Whilst MFC fans celebrated us ******* Mission off for Burgess reckon you guys should hold fire here. Bennell certainly had some extra factors off-field in Perth and he could (God forbid) do a calf in the first quarter on Saturday.
Scape Goat S and C team should be gone
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As much as I hope things go well for Bennell he had plenty of runs at Freo were he would play several games at Wafl level before breaking down again. Also his current run is mainly attributed to a surgery he had last year before he arrived at Melbourne. Surgery is not what strength and conditioning staff do. They are not doctors.
There's some wack stuff going on with the culture of the staff, or at least was last year, that you'd assume has been fixed since if the club wants to become a family club.
Bring back Drum
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It’s pretty easy for Melbourne in this situation. Bennell is getting paid peanuts & is on a 1 year contract compared to what Freos contract was. We were taking care of an investment which meant the decision making was cautious.
Melbourne can throw him in the deep end with relatively little consequence. For them to offer Harley a better contract, they’re going to want to see him play most of the year. One major setback, he’s done & Melbourne have lost nothing.
I will edit this though & say in his last year we did have the chance to expose him & didn’t take it, but again we won’t know if Melbourne have done any better until he’s 10 games in.
Melbourne can throw him in the deep end with relatively little consequence. For them to offer Harley a better contract, they’re going to want to see him play most of the year. One major setback, he’s done & Melbourne have lost nothing.
I will edit this though & say in his last year we did have the chance to expose him & didn’t take it, but again we won’t know if Melbourne have done any better until he’s 10 games in.
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I dare say we would have been competing if he was up and about.
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Rightly or wrongly we took a position on Bennell to rehab him to the point of playing full games in the midfield and for this to be sustainable.
I said on a number of occasions over the years we should change our philosophy with him and use him as a burst forward and not hold him to standards of fitness and markers that were unsustainable like having him tick off certain numbers of Km's in the legs and minutes in the WAFL.
Basically don't overtrain him, play him as an impact player.
The inflexibility of our footy dept in terms of holding all players to the same standards is just as much to blame for mine and I believe the main driver of that is gone now.
I said on a number of occasions over the years we should change our philosophy with him and use him as a burst forward and not hold him to standards of fitness and markers that were unsustainable like having him tick off certain numbers of Km's in the legs and minutes in the WAFL.
Basically don't overtrain him, play him as an impact player.
The inflexibility of our footy dept in terms of holding all players to the same standards is just as much to blame for mine and I believe the main driver of that is gone now.
Look, I don't want to sound like I'm defending the S&C team because I'm not - I think their results speak for themselves. But this narrative around Harley has just become crazy. I watched almost all of his Peel games and while there was the odd flash of Harley brilliance, he always played restricted minutes and every time he started to ramp up he broke down. Even at times he took himself off the field because he felt tightness in his calves. At WAFL level.
Thinking that playing him in the higher intensity AFL at any time in the past few seasons would have given us a better outcome is just fantasy. At best we may have seen a couple of moments of magic, but most likely he would have broken down leaving the team a man short.
That's the reality as it existed. Whether we could have gone with this radical surgery he has since had, I don't know. Whether he will get through a game at Melbourne is yet to be seen, but let's not pretend he would have made a significant difference in the state he was in at Freo.
I wish him all the best and hope he is able to string some games together because I love watching him in full flight, but I gave up on that happening long ago.
Dumbest post of the day, congratulations.
Genuinely lol at this. With 4 fully fit Harleys sure. Half of one, not even close.
Okinakashi
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Thanks.
Even Bell know Weber’s job whilst he was playing.
After Acres’ calf/hamstring issues plus Hill yet again on light duties.. with Bennell now playing. You have to wonder wtf is this crew even doing.
After Acres’ calf/hamstring issues plus Hill yet again on light duties.. with Bennell now playing. You have to wonder wtf is this crew even doing.
I think that’s the huge factor, in moving away from extended family.
Here at Freo, he was very at home having for Peel whilst family was in the area. Too comfortable for him
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WAFL FootyFacts - BENNELL, Harley
WAFL player records, Individual WAFL player stats page, career player stats by season, game, opponent and venue
waflfootyfacts.net
that is Harley bennells footy stats in Peel in that 2016-19 period.
WAFL games for Peel thunder
2016: 1 game
2017: 4 games (All late in the season) He played all 4 games late in the season then the last 2 dockers games of 2017.
2018: 11 games
2019: 4 games
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The Strength and conditioning staff and medical Staff has to be reviewed.
You need to think, West coast has significantly less injuries compared to Freo for the last 5-10 years.
The 2011 and 2016 Seasons both stood out as seasons hurt by injuries.
In that 2011 season, freo were 9-6 after 15 games and into the top 8. We lose the last 7 games of the season and go 9-13 and sack mark Harvey to get Ross Lyon.
Freo in 2013 had injuries to players that were out for 3 to 5 weeks but freo some how managed.
Pav missed half a season with an achilies injury, Sandilands missed 14 weeks with a toe injury, be we had decent ruck depth in Jono Griffin, Zac Clarke and Jack Hannath
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Deplorable record.
History continues to repeat.
History continues to repeat.
Very sensible post. Let’s just wait and see how he goes back in the AFL. He has had two hiccups post radical surgery.
COVID has come at the perfect time for HB. No ability show his fitness in the VFL. So they had to pick him on training form. He had a hiccup a few weeks out from the start of the season that put him back a bit. Without COVID he would have had to show his game fitness via a few games of VFL. Fingers crossed all goes well for HB. The COVID break has been a massive blessing for HB.
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I get what you are saying but calf injuries tend to be more related to explosive work rather than the slog work of racking up Kms. I guess fatigue could be a factor but who is to say it would have actually made a difference. what seems to have been different for Bennel this time around is the seemingly unusual situation of the nerve causing pain and the corrective surgery undertaken to relieve it.
He undertook that surgery as a private person and I hope it works out for him but it is/was a risk.
Imagine though if Freo sent him for that surgery and the outcome ultimately is that he has long term damage from doing so. Freo gets pilloried for suggesting he has it and sued for damages by him later in life. Absolutely could not win.
Freo sent him overseas to a so-called calves expert in Germany for crying out loud. Not much more could have been done to try and get him right by Harley or the club. S&C has a role to play but its not the only issue. As others have citede there are prlenty of Freo guys that have managed very long and solid careers with many well-managed injuries. tat said I'd not be againts change in that area..
I don't think anyone's claimed to have any more insight than the public record of injuries to players. Every year. And that record is ******* s**t.
Not holding the S & C team accountable for that is like letting your builder off the hook if your house collapses.
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yeah its pretty depressing debating whether our S&C team are totally incompetent or merely mediocre at their jobs, meanwhile Brisbane debut Birchall against us, the guy even Hawthorn couldn't get right. As a team who hasn't won a flag yet you would want to be making sure all our off-field stuff is as good as it can possibly be, if Weber is as good as we can get then we're stuffed.
Do people think the guys running the club don't regularly review this sort of stuff trying to make sure we have the best available people and set up?
Maybe they are s**t, at a casual fingernail deep level analysis we seem to have had a lot of injury issues for a long time. But my point still stands that the average punter on here wouldn't really have even the slightest clue as to whether or not they are the right people for the job or not.
Maybe they are s**t, at a casual fingernail deep level analysis we seem to have had a lot of injury issues for a long time. But my point still stands that the average punter on here wouldn't really have even the slightest clue as to whether or not they are the right people for the job or not.
Is that you King Canute?
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R
I wouldn’t understand the strength, conditioning and medical side of things.
But that do understand that we always lose amount of players to injury compared to other clubs.
It’s a result based industry. Our C&S and medical have a poor record.
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that is true....
Ross Lyon tactics aside. Freo could of made finals last year if it wasnt for those injuries in the 2nd half of the season.
Even though Ross Lyon was sacked and Justin Longmuir is our current coach, I want Longmuir to become a semi decent coach at freo. Having injuries to key player wont help J-Lo's cause
Harley hasn’t made it though a single game yet. I don’t think we can say for certain Melbourne’s approach has worked.
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