Essendon Football Club has endured a tumultuous year marked by a severe injury crisis that impacted its performance and player availability. For the club, the impact of the pandemic was immense. Even more telling is that over 30 percent of its senior list was sidelined at various times during the campaign. After the adversity the Bombers faced, they debutted a league-high 15 players. This decision demonstrated the breadth of their youth program, but equally underscored their dire injury conundrum.
The injury toll was as staggering as it was senior players 16– which as far as finished the season on the injured reserve. Nic Martin had his own battles to fight out there on game day. Sadly, Harry Jones was one of those who took a nasty ankle dislocation. Jordan Ridley had a recurring hamstring strain. This only compounds the troubling trend of STIs at the club. Four ACL injuries made matters even worse. Tightening budgetary constraints and increased precautions from the pandemic placed even more responsibility on a budget-crushed medical and coaching staff.
He’s not the only one, with Essendon coach Brad Scott moving to protect himself. He announced an inquiry into the club’s medical program, to make sure it better readies players for the rigours of an AFL season. Scott stressed the need to understand and improve how the club manages and prevents injury.
As Scott put it during a recent press conference, we can’t make the same mistakes. We need to make them as strong and effective as we can.
The club has taken proactive measures by allocating extra resources to its strength and conditioning program, which has come under scrutiny amid the mounting injuries. Nick Kane, who previously worked as Essendon’s lead physiotherapist for five years before departing in February negotiated contract — a pinch-hitter. Moreover, when the level of injuries become unmanageable, the strain on staff can be too much.
Physically, most clubs are built to withstand the weight of five or seven players being injured at once. As these injuries go beyond that threshold, it is difficult to give the proper attention and care to every injured player. Kane explained.
He further elaborated on the implications of this overload on team performance:
So then you’re talking about the physios and the rehab staff and high-performance stuff being overloaded with eight, 10, 12 people in rehab. It can lead to a sort of tipping point, where it becomes a really big impact on the team’s output and performance.
Kane acknowledged the dedication of the current staff, emphasizing their expertise:
They’d be doing their very best work. And they are excellent staff, which I know them and excellent at what they do.
He warned that without the proper staffing levels to meet the need, the risk for burnout is heightened.
Ultimately, same with any role, when you get completely swept under and in this case the demand of what’s needed is probably greater than what you have from a staffing number to be able to deliver that, it gets to a tipping point where it boils over a little bit,” he added.
As such, the success of the club is predicated not just on their injury management, but how well they can grasp the larger implications of player availability. Matt Turnbull, an expert in sports performance return on investment metrics, underlined this with the staggering dollar figure related to productivity loss from injuries.
“What we’re looking at there is the cost of productivity loss or the cost of absenteeism and so in the context of sport, it’s the cost of a player missing a match due to injury and illness,” Turnbull stated.
Turnbull similarly stressed the need for preventative measures in preseason training in order to reduce injury risks.
So that is, their risk of injuring their calf when they’re coming back from a hamstring injury, super high. So focusing more on seeing how we can prevent injuries in the preseason is crucial,” he recommended.
We now know that Sean Murphy, the high-performance chief, will be departing at season’s end. In his stead, Essendon has lured Dr. Mathew Inness away from West Coast. If this transition is made, it could be a significant turning point in the way the club develops player fitness and rehabilitation from here on out.
