Draftees Jinxed

[dheal]

Concerned about the significant injuries to draftees picked prior to this season culminating with the latest injury to Gumbleton. Why is this happening all to frequently? Should we be looking at the decision making of the prior coaching panel choosing guys that cannont stand up to the rigours of AFL football or is it they get these injuries when Quinn gets his hands on them or is it just plain very very very bad luck.
Analysis as at Round 12, of major injury concerns of players recruited up to 2007 draft
Davey: played 19 games out of a possible 34 ( 44 by seasons end)
Dempsey: 8 out of 56
Gumbleton: 5 out of 34
Hislop:7 out of 34
Hocking: 1 out of 56
Johns: 21 out of 122
Lee: 5 out of 78
Neagle: 5 out of 56
Watson: 62 out of 122
Winderlich: 56 out of 122
As you can see we have not a lot of game value from some of these players, Watson & Neagle seem to be getting over their problems & will be good players
I understand that some of the above have played games for Bendigo but they have spent an extraordinarily long time injured. Having an enquiry won't rectify what has happened in the past but it may result in better quality recruiting in the future. Lets hope the Club is looking seriously at this situation.

[Boyler_Room]

Concerned about the significant injuries to draftees picked prior to this season culminating with the latest injury to Gumbleton. Why is this happening all to frequently? Should we be looking at the decision making of the prior coaching panel choosing guys that cannont stand up to the rigours of AFL football or is it they get these injuries when Quinn gets his hands on them or is it just plain very very very bad luck.
Analysis as at Round 12, of major injury concerns of players recruited up to 2007 draft
Davey: played 19 games out of a possible 34 ( 44 by seasons end) Bad luck with freak injuries in games
Dempsey: 8 out of 56 Put this down ot Quinn
Gumbleton: 5 out of 34 See Dempsey
Hislop:7 out of 34 Perpetual ankle injury? Is this the rehab dept's problem?
Hocking: 1 out of 56 56 games? He was a rookie elevation last year. This doesn't equate
Johns: 21 out of 122 Hip injury. Sheedy project player. We knew he'd be out a long time when he was drafted
Lee: 5 out of 78 See BD's Signature
Neagle: 5 out of 56 Ankle injury kept him out most of 2007, followed by the infamous HamQuinn
Watson: 62 out of 122 Weight and fitness issues early with soft tissue injuries. Has done well in the last few years though in terms of getting on the park
Winderlich: 56 out of 122 Broken leg and hamstrings...
As you can see we have not a lot of game value from some of these players, Watson & Neagle seem to be getting over their problems & will be good players
I understand that some of the above have played games for Bendigo but they have spent an extraordinarily long time injured. Having an enquiry won't rectify what has happened in the past but it may result in better quality recruiting in the future. Lets hope the Club is looking seriously at this situation.

While there don't seem to be that many soft tissue injuries in the above (Dempsey, Gumbleton, Neagle, Watson, Winderlich)... ok so there are! Plus the older players on the list who keep doing hamstrings, calves and so on. Quinn and his team have a lot to answer for.

Can anyone explain how an 18/19 year old can miss almost an entire season with a hamstring injury? Ridiculous! At 18/19 you shouldn't have even heard of having a hamstring injury.

[Doctor Fish]

In some cases it might also have a bit to do with playing such a young list. Some of the kids will probably take further time to adjust to senior footy. Just a thought...

[andrewb]

One thing that really worried me at the start of this season was an article in the bomber mag about our speedy list where Jetta or Dempse said something along the lines of "John Quinn has been teaching us how to adjust our sprinting styles to get maximum speed" and then went on to wax on about all the guys who are <3 seconds.

Not sure whether it is meaningful or not, but if we are modifying the natural running style of our players to something suited to sprinting rather than something optimised for football then it might be contributing to our soft tissue injuries and particularly our inability to get young guys on the field.

[pevfan]

Coming from a background in athletics I can tell you that if you think a lot of our players are breaking down under the guidance of an athletics coach...you whould see the list of promising young athletes who's careers have been curtailed or totally ruined prematturely in the world of track and field. I can tell you there would probably be hundreds. Except for the really high profile athlestes like Jana Pittman (nee Rawlinson) you never hear anything about them because athletics does not get the same media coverage in Australia (except when the Olympics or C/wealth Games are on) I personally have seen scores of really promising young runners (over all of distances from sprints thru middle distance top long distance) who have simply disappeared off the radar because of constant/recurring injury.

It certainly does beg the question in my mind about the training methods used in the athletics world and has done now for many, many years. Overtraining, stress/fatigue type injuries, it reaches almost plague proportions in athletics. It is therefore no surprise to me that when an athletics coach takes over the fitness portfolio at a football club the same scenario occurs.

My son is a typical example, a former elite class athlete, his career was cut tragically short by constant soft tissue injuries/stress fractures and in fact most of his of mates/opponents whom he competed with and against suffered the same fate. And now I see the same thing happening to the same degree at Essendon.

I've thought for a long time now that athletics coaches in general need to totally review and rethink their approach to training and preparation methods for their athletes. But unless and until this review takes place and this ongoing problem has been addressed in the athletics world, the message for football clubs is DON'T hire athletics coaches to train footballers for IMO it only compounds what has become a chronic problem.

[hop]

And here's me thinking that the most successful athletics coaches were also the most successful and innovative chemists - or at least middle-men for them.

Team USA