We are so guilty of trying to the slow the game down, it’s there for all to see, I know once a common tactic employed by all clubs, but it’s not the case anymore, teams that have worked on the speed of their game via appropriate training and conditioning will or are reaping the dividends. i have read over the off season that a few teams have up the anti at training and now train at game day intensity, I’m not sure what we’ve been doing but, it doesn’t look competitive, our approach seems either wrong or at odds with what other clubs are doing.(eg 1 trial game, as opposed to 3 by some clubs with strong rosters on the field)
I realise the rule changes aren’t exactly in our favour, in terms of speed and endurance, maybe we need shift a couple of sessions from the weights over to speed and endurance, the game is not going to slow down so we must adapt, true 80 min players are worth their weight in gold. Our fitness or lack of it was exposed last weekend, I know the boys have said how hard they have worked in the pre season, but if that work has been uneven in the sense of power and strength over speed and endurance then there lies some of the problem, Des has always had a penchant for size, which in times gone by was great, but the pendulum has swung, Des stacked the Dogs forward pack with monsters and it didn’t work, i‘ll go so far as to say theres a few of our boys playing to heavy to be effective in terms of endurance and the modern game, jet ski is a perfect example, take a look at his physic and playing weight in 2019, I thought his game against south’s that year in the semi final loss was on the money and his playing weight today is not helping, boyle is another who has been over done, your big boys need to be naturally big, AFB makes me cry, bulking smaller men won’t help with speed and endurance, anyway my point is we need to work on speeding up our game or things will not improve regardless of who takes the field.