Sorry for the length but interesting none the less.
"Athleticism, size and speed are the keys to AFL success - and this is scientifically official. Rookies beware. By Tim Blair and Patrick Carlyon.
Pity the first-game AFLplayer. He may imagine the advantages of youth will assist him to clear packs and run free. He may even allow himself to dream of a goal with his first kick. Then reality – wickedly fast, and capable of dealing him serious physical harm – intervenes.
In the opening few minutes of a senior AFL game, our first-timer will discover that the ball moves around the field at a speed 13% greater than during an average under-18s game. Moreover, where junior grades may have featured many players above 183cm (six foot) and 80 kilograms, the men moving that ball around in a senior AFL match are uniformly enormous: were this youngster to make his debut against, say, Geelong, he’d find himself up against a team selected from a 40-player squad that averages 188cm and 89kg.
If he survives to play a finals match in his first season, another discovery awaits. Driven by desperation and desire, the ball moves around the field 6% faster in September than it does during regular home-and-away matches. There’s a reason coaches rely on experience in big games.
These numbers – derived from an AFL analysis of the game compiled last year – paint a remarkable picture of the changes in the code over the past few decades. Speed of play increases by about 1% every season, which explains why games played in the 1980s and recalled as searing, breakneck contests now seem so slow when reviewed on video. Almost soccer-like, in fact.
The physics of modern AFL have seen mass increases in line with speed. The 1983 Essendon squad, defeated in that year’s grand final, averaged 80.6kg and 183.6cm; barely half of its players topped the old six-foot mark. This season, 33 of the 44 listed Essendon players are above six foot (75%) and weigh on average 8kg more than their counterparts of 22 years ago. That’s a much larger difference than it seems. A frontal collision between two 88kg players each travelling at 30kmh involves more than twice as much energy as a similar collision between two 80kg players.
Perhaps we shouldn’t feel too sorry for a first-gamer arriving in this land of giants; he’s likely to be almost as big himself. Former AFL premiership coach David Parkin attended last season’s draft camp, where young players are tested under the gaze of representatives from each of the league’s 16 clubs. “There would have been maybe 90-100 kids there,” Parkin recalls. “And not one of them would have been under 6ft 1in [185 cm].”
During Parkin’s playing days (1961-74) about four out of five blokes were theoretically large enough to play AFL football. Now less than half the male population would qualify. The University of South Australia’s Dr Kevin Norton, who with recently appointed Adelaide Crows’ coach Neil Craig compiled the AFL study cited earlier, notes that the height of AFL ruckmen, in particular, has increased at three to four times the rate of the general population. Players deemed too small, who may have been champions during previous eras, “don’t even make it to the draft”, says Parkin. The spectacular modern running game, with attacking moves set up deep in defence, has cut demand for skilled ground-level players adept at gathering possessions during man-on-man contests. “We’ve got a new style of player,” says Parkin. “The athlete who can play football, rather than the footballer who was athletic.”
Collingwood games record-holder Tony Shaw, best on field during his team’s 1990 premiership, admits he’d probably miss out if he was beginning his career in 2005. One reason, besides his lack of height, is that a particular defensive structure is vanishing from the game; defenders now seek to maintain possession, crossing the field laterally to lone team-mates rather than drilling the ball forward into sprawling packs, which minimises opportunities for legitimate collisions between opposing players. “You don’t get a chance to build up your momentum” in such circumstances, says Shaw, a specialist at meeting speeding foe with solid hip and shoulder, whose two career knock-outs were both achieved against larger opponents. Told that the ball travels at an average speed of 25.5kmh during modern play, Shaw replies: “I bet it travels only half as fast along the length of the ground.” (He’s right; as measured by the Norton-Craig study, the direct progress of a ball up-field is about 13kmh.)
But changes in playing style haven’t come about through a desire to avoid confrontations. The possession game has evolved as a better way to win football matches, and is part of the science-and-computer led advance of AFL. Players train up to six days a week, sometimes twice a day. Once they trained fewer than 100 times a year: now they train 100 times in 10 weeks of pre-season work. When players are not playing, they tend to be conditioning or rehabilitating. Physical anomalies once stood out on the field – the gut of North Melbourne’s Mick Nolan, or the jockeyesque build of Fitzroy’s Brad Gotch – but players now tend to conform to elite physical standards: fast, tall, and able to rebound from collisions that would put an office worker in hospital.
By the way, despite the seemingly less-brutal manner of the modern game, collisions (less targeted than in Shaw’s era, but collisions nonetheless) have actually increased, up from 12 per quarter in 1960 to 27 per quarter in 2000. They may not stand out as much due to the improved fitness of today’s players who can absorb greater contact without damage. AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson says injury rates are at their lowest in 13 years and have dropped from their peak in 1997.
According to Norton, the aerobic fitness of AFL players has increased by 10-20% and peak sprinting skills by 5-10% in the past few decades. The fittest players haven’t become faster, he says, so much as slower players catching up. Players average about six serious collisions per game – or about 600 throughout a four-year career.
The Crows’ Brett Burton is writing a thesis on the physical volume of work of a current AFL midfielder. His results will be based on all aspects of training, including running and weights, as well as on-field play over a full 10-month season. To this end, Crows players were tracked during the recent pre-season using GPS technology. Devices the size of mobile phones were taped to their backs, delivering data on player movements over the course of a match. Some of the information (distance covered, speed, time spent stationary) was uncomfortably revealing. One player found to lurk out of position had remedied this by the following week. Says Burton: “You can’t hide any more.”
Science is not always unfriendly. When distance-measuring technology was first introduced, some players were found to be running upwards of 20km a match; now, to keep them fresh during the typical 28-second bursts of action between stoppages, most midfielders are rested throughout matches and may only cover 14-16km. “There’s a lot less doubt about what’s good for you and what’s not,” Burton says. One fact of which there is no doubt: the rookies in this weekend’s opening AFL round will crave that first break. Physics is an exhausting business.
BALLPARK FIGURES
Average speed the ball travels during an AFL game: 25.5 kmh
Forward speed of play: 13.7 kmh
Average length of play between stoppages: 28 seconds (finals: 21 seconds)
Collisions per quarter: increased from 12 in 1960 to 27 in 2000
Scoring shots per team per quarter: 6.1
Average team score per quarter: 23.4 points
Body mass index (ratio of weight to height) of average AFL player: 23.5.
Heavier, slower games feature bulkier BMIs; rugby league averages 32, and American football 35."
"Athleticism, size and speed are the keys to AFL success - and this is scientifically official. Rookies beware. By Tim Blair and Patrick Carlyon.
Pity the first-game AFLplayer. He may imagine the advantages of youth will assist him to clear packs and run free. He may even allow himself to dream of a goal with his first kick. Then reality – wickedly fast, and capable of dealing him serious physical harm – intervenes.
In the opening few minutes of a senior AFL game, our first-timer will discover that the ball moves around the field at a speed 13% greater than during an average under-18s game. Moreover, where junior grades may have featured many players above 183cm (six foot) and 80 kilograms, the men moving that ball around in a senior AFL match are uniformly enormous: were this youngster to make his debut against, say, Geelong, he’d find himself up against a team selected from a 40-player squad that averages 188cm and 89kg.
If he survives to play a finals match in his first season, another discovery awaits. Driven by desperation and desire, the ball moves around the field 6% faster in September than it does during regular home-and-away matches. There’s a reason coaches rely on experience in big games.
These numbers – derived from an AFL analysis of the game compiled last year – paint a remarkable picture of the changes in the code over the past few decades. Speed of play increases by about 1% every season, which explains why games played in the 1980s and recalled as searing, breakneck contests now seem so slow when reviewed on video. Almost soccer-like, in fact.
The physics of modern AFL have seen mass increases in line with speed. The 1983 Essendon squad, defeated in that year’s grand final, averaged 80.6kg and 183.6cm; barely half of its players topped the old six-foot mark. This season, 33 of the 44 listed Essendon players are above six foot (75%) and weigh on average 8kg more than their counterparts of 22 years ago. That’s a much larger difference than it seems. A frontal collision between two 88kg players each travelling at 30kmh involves more than twice as much energy as a similar collision between two 80kg players.
Perhaps we shouldn’t feel too sorry for a first-gamer arriving in this land of giants; he’s likely to be almost as big himself. Former AFL premiership coach David Parkin attended last season’s draft camp, where young players are tested under the gaze of representatives from each of the league’s 16 clubs. “There would have been maybe 90-100 kids there,” Parkin recalls. “And not one of them would have been under 6ft 1in [185 cm].”
During Parkin’s playing days (1961-74) about four out of five blokes were theoretically large enough to play AFL football. Now less than half the male population would qualify. The University of South Australia’s Dr Kevin Norton, who with recently appointed Adelaide Crows’ coach Neil Craig compiled the AFL study cited earlier, notes that the height of AFL ruckmen, in particular, has increased at three to four times the rate of the general population. Players deemed too small, who may have been champions during previous eras, “don’t even make it to the draft”, says Parkin. The spectacular modern running game, with attacking moves set up deep in defence, has cut demand for skilled ground-level players adept at gathering possessions during man-on-man contests. “We’ve got a new style of player,” says Parkin. “The athlete who can play football, rather than the footballer who was athletic.”
Collingwood games record-holder Tony Shaw, best on field during his team’s 1990 premiership, admits he’d probably miss out if he was beginning his career in 2005. One reason, besides his lack of height, is that a particular defensive structure is vanishing from the game; defenders now seek to maintain possession, crossing the field laterally to lone team-mates rather than drilling the ball forward into sprawling packs, which minimises opportunities for legitimate collisions between opposing players. “You don’t get a chance to build up your momentum” in such circumstances, says Shaw, a specialist at meeting speeding foe with solid hip and shoulder, whose two career knock-outs were both achieved against larger opponents. Told that the ball travels at an average speed of 25.5kmh during modern play, Shaw replies: “I bet it travels only half as fast along the length of the ground.” (He’s right; as measured by the Norton-Craig study, the direct progress of a ball up-field is about 13kmh.)
But changes in playing style haven’t come about through a desire to avoid confrontations. The possession game has evolved as a better way to win football matches, and is part of the science-and-computer led advance of AFL. Players train up to six days a week, sometimes twice a day. Once they trained fewer than 100 times a year: now they train 100 times in 10 weeks of pre-season work. When players are not playing, they tend to be conditioning or rehabilitating. Physical anomalies once stood out on the field – the gut of North Melbourne’s Mick Nolan, or the jockeyesque build of Fitzroy’s Brad Gotch – but players now tend to conform to elite physical standards: fast, tall, and able to rebound from collisions that would put an office worker in hospital.
By the way, despite the seemingly less-brutal manner of the modern game, collisions (less targeted than in Shaw’s era, but collisions nonetheless) have actually increased, up from 12 per quarter in 1960 to 27 per quarter in 2000. They may not stand out as much due to the improved fitness of today’s players who can absorb greater contact without damage. AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson says injury rates are at their lowest in 13 years and have dropped from their peak in 1997.
According to Norton, the aerobic fitness of AFL players has increased by 10-20% and peak sprinting skills by 5-10% in the past few decades. The fittest players haven’t become faster, he says, so much as slower players catching up. Players average about six serious collisions per game – or about 600 throughout a four-year career.
The Crows’ Brett Burton is writing a thesis on the physical volume of work of a current AFL midfielder. His results will be based on all aspects of training, including running and weights, as well as on-field play over a full 10-month season. To this end, Crows players were tracked during the recent pre-season using GPS technology. Devices the size of mobile phones were taped to their backs, delivering data on player movements over the course of a match. Some of the information (distance covered, speed, time spent stationary) was uncomfortably revealing. One player found to lurk out of position had remedied this by the following week. Says Burton: “You can’t hide any more.”
Science is not always unfriendly. When distance-measuring technology was first introduced, some players were found to be running upwards of 20km a match; now, to keep them fresh during the typical 28-second bursts of action between stoppages, most midfielders are rested throughout matches and may only cover 14-16km. “There’s a lot less doubt about what’s good for you and what’s not,” Burton says. One fact of which there is no doubt: the rookies in this weekend’s opening AFL round will crave that first break. Physics is an exhausting business.
BALLPARK FIGURES
Average speed the ball travels during an AFL game: 25.5 kmh
Forward speed of play: 13.7 kmh
Average length of play between stoppages: 28 seconds (finals: 21 seconds)
Collisions per quarter: increased from 12 in 1960 to 27 in 2000
Scoring shots per team per quarter: 6.1
Average team score per quarter: 23.4 points
Body mass index (ratio of weight to height) of average AFL player: 23.5.
Heavier, slower games feature bulkier BMIs; rugby league averages 32, and American football 35."
