with effectively as much chance as us to get there at birth - and begin watching 'creatures', 'animals' even, bred for a footballing purpose?

And therefore at what point does it stop being 'football' as we know it, having become some bizarre hybrid of greyhound racing and wrestling?

I mean, someone mentioned the nags earlier - certainly the horses today are far different beasts than they were 100 years ago purely through breeding programs. They are bred to compete far beyond when a normal creature would pull up and say "**** this, there is no logical or evolutionary reason for me to run in a circle like this."

Which brings me back to footy - who's to say horse-like intelligence won't make for better footballers? Complete absense of fear of injury? If we're already breeding them for height and weight, why not make them too dumb to question a coach saying "kill yourself going backwards into that pack" every week?

Where is the imaginary line between person and thing bred for our entertainment? When will we cross the line?

Have we already done it?

I'm with you. I prefer to see kids hold up signs like "go Ablett" rather than "go Dank".

I also don't find footy more enjoyable today with the likes of Ablett Jnr on a crazy diet, exercise routine and pain killers vs Russell Ebert/ Ablett Snr who would have had a beer after the game.

At the end of the day, its just a bit of fun for the spectators and a job for the entertainers. Sure its a big industry now and perhaps justification for the drugs etc but that could change overnight if the "people" wanted to make a change. Just by turning off footy and not gambling for 1 week would be a decent enough statement.
 
Back