Injuries and Match Fitness: Preparing For Finals.

[azabob]

The second half of the season is nearly upon us and this is where things start to really heat up and clubs who are finals bound typically firm up their best 22-25 players in preparation for a grueling finals campaign and hopefully a shot at the big one.

The one consistency of the 2016 is the number of mid to long-term injuries we have sustained to key members of not only our squad but also our best 22. We have also had annoying 1-2 week injuries that also add to injury list.

Rob Murphy, Jason Johannisen, Easton Wood, Koby Stevens, Clay Smith, Luke Dahlhaus, Toby McLean, Tom Boyd, Nathan Hrovat, Caleb Daniel, Josh Prudden and Marcus Adams have all missed single games or multiple games due to injuries. It is expected that out of the above that all bar Murphy will be back in 2016.

We all know that pressure, physicality and desperation all increase in finals compared to the home and away season. In finals you cannot afford to carry players who are injured or who are not match fit.

The flip side to the injuries, was in 2015 the match committee was able rotate players throughout the season and rest them when required such as Boyd, Morris and Murphy etc. In 2016 we haven’t been able to do this.

My two questions are:

1) How many games do the above players, especially Johannisen, Wood, Stevens, Dahlhaus, McLean and Smith need to play at senior level for them to be cherry ripe come finals time?

2) How do we balance getting match fitness into the above whilst trying to secure a top 2 finish?

[F'scary]

For Q 1): Dahl 0, JJ & Wood 1 game, the others could need 4 games or so.

2) I get worried by strategies that involve not selecting the best team available.

[azabob]

On Saturday night we were embarrassingly bad at running with Geelong on the defensive transition allowing them on multiple occasions to have multiple options when inside Geelongs forward 50.

I also felt we were way too slow at moving the ball on in all areas of the ground. It seemed only Suckling and Stringer tried to create through quick ball movement and plaing on, which allowed Geelong to get back and crowd our forward 50.

Was this because we were genuinely flat or did we need to rotate our midfielders and forwards throught the first 13 weeks?

I hope our injury list allows us to be more flexible with resting players when required the 2nd half of the season.

[SlimPickens]

We aren't in the finals yet and until that is assured we shouldn't be even considering what you have mentioned in the OP.

To me you play your best team available gunning for a top 4 finish. There is a weeks rest between the last round and finals so I would expect that we won't be managing anyone, unless our position is assured and unable to be moved.

[Twodogs]

Great post Slim. Let's make the finals first.