Stuart Graham - Head of High Performance

[Willsy10]

I thought most of it was mental, and coaching/gameplan earlier in the year. For example, we finished the first showdown this year with a wet sail but just couldn’t score. That wasn’t fitness. But the last two weeks in wet conditions it has become really obvious we aren’t physically strong enough, the hawks and crows broke our tackles all game, but tackled the shit out of us In return, we weren’t strong enough to keep our feet and just get our hands dirty in the grind of wet weather footy and we’ve run out off puff in the last two last quarters.

We’ve had a nightmare run with injuries too, a lot of them not his fault but some of them could be.

This bloke hasn’t got anywhere near the best out of us, it’s really been a disaster and he simply can’t survive this year.

 

[PJ Power]

I thought most of it was mental, and coaching/gameplan earlier in the year. For example, we finished the first showdown this year with a wet sail but just couldn’t score. That wasn’t fitness. But the last two weeks in wet conditions it has become really obvious we aren’t physically strong enough, the hawks and crows broke our tackles all game, but tackled the shit out of us In return, we weren’t strong enough to keep our feet and just get our hands dirty in the grind of wet weather footy and we’ve run out off puff in the last two last quarters.

We’ve had a nightmare run with injuries too, a lot of them not his fault but some of them could be.

This bloke hasn’t got anywhere near the best out of us, it’s really been a disaster and he simply can’t survive this year.

The tackling was one thing. Ours are often undisciplined - we go far too high by not getting our bodies low enough, and also get too easily broken.

Our panicky, weak kicking is another though. Seriously C-grade school boy stuff.

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

Didn't the Crows suddenly get big and fit after Parham left

 

[Willsy10]

The tackling was one thing. Ours are often undisciplined - we go far too high by not getting our bodies low enough, and also get too easily broken.

Our panicky, weak kicking is another though. Seriously C-grade school boy stuff.

We’ve become a very poor wet weather team, I think we used to be pretty good when we had guys like Ebert, Rockliff, Jonas, Robbie gray, boak (when he was good) who all used to thrive in those conditions. And we were missing JHF and SPP who are probably two players you need in wet weather footy, JHF for clean skills when others fumble (like Robbie was) and SPP to create pressure and chaos.

The guys we brought in who were supposed to help us in those conditions didn’t. Whilst the guys we dropped were the best players in the twos.

It was just a disaster.

We were probably always going to lose but we did a great job of turning it into a humiliating loss.

I remember feeling nervous when I heard it was going to be a deluge, we have become one of the worst contested possession teams this year and have continued on from last year in being a shit ground ball team, which are two key requirements to win in wet.

The hack kicking was bad but made worse by our complete inability to win the ball in a contest or ground ball.

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

It's also pretty funny that the club don't want to bring Burgo back but are willing to make his students the head of performance

 

[PortAdelFC1997]

What is Graham's contract situation?

 

[Willsy10]

What is Graham's contract situation?

Hopefully it’s up

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Didn't the Crows suddenly get big and fit after Parham left

No, they've always been keen on physical size, but Burgess managed to build aerobic fitness into that too. His outlook on the aerobic capacity/physical size ratio changed when he started at Melbourne.

Parham had nothing to do with that one way or the other.

 

[The Hobo]

Ahhh. Look I haven't really heard much about Graham. I know they really liked what he did last year, and although they have acknowledged the majority of their fadeouts in games have been mental, I don't think they're thinking they're the only reason, per se.

I call bs on the fadeouts being mental.

Even in games we're on top we faded. At the end of quarters we've faded.

Aside from a few games, it looked like the players were absolutely gassed.

 

[The Hobo]

r panicky, weak kicking is another though. Seriously C-grade school boy stuff.

Because we know we can't break the incoming tackle, whilst they're composed knowing they can just ride our tackles

 

[rogerjames]

Get rid of him. He's failed just like so many others. Get someone external from a successful football program who can put size onto our players. Sick of them looking like school boys compared to most other teams.

Improve the quality of training. Everytime I've watched training in pre-season I've come away underwhelmed. Too many players going through the motions & there's just no intensity. Butters trains hard but not many others.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

You only have to look at our players compared to not just the crows but other clubs like Brisbane, Collingwood, Geelong (the gold standard) to see how underdeveloped we are for the modern game (or even the old game).

But we can compare against the crows at reserve level too and they have us comfortably covered there too and have for years. That's when alarm bells should be ringing.

I doubt Stuart Graham is an idiot, so Carr will hopefully ask for a physical reset and he should be able to respond accordingly - he would have plenty of contacts and I'm sure they share info. Get a rugby weights coach in if need be to support him. And bring back tackling training and grappling martial arts.

 

[Chewy316]

I call bs on the fadeouts being mental.

Even in games we're on top we faded. At the end of quarters we've faded.

Aside from a few games, it looked like the players were absolutely gassed.

Being gassed can occur for a number of reasons - #1 being a gameplan which relies on too much gut running such that by the 4th quarter players are knackered. But there's also been a lack of care all season, so when that is the case, those 50/50 balls are in play and the players just aren't going to make them a 60/40 ball in their favour. It's why I hated the succession plan concept (although was in favour of it being announced this season if it gave Hinkley a permanent end date).

The Club also had a ton of players this past pre-season have interrupted training programs. Not sure of the exact number off the top of my head but I think it was in the late teens.

Do I think the players can be fitter? Yes. Do I think there are some logical explanations for why that is the case? Yes. Do I think it is fixable this off-season? Yes.

 

[The Hobo]

Being gassed can occur for a number of reasons - #1 being a gameplan which relies on too much gut running such that by the 4th quarter players are knackered. But there's also been a lack of care all season, so when that is the case, those 50/50 balls are in play and the players just aren't going to make them a 60/40 ball in their favour. It's why I hated the succession plan concept (although was in favour of it being announced this season if it gave Hinkley a permanent end date).

The Club also had a ton of players this past pre-season have interrupted training programs. Not sure of the exact number off the top of my head but I think it was in the late teens.

Do I think the players can be fitter? Yes. Do I think there are some logical explanations for why that is the case? Yes. Do I think it is fixable this off-season? Yes.

Completely agree that a gameplan can be a reason - however our km ran numbers are not that high, and particularly early in the season, we looked gassed very early on at times.

Crows ran 8km more than us total and 4km more at high speed
Hawks ran 6km more than us total, and 6km more at high speed

Back to R1 -

Pies ran 7km more than us , with 3km more at high speed
Essendon ran 13km more than us, we ran 1km more at high speed
Sydney game (we won this one) - they ran 2km more than us , 3km more at high speed
First showdown - equal km ran, they ran 3km more at high speed


There are a few games where we ran further than the oppo, but 'at high speed' is almost always lower than the oppo eg.

We ran 7km more than Melbourne, but they ran 1km more at high speed (we won this game)


It's just a rough analysis, as I can't view these stats for the season, they need to be done one by one, and i've just randomly picked a few games - but we are on the wrong end of total distance ran and distance at high speed consistently - and by decent margins at that.


I do agree that the interrupted training programs in pre-aseason contributed, but I don't think it's any worse than most other clubs.

Is it fixable? Absolutely, but given the lack of aerobic fitness AND lack of physical size on our players, i'm heavily questioning whether we have the right guy running the program. We can't just take aim at Ken and his record and ignore everyone elses performance.

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

We are not just unfit and small, we are also injury prone as ****.

Injury prevention is a fitness team KPI.

Does the club have chefs and dieticians? Put them on notice too.

 

[Pablo Escobar]

Our recruiting has targeted players with slight frames for over a decade. Results not surprising.

 

[The Hobo]

I doubt Stuart Graham is an idiot, so Carr will hopefully ask for a physical reset and he should be able to respond accordingly - he would have plenty of contacts and I'm sure they share info. Get a rugby weights coach in if need be to support him. And bring back tackling training and grappling martial arts.

I'm not sure - It's typically about finding a balance between running ability/stamina and strength/size. You can't have too much of one without impacting the other. Stuart has landed on neither.

I know everyone loves to hate on Hinkley, but I can guarantee he didn't ask for unfit and undersized.

 

[The Hobo]

Our recruiting has targeted players with slight frames for over a decade. Results not surprising.

A lot of kids are light framed when they're drafted, no different to us. The difference is the other clubs are able to build their bodies up.

 

[Marat]

Didn't the Crows suddenly get big and fit after Parham left

That will happen if you’re on the good stuff

 

[Janey]

Just been watching some footage of our girls, not actual game content, and I swear they look like they have more muscle than half of our boys. Not sure if they have the same fitness coaching team as the boys.

 

[crafty_bernardo]

Just been watching some footage of our girls, not actual game content, and I swear they look like they have more muscle than half of our boys. Not sure if they have the same fitness coaching team as the boys.

Was impressed when I saw this on Twitter

 

[Willsy10]

Have we ever been a big muscley team? Even in 2004 we seemed like we were small against the big Brisbane Lions team but we had more running power than them.

2014 we were an elite running team but not big.

We’ve leaned more towards running power over strength in recent years too.

But 2025 we aren’t big or have any running power. Couldn’t fight our way out of a wet paper bag and couldn’t run out of sight in the dark.

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

Have we ever been a big muscley team? Even in 2004 we seemed like we were small against the big Brisbane Lions team but we had more running power than them.

2014 we were an elite running team but not big.

We’ve leaned more towards running power over strength in recent years too.

But 2025 we aren’t big or have any running power. Couldn’t fight our way out of a wet paper bag and couldn’t run out of sight in the dark.

We've never been Geelong but I thought we had the right blend of size and speed in our 2014 and 2020 squad

 

[Willsy10]

We've never been Geelong but I thought we had the right blend of size and speed in our 2014 and 2020 squad

And we had decent contested numbers and could run out games well.

The more I think about it the worse it seems for Stuart Graham.

We’ve moved from being a contested possession side that generally worked off the simple philosophy of old mate of working harder for longer we win games. And generally it worked because when we won contested possessions we generally won the game.

Perhaps we thought that model didn’t work, when it really mattered or wasn’t sustainable, which is fine but if you are going to be a more uncontested side which we are this year I would’ve thought we would be purpose built to run our opponents off their feet.

But we aren’t competing in the contests, and we aren’t running either, I don’t actually no what the hell they did over the pre season.

They trained with pool noodles I guess.

 

[Scodges]

Get rid of him. He's failed just like so many others. Get someone external from a successful football program who can put size onto our players. Sick of them looking like school boys compared to most other teams.

Improve the quality of training. Everytime I've watched training in pre-season I've come away underwhelmed. Too many players going through the motions & there's just no intensity. Butters trains hard but not many others.

The pool noodles didn’t really do the trick.