Craigs training methods

[crow4life]

I would like to raise debate on the pre season training methods of the AFC.Surely the aim is to have your squad fit and primed for the assault on the season proper from round 1. Craig has demanded his players increase their workload to improve fitness to be able to play his zone based game. Admittedly we have been hit by injuries early this season but I am seeing the 22 guys who have represented us the last two weeks as having no spark,being flat and uncompetitive. The same thing happened at the start of last season as well. I believe we are seeing the players showing signs of not being able to cope with these training methods. There has to be a limit to what the body can handle and I think our guys have been pushed beyond beaking point. Throughout the six or so games we have played this year the Crows have been listless and flat.There is not much point building a massive fitness base to see you through the season if you have no energy when the season starts.We are so far off how we should be playing and I think the blame should sit squarely with our coaching staff.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

I've got no idea if we've over-trained, under-trained or if our preseason workload is the reason we're 0-2 and carrying injuries.

But one thing that has concerned me is Neil's attitude to increased workloads during the preseasons he has been in charge. He has often said words to the effect of "If we don't test the boundaries then we will never know what we are capable of."

It's as though it's some sort of experiment. Pushing the envelope. Trying to be innovative and go places others don't. I'd rather us know exactly what level of workload we need to do to reach an optimum level of fitness, rather than ramping up the workload to see what the effect will be.

 

[tiggsy]

I think we'll have a better idea of whether the training methods are right or not as the the season progresses. In 97 and 98 we had a flat patch later in the year as training was ramped up mid season so it could taper off and keep the guys fresh going into the finals. So really, trying to judge the methods after 2 matches seems a bit pointless. You wouldn't try judging the training methods employed by a 100m sprinter after the first 10 metres of a race, but that is in effect what people are trying to do with the team now.

I guess another question may be whether Craig's training methods increase the risk of injuries to our players. We have over half the squad playing with an injury interrupted preseason. Clearly, people like Johncock, Otten, Symes, Moran and Sellar can't be attributed to training. But I do wonder whether Vince, Knights, Bock and VB have been injured as a result of training workloads. I do realise that Bock and VB are carrying injuries from last year, but they are the sort of chronic injuries that can be associated with over training.

 

[beartoo]

I think we'll have a better idea of whether the training methods are right or not as the the season progresses. In 97 and 98 we had a flat patch later in the year as training was ramped up mid season so it could taper off and keep the guys fresh going into the finals. So really, trying to judge the methods after 2 matches seems a bit pointless. You wouldn't try judging the training methods employed by a 100m sprinter after the first 10 metres of a race, but that is in effect what people are trying to do with the team now.

I guess another question may be whether Craig's training methods increase the risk of injuries to our players. We have over half the squad playing with an injury interrupted preseason. Clearly, people like Johncock, Otten, Symes, Moran and Sellar can't be attributed to training. But I do wonder whether Vince, Knights, Bock and VB have been injured as a result of training workloads. I do realise that Bock and VB are carrying injuries from last year, but they are the sort of chronic injuries that can be associated with over training.

What you say would be valid if we were talking about this year only. We have footballers who each year undertake a gruelling 22 week season + pre-season matches + usually the 1st or 2nd week of finals. In other sports--athletics, swimming, boxing etc, athletes are trained and primed for one race or comptetitive meet. I have had the feeling for some years that Craig has tried to keep our blokes at a peak for the entire season.
I agree that so far this year we have looked like a side without legs. Not only that, we look like a side that has a majority of players that may be re-thinking their career paths.

 

[KingJames23]

Craig is our longest serving coach. The data, information and knowledge they gather on training, individual players, diets, player character, recovery, injury prevention, motivation, strategies, positioning, decision making (I could go on and on...) is the greatest and most sophisticated its ever been. Craig has a sports science background, along with master motivator Charlie Walsh. He has footy brains in Hart, Viney and Bicks in the coaches box. They have a $20m facility.

Yet there is one thing I dont understand. After ALL that the crows have at its disposal, how can we be SO damn uncompetitive, slow and flat to start the year? Im not talking about injuries here. Every club gets them. But as of round 1 (or first game of MMC), you should be sharp (yes, sharp - they play enough with the footys at training), fast and ready to go. You've had the summer to train. I understand that you need match conditioning but so does every club. Port earlier this year vs. crows were absolutely deperate and looked fast, fresh and ready to start the year full tilt. The club has every off field advantage it needs and we still lack any sort of motivation. I just do not get it.

Specifically referring to the OP, Craig's methods should be refined so well by now that he knows exactly what is required to have the team ready to start the year.

He should know what point we should be at in December, January, Febuary with our training program (which Im sure he does), yet it hasnt worked.

What was a seemingly easy early fixture has turned into a situation where we NEED to beat Melbourne tomorrow. I cannot believe its come to this but it has. And despite beating Pies in Melbourne in round 1 last year, we also had a slow start to the year. Why is this occuring? With the resources we have, we should be ready to go from the start of the year instead of trying to work ourselves into match conditioning as the season goes on. Again Ill mention that Im well aware of injuries. I can handle being beaten when we have lack of talent, but cant accept losing through lack of competitiveness and heart.

 

[tiggsy]

I have had the feeling for some years that Craig has tried to keep our blokes at a peak for the entire season.
.

I tend to disagree with this. People are not happy because we are not playing our best football now, so it's the fans who want us to be at our peak for the whole season. If Craig thinks it's worth having players flat at the start of the season to get our fitness base up for the whole season, what's wrong with that? Although Craig hasn't covered himself in glory in finals, he is close to the best performing coach in the whole AFL over the time he has been at Adelaide.

We have a coach who has taken the team further than any of the so called experts thought it would go in each year that he has coached. We now find ourselves actually expected to do well and we are playing with half a team who are coming back from injury or are relatively inexperienced. I really can't understand the venom on this board from a group of so called supporters who seem to want to do nothing more than stick the boots in now. I mean really, the number of people on here suggesting they know so much more than Neil Craig about football. Like the person who rang MMM last week after the match to tell Roo that his amateur D team could go straight up the guts, so why couldn't Adelaide. Roo's response was the suggest maybe football at the AFL level was a little bit more tricky than amateurs.

 

[beartoo]

I tend to disagree with this. People are not happy because we are not playing our best football now, so it's the fans who want us to be at our peak for the whole season.

No.we need to be at roughly the same level as the opposition.

If Craig thinks it's worth having players flat at the start of the season to get our fitness base up for the whole season, what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with that? A club needs to win 15 or more matches out of 22 to be top 4, realistically the only position to be in to win a premiership. How many games should we concede early in the season because the coach thinks coming flat into the season proper is okay? I'm not saying it's Craig that thinks this, but you obviously do.

Although Craig hasn't covered himself in glory in finals, he is close to the best performing coach in the whole AFL over the time he has been at Adelaide.

But it is in the finals series that premierships are won. High % of wins during season = didley squat.

We have a coach who has taken the team further than any of the so called experts thought it would go in each year that he has coached. We now find ourselves actually expected to do well and we are playing with half a team who are coming back from injury or are relatively inexperienced.

I understand the handicap of our injuries, for whatever reason they are caused. You questioned in your 1st post whether or not some are caused by training methods. It is the lack of run and seeming lack of passion in the side that is being questioned along with NC's training methods.

I really can't understand the venom on this board from a group of so called supporters who seem to want to do nothing more than stick the boots in now.

No venom on my part. But on a footy internet site, contributors have the right to say what they think. Why bother contributing otherwise?

QUOTE]

 

[tiggsy]

The majority of Crows supporters I know are not calling for Neil Craig's head, nor suggesting that the season is over after 2 rounds. I then see the wailing and gnashing of teeth on here and it strikes me as not really representing the views of most supporters. I guess it's back to that old adage that people who have something negative to say are far more likely to comment than people who have something positive to say. It just seems surprisingly few people are willing to defend Neil Craig over the last couple of weeks on these forums, despite obvious problems with available players and preseason injuries.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Craig has a sports science background, along with master motivator Charlie Walsh. He has footy brains in Hart, Viney and Bicks in the coaches box. They have a $20m facility.

Just on this, Craig's sports science background is slipping further into the... well, background. It's a long time since he had a professional involvement outside the club as far as I'm aware. Are we still on the cutting edge?

Again Ill mention that Im well aware of injuries. I can handle being beaten when we have lack of talent, but cant accept losing through lack of competitiveness and heart.

Maybe lack of available talent can be easily confused with lack of competitiveness and heart?

Talented footballers win contests, stick tackles, handle the ball cleanly, hit targets, read the game well... etc.

It's wrong to say that with stuff like tackling, intensity, pressure and even hardness that there isn't a talent element. Talent doesn't just mean kicking, marking and handballing. You could be the hardest unit alive but if you can't read the game well enough to get in a position to use your hardness, then who cares?

 

[beartoo]

The majority of Crows supporters I know are not calling for Neil Craig's head, nor suggesting that the season is over after 2 rounds. I then see the wailing and gnashing of teeth on here and it strikes me as not really representing the views of most supporters.

Who is calling for Craig's head on this board? Show me the posts. Who is saying the season is over after two games? Again, support this with evidence.
Craig has the support of the great majority of people on this board including me. That doesn't mean no one should question whether or not his methods are working.
I think he has two years to deliver a grand final. If he doesn't he will probably walk or be pushed if he doesn't. He may go down as one of the best coaches not to win a premiership if this is the case.

 

[WALL-e]

His training methods are probably his strongest card.

 

[TheLeftFist8]

I'm all for using the advances in science, monitoring, and high class facilities but i do wonder if the robotic analysis has led to some sterility in the environment and a subconscious lack of intensity and enthusiasm (seemingly the club thought their simulated match style training was actually replicating real pressure).

Maybe it's time for a change-up, or even a 'change-down' just for small period (perhaps we cannot really do it till the mid-year break).

To me it seems we are training like Ivan Drago (without the results) when maybe we need a little 'Rocky in Siberia' style philosophy just for a little while...get back to raw basics of aggression, intensity, mental toughness, adversity in conditions. After all, without these prerequisites, aspects like skills, game plans, tackling technique, running to contests, concentration etc all break down.

Currently our skills are absolutely disgusting, a blight (pardon the pun) on an area of footy that the Crows were renowned for. Talent is part of it but i also blame a conservative, keepies-off game plan and lack of presenting options upfield (or ones that are 40m in space on the boundary anyway).

Our tackling is deplorable, weak, soft, ineffectual etc etc...an embarrassment to the club. If that is the pressure provided at training, no wonder we aren't coping with real, decent, AFL level pressure. PLEASE learn how to tackle!!

Our inability to execute zones and forward movements to give anyone at least a 50:50 chance in a contest when the ball is going forwards or into defence is also a blight on player education, fitness (and i partly blame our training methods for our flatness), and again skills.

In all key areas, training methods can rightly be questioned. Their quantitative influence can be debated but i certainly believe it's a factor. So much to work on but until the basics are right, there's no point moving on...

Time to rough it up a bit.

 

[frednerk33]

I tend to disagree with this.
...
I really can't understand the venom on this board from a group of so called supporters who seem to want to do nothing more than stick the boots in now. I mean really, the number of people on here suggesting they know so much more than Neil Craig about football. Like the person who rang MMM last week after the match to tell Roo that his amateur D team could go straight up the guts, so why couldn't Adelaide. Roo's response was the suggest maybe football at the AFL level was a little bit more tricky than amateurs.

I'm with you. The number of people calling for sacking of this player or that player or the coach is generally phenomenal and not representative of what you hear outside this zoo. It's like some of the people here have an internal drive to wield some sort of verbal power in diminishing others when they generally have little or nil clue what's actually happening inside the club and/or on the field. Sometimes it's a terrible thing to read some of the stuff here, it feels like listening to collingwood ferals... picturing the bits of spit as the words come out.

I would like to raise debate on the pre season training methods of the AFC.

See if you can check on your implicit assumptions about whats happening and what relative level of fitness/training people are at as compared to other years ... you may well find that you're being muffled by the hat you're talking through.

In all key areas, training methods can rightly be questioned.

Rightly ? Rightly ? Oh, I see, a literary ploy to make yourself sound important. Sounds like the sort of thing rooch would stoop to.

 

[TheLeftFist8]

Rightly ? Rightly ? Oh, I see, a literary ploy to make yourself sound important. Sounds like the sort of thing rooch would stoop to.

Who is trying to make themselves look important? Hmmm.

Yes, rightly (ie it is feasible there is substance to the hypothesis that training methods are implicated in our poor performances. It is an argument that makes logical sense, even if it isn't one of the actual causative factors. Feasible, not necessarily correct or proven). This differs from suggesting something that cannot be rightly even hypothesised to be realistically related to our poor performances (ie we have a higher percentage of blonde haired players and that's why we have been softer than normal).

 

[frednerk33]

Nice try lefty. Rightly in your own view, pumping up your own view as "it". Devil's child

 

[Crow-mo]

I'm with you. The number of people calling for sacking of this player or that player or the coach is generally phenomenal and not representative of what you hear outside this zoo. It's like some of the people here have an internal drive to wield some sort of verbal power in diminishing others when they generally have little or nil clue what's actually happening inside the club and/or on the field.

I can't quite understand what basis you have for suggesting people don't know what is happening on the field, particularly when all you ever post is irrational polemics.

as for the off the field, who cares? I only care about on the field.

what matters to you?

 

[Crow-mo]

Nice try lefty. Rightly in your own view, pumping up your own view as "it". Devil's child

another empty post.

say something for **** sake

 

[crowtricolours]

I've got no idea if we've over-trained, under-trained or if our preseason workload is the reason we're 0-2 and carrying injuries.

But one thing that has concerned me is Neil's attitude to increased workloads during the preseasons he has been in charge. He has often said words to the effect of "If we don't test the boundaries then we will never know what we are capable of."

It's as though it's some sort of experiment. Pushing the envelope. Trying to be innovative and go places others don't. I'd rather us know exactly what level of workload we need to do to reach an optimum level of fitness, rather than ramping up the workload to see what the effect will be.

Thankfully he did push those boundaries in 1997

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Thankfully he did push those boundaries in 1997

As per my other post in this thread, were his methods in 1997 based on his intimate knowledge of what cutting-edge, Olympic athletes were doing at the time whereas now his methods are more speculative?

 

[Robfan100]

During the summer holidays, I regularly took the kids down to watch Crows training and on one occasion (and it hurts to admit this), I also went to Port training, only to get a football signed for a mates birthday (which I had to pay the kids to collect signatures for me). I was down there the last week in January just after we had a long 3hr session so naturally, Port also had a 3hr session as well.

A couple of observations I made at at their training was that they were far more relaxed and almost had a "near enough is good enough" mentality. I say this in respect to sprinting drills (whereby not all of the players actually ran the full distance between the markers) and also shots on goal (both running and set). They were casually jogging around and really seemed to lack 'sharpness'.

I commented to the kids that it was more like a 'kick in the park' as opposed to a serious training session and that if the Crow players were that relaxed, Craigy would have them down doing pushups the majority of the session. It was certainly far more casual and relaxed than our usual training sessions. I remember thinking at the time that if this was indicative of the year ahead, we were far more disciplined and regimented in the pre-season than Port were and fully expected them to struggle during the season. By the end of the session, quite a few of them looked absolutely exhausted.

However, now with the benefit of hindsight, I'm re-assessing my initial opinion. I don't know if our training methods are to blame for our high injury count or not however, what I am saying, is that there were major differences between the training sessions of the two teams. Which is the best method, I don't know. I daresay something in between both methods.

 

[The Sloane Ranger]

I fully back Craigy's training methods, lets remember that these guys a full time professional athletes

it is important to note that the injuries suffered to VB, Porplyzia, Symes, Moran and Johncock had nothing to do with Craigy's training methods

 

[WaynesWorld19]

I fully back Craigy's training methods, lets remember that these guys a full time professional athletes

it is important to note that the injuries suffered to VB, Porplyzia, Symes, Moran and Johncock had nothing to do with Craigy's training methods

That's correct .......and if Craigs training methods have been OK for the last 5 years why are they questioned now when we have a bad run of injuries

Seems to me our fitness & discipline on field, as well as consistent good footy means that Craig has been doing something right .......every club has its turn at a really bad run of injuries .....it's just our turn ATP

 

[Vader]

The AFL season lasts for 22 weeks and 4 weeks of finals. The most important thing is that the team is hitting peak form in September, when the premiership cup is on the line. However, teams have to win enough games during the H&A season to ensure that they qualify for the finals. More than that, to have a realistic shot at winning the flag they have to win enough games to ensure a top-4 position at the end of the H&A season.

In the past we've shot out of the gate at the start of the season, but run out of legs as the finals approached. It's entirely possible that Craig has decided to try things the other way around - starting slowly and building towards the end of the season. It seemed to work pretty well for Sydney in 2005 & 2006.

Has he got it right? I don't know. Only time will tell.

The structure of our draw means that we have a lot of relatively easy games early in the season, with a lot of harder ones in the run home to the finals. This means that we need to be premiership points in the bank now, as there's no guarantee we'll be getting them when we need them later on.

In order to end the H&A season in the top 4 we're going to need about 15 wins. We now have 20 games in which to do it. 15 from 22 is easier to achieve than 15 from 20.

It's not easy to manage the fitness of a group of players who have to perform at a high level over the duration of a 6-month season. I trust Neil Craig's judgment, but right now we do have reason to be concerned and threads like this are not entirely without merit as a result.