Wedgie wrote:I agree fully about the Eagles having been struck hardest early in the year by injuries. One of the reasons I refuse to write them off from a premiership tilt.
Glenelg and Norwood (except for Bassett) have been very lucky early on too.
As an ex-fitness and rehab coach at a SANFL league level nothing sh!ts me more than people and clubs saying that they are unlucky with injuries or other clubs are lucky. In this day and age of athlete physical development there is a plethora of information on the appropriate conditioning to minimise the prevailence of such injuries. Soft tissue injuries such as hamstrings, groins, calfs quad strains are largely preventable through well planned strength and conditioning programs, pre-habilitation programs and rehab programs once an injury has occured to prevent re-injury.
Players get injured when they are unfit, don't do the
appropriate flexibility training (and I don't mean 10 mins of stretching at the end of a match/training), have poor core strength or are lazy with their adherence to their
appropriate conditioning program.
If clubs are get repeated groins and hamstring injuries they need to have a good hard look at what they are doing and the medical history of players they are recruiting.
Fractures and sprains are more "unfortunate" and are harder to condition against as external factors play are larger role in their aetiology compared to strain injuries.
FWIW there was nothing flukey about the Crows run of non-injuries last year, it will be interesting to see how this year averages out.
My experience is that clubs average about 5-6 players unavailable each week, anymore than that over a long period of time their fitness and medical departments need to have a good hard look at themselves or the mental capacity of their players.
Let that be a lesson to you Port, no one beats the Bays five times in a row in a GF and gets away with it!!!
