Injuries under Sando

[Tex Support]

Having said all that (and effectively removing the jinx monkey off my back), I would argue that while our tackling was statistically at the wrong end of the comp, our overall pressure and hardness around the footy improved out of sight. Looked as though the want to plow in after the footy that only a handful of guys seemed to have in previous years (Thommo, Sloane, Danger etc) was apparent in all 22 blokes. Even to a point with guys like Porplyzia and D-Mac, who had every reason to be hesitant. Not only that, but Tex straight up wanted to kill people, taking it to the extreme a few times.

Bring more of that on I say. Our guys looked more confident in their bodies, almost to a degree where it looked like they wanted to test out how dominant they could be. I love it. Thats the Sando effect - he loves the competitive, heavy-handed approach of true contested footy.

Hopefully the club moved all those spin bikes on for a good price before they had a chance to gather dust...

 

[Slippery Pete]

Not wanting to curse us or anything but one of the areas that seems to have dramatically improved since Sando took over as compared to when Craig was coach is the number of injuries to the players. I recall in 2010 and 2011 that the Crows had quite a lengthy injury list alot of the time.

However going into the NAB Cup last year I recall us having a full squad to pick from, the same going into the finals bar one or two guys. Now this year again, barring a mishap at training we are looking at having a full squad for the NAB Cup.

Is this coincidence? Good luck? Has Sando changed something that has made the difference? Are the medical staff simply managing injuries better?

Should I bite, Vader?

 

[A FEW GOOD MEN]

I expect that we will have another good year for games missed due to injury.

Over the last 20 years the AFL Injury Report (not yet released for 2012) identified three key factors in games lost to injury/illness.

1) There is a higher injury rate for players under 20 and over 30; We only have 6 players on our primary list in the danger zones, only Carlton (5) have less.Excluding the GWS kindergarten (27) the clubs in the gun are St Kilda (13) and Sydney (13)

2) Pre-existing injuries; particularly injuries that have resulted in players missing many games in 2012. Our key risks are Porplyzia, Shaw Joyce and Crouch.

3) Players with restricted pre-seasons; Most players have had a full pre-season with Petrenko, Luke Thompson, Talia and Vince missing time due to post season ops.

The final factor is luck. More than 60% of games lost are due to collision injuries (broken bones, ACLs, concussions and dislocations etc). If you remove the three risk factors listed above you can not ignore the Tippett Effect. (How can a player who has had a great run with injuries suddenly cop three concussions?)

Finally the key is also who you lose. Whilst we had a great injury run in 2012, losing Talia and Shaw for the prelim really hurt us. Our top six players (Thompson, Dangerfield, Jacobs, Walker, Sloane and Talia IMHO) played an average of 23 games each last season.

 

[Glenno23]

Good post and data AFGM

 

[Carmo]

Hey AFGM do you have electronic copies of those injury reports, do they have games lost to injury by club by year? If so I'd love to get a copy of them.

Also, in unrelated news, I'll post up my theory on why crows had so many injuries late in the craig era if I get time on the weekend.

 

[A FEW GOOD MEN]

Hey AFGM do you have electronic copies of those injury reports, do they have games lost to injury by club by year? If so I'd love to get a copy of them.

Also, in unrelated news, I'll post up my theory on why crows had so many injuries late in the craig era if I get time on the weekend.

Just google 2011 AFL Annual Injury Report or whatever year you want. (It's also hidden on the AFL website)

Unfortunately it doesn't have data for each club. Each club's medical team have to submit their information and this is used to compile the overall report. The AFC can then compare their numbers to the overall averages (e.g. games lost from hamstring strains). I doubt if the AFC would provide the information if a member asked for it but it's worth a try (or become friends with one of the medical guys).

 

[Carmo]

So here is my theory about crows injuries and why they occurred so badly in 2010/11

First a qualification:
This is only a first draft theory, I do not expect it to answer every little nuance of what happened but I think it is different enough from any other theory and matches well enough with observation to say it could be a reasonable starting point for an explanation as to why the injuries occurred as bad as they did.

Also some context:
I have been studying complex systems and this seemed to be a situation that would be more amenable to a complex systems approach than a simple systems approach. That said, the idea about how the injuries occurred came first and then I applied a bit of rigour and mapped it on to a complex systems conceptual framework after that.

In complex systems you tend to look at things with distributions instead of using a fixed number approach, like an average or total. The key part of this theory revolves around a distribution of contesting interactions under craig and under sando.

FYI complex systems also tend to have a lot of transients as opposed to steady states, feedbacks as opposed to independent variables and quite often high numbers of interacting variables/agents or things. These latter things dont really play a part in this theory much though.

So, on to the key piece of info, this diagram:

So you will see a diagram that is a graph of the distribution of contest interactions. On the x axis, the level of contestedness ranges from low (keepings off) on the left hand side to high (hard impact or strong wrestling contests) on the right hand side.

From watching the games in 2010 and 11, what appeared to be happening was that early in the game we would play the normal keepings off style (this is the peak on the left hand side of the graph) then what would happen after the 6 goal lead was had and the capitulation started was that we had no choice but to be more contested, this would often happen late in the game and often involved a lot of desperation as we tried to hang on to the game (and this formed the peak on the right hand side). What would happen though is that you would have a team of people hardly used to playing contests (after all our "standard" style was keepings off and we would do a lot of training in that mode as well I would imagine) attempting to engage in strong contests against other teams and players who were superior at it and we came off second best. We had a number of impact injuries, yes, these arent caused by training per se, but when you combine a training/ game style that results in the distribution of contests shown above, you are asking for them. At the same time we started to introduce some young players, who through inexperience and small body size are naturally less adept at contested footy and this made things even worse. Later, we had no choice because of injuries to introduce more young players and more inexperienced players and this just kept things rolling.

Under Sando, we pretty much did the ideal correction. We started practicing contests at training, we built strength and muscle and weight on to all the players (but especially it helps with undersized inexperienced ones) which also helps with the contests. We switched to a more consistent (just contested) game style (in theory craig's was one style as well, but in practice two distinctly contrasting ones). With the games we learned about how to contest and we avoided injuries, which kept the best, biggest and strongest players all on the park and the kids building up in the SANFL. There are also some dotted lines on the graph which indicate the net contestedness of the side, I would say that we've shifted that to the right under sando as well, which has helped our fortunes no end.

So not so much about bikes and running as more about distinct modes of play. More about knowing how to approach contested footy at the top level and do it in a way where you win the contest and dont get hurt and that is a SKILL and it is needed by an AFL player. Yes, we probably did do a bit more running than what we should have and a bit less weights/strength, but that was only a small differential from where it should have been.

There were probably a few other factors involved as well, but that's for another day and another theory lol!

What do you think, does this sound like a reasonable analysis?

 

[BrissyCrow]

No one can dispute that our injury woes were lessened last year. It also co-incided with the introduction of Sando. Having read the drug issues that is rovolving around Essendon I noticed that Geelong are entangled as well through their employment of Dean Robinson. Heaven forbid if our injury improvement was due to the introduction of some drugs.

 

[jenny61_99]

Except Essendon had a spate of soft tissue injuries - unprecedented number I believe - and we had barely any. An increase in those sort of tissue injuries could be an indication of use of questionable supplement usage. As could their rapid start (8-1) followed by the crash and burn.

Now we certainly bulked up under Sando, so should that be raising flags?

 

[Carmo]

Jenny,we also clearly switched to more time in the gym, less running and the rates that guys have put on bulk seem natural. Guys that have trouble putting on muscle also seem to still have trouble - luke thompson for example. So I would say thats some good signs that we dont have to be worried.

 

[Carmo]

This is embarrassing, self bumping is the lowest form of forum behaviour as far as im concerned and here I am finding myself doing it.

Can you have a look at my Craig vs Sando theory above?

Let me know what you think of it......

Thanks

 

[Allefgib]

Craigy always pushed hard. Roo is on record saying a few falling by the wayside was expected by Craigy.

Would Crargy have played a sore Relentless Rory today? more of a chance than Sando Imo.

 

[AFC979810]

This is one of the many reasons I rate Craigy alongside Robert Shaw as the worst coach in Crow history. If not worse

This is one of the many reasons why I rate you as one of the worst posters on bigfooty. If not worse.

 

[Slippery Pete]

This is embarrassing, self bumping is the lowest form of forum behaviour as far as im concerned and here I am finding myself doing it.

Can you have a look at my Craig vs Sando theory above?

Let me know what you think of it......

I don't mind it. Needs a few tweaks but there's some good food for thought there.

 

[Team DJ]

This is one of the many reasons why I rate you as one of the worst posters on bigfooty. If not worse.

Cool story bro.

Robert Shaw could devlop young talent and do nothing else.
Neil Craig couldnt develop young talent, and did nothing else either. Therefore Shaw > Craig

 

[Vader]

Cool story bro.

Robert Shaw could devlop young talent and do nothing else.

Fair call.

Neil Craig couldnt develop young talent, and did nothing else either. Therefore Shaw > Craig

A true return to form - wrong on both accounts. Craig was an excellent developer of young talent and was a good enough coach to take the team to the finals for 5 consecutive years, including preliminary finals in 05 & 06.

It's rubbish posts like this which destroy any chance you might have of establishing a reputation as a quality poster on BigFooty.

 

[Team DJ]

Fair call.

A true return to form - wrong on both accounts. Craig was an excellent developer of young talent and was a good enough coach to take the team to the finals for 5 consecutive years, including preliminary finals in 05 & 06.

It's rubbish posts like this which destroy any chance you might have of establishing a reputation as a quality poster on BigFooty.

Developed Tex and Danger real well. LOL.

One he only played in the SANFL, and the other thought it was more important for him to play in the Forward lines. LOL

 

[Vader]

Developed Tex and Danger real well. LOL.

He did.

One he only played in the SANFL, and the other thought it was more important for him to play in the Forward lines. LOL

Wrong.. and wrong. As usual.

 

[Team DJ]

He did.

Wrong.. and wrong. As usual.

LOL. Rightio sunshine. You are an absolute fan boi shocker.
So Tex wasnt dropped to the SANFL at any given opportunity, no matter how his form compared to the big spud KPF next to him.
Nor was Danger played as a near on permanent forward pocket, because "we needed" him there more so then in the middle, until Mark Bickley took over.

 

[Vader]

LOL. Rightio sunshine. You are an absolute fan boi shocker.
So Tex wasnt dropped to the SANFL at any given opportunity, no matter how his form compared to the big spud KPF next to him.
Nor was Danger played as a near on permanent forward pocket, because "we needed" him there more so then in the middle, until Mark Bickley took over.

Tex was only dropped to the SANFL when his AFL form demanded it. I'll ignore the Tippett slur, because your blind spot there is well known and most of us just ignore you because of it.

Danger played in the forward line for several reasons - he was damn good at it, with his burst speed making him a strong leading target. More importantly though, he was still developing his fitness, so that he would be able to spend more time in the midfield. In case you hadn't noticed, Sando tends to use him quite regularly in the forward line as well - that's how he managed to kick 3 goals on Saturday afternoon...

 

[Team DJ]

Tex was only dropped to the SANFL when his AFL form demanded it. I'll ignore the Tippett slur, because your blind spot there is well known and most of us just ignore you because of it.

Danger played in the forward line for several reasons - he was damn good at it, with his burst speed making him a strong leading target. More importantly though, he was still developing his fitness, so that he would be able to spend more time in the midfield. In case you hadn't noticed, Sando tends to use him quite regularly in the forward line as well - that's how he managed to kick 3 goals on Saturday afternoon...

When Craig was around we were able to use 2 proper rucks. So my "Blind Spot" has nothing to do with it. Whenever there was a choice to be made between one or the other it was always Tex. Gold Pass Tippett recieved just that a Gold Pass. No matter how comparable their form was.

Ohhhhhh, so he played up forward because he didnt have the tank? Wasnt that Craigs duty the DEVELOP that.
Is his burst of speed and strength not what makes him an elite mid now? Why can Sando see that and not Neil? Interesting one isnt it?

Sando uses him in the forward line when he's resting on ball. He doesnt start in the forward pocket like Craigy use to have him do. This is not some new thing that Sando has done, its been happening since Jesus played CHF for Nazareth. Dane Swan, he heads forward and bobs up with a few snags as well.

 

[Vader]

Ohhhhhh, so he played up forward because he didnt have the tank? Wasnt that Craigs duty the DEVELOP that.
Is his burst of speed and strength not what makes him an elite mid now? Why can Sando see that and not Neil? Interesting one isnt it?

Sando uses him in the forward line when he's resting on ball. He doesnt start in the forward pocket like Craigy use to have him do. This is not some new thing that Sando has done, its been happening since Jesus played CHF for Nazareth. Dane Swan, he heads forward and bobs up with a few snags as well.

What utter, utter garbage. Danger now plays roughly 60-40 mid-forward. When Craig was in charge it was roughly 40-60. Craig was in charge for the first few years of Danger's career, when he was still building his tank and didn't have the stamina to play continuously in the midfield. Sando has benefited from the fitness work that Craig did, inheriting a Danger who was entering his prime (rather than a raw new draftee). Now, thanks to the fitness work done under Craig's tutelage, Danger has a better tank - so he spends more time in the midfield. What part of that do you not understand?

 

[Vader]

Historically there are no shortage of examples of players being developed in forward positions and/or defence, before moving into the midfield when they are physically ready to do so.

Malcolm Blight played Goodwin & Edwards in the back line in the premiership years. They subsequently became our premier midfielders for the next decade.

Looking at our current team, Brodie Smith is doing his apprenticeship in defence (under Sando). He was drafted as a midfielder and most of us expect him to end up as one of Adelaide's premier midfielders within the next few years - but for now he bides his time in defence as he develops.

It's an age-old way of developing the players. It's bewildering that you don't understand why Dangerfield was developed in this way.

 

[Team DJ]

What utter, utter garbage. Danger now plays roughly 60-40 mid-forward. When Craig was in charge it was roughly 40-60. Craig was in charge for the first few years of Danger's career, when he was still building his tank and didn't have the stamina to play continuously in the midfield. Sando has benefited from the fitness work that Craig did, inheriting a Danger who was entering his prime (rather than a raw new draftee). Now, thanks to the fitness work done under Craig's tutelage, Danger has a better tank - so he spends more time in the midfield. What part of that do you not understand?

Rubbish.

No where 40/60 with craigy. Closer to 75/25.

These days i would say its back the other way 75 25.

Danger 2 years ago was in his 3rd or 4th year on the list. He shouldve had the tank to be a starting Mid

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

I still think the first week of training Mark Bickley took as caretaker coach is under-rated in our history.

That was where Dangerfield gained the fitness to allow him to play as a more permanent midfielder. The week before he didn't have the tank.

I don't what Bicks did in those 3-4 sessions but he deserves a massive 'pat' on the back.