FD36a Docker JUL05-REV.indd - Fremantle Football Club

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Pictures: Annaliese Frank except Steve Malaxos picture: Getty ImagesCoachesThe Team Guiding The TeamThe very public face of any AFL team is the Senior Coach and while Chris Connolly is Fremantle’s public face,there is a hard working team that work closely with him.Each member of Fremantle’s coaching teamis responsible for a key area of Fremantle’spreparation and performance and put incountless hours ensuring the players are ready forthe task ahead. From analysing the opposition anddeveloping game plans to skill development andfitness work there are many boxes that must beticked to ensure a winning team on the field.Chris Waterman – Assistant Coach, DefenceFrom the Senior Coach:“Chris Waterman had greatexperience at West Coast indefence and we have a lot ofyoung developing defendersand I think he has enjoyed thechallenges of coaching them.”Chris had a distinguishedcareer as a player in the AFLwhich culminated in twopremierships (1992, 1994) with West Coast. Chrisplayed 61 games for WAFL club East Fremantlebefore being drafted as a 19 year old by West Coastin 1988. In 11 years with the Eagles he played177 games including 22 finals and representedWestern Australia five times, captaining theState of Origin side in 1998. He was an AssistantCoach at West Coast for one season before joiningFremantle in 2001. His coaching ability wasrecognised and rewarded by the West AustralianFootball Commission who selected him as coachof the WA State team in 2004 and again in 2005.Kelly O’Donnell – Assistant Coach, ForwardsFrom the Senior Coach:“Kelly coaches our forwardsas individuals and asa team including skilldevelopment. He has quitea mixture up there, a lotof characters and he hasdone well this season.”An Assistant Coach atFremantle since 2001, Kellyjoined the club after a successful career as coachof the Murray Bushrangers in the elite Victorianunder 18’s competition. During his eight years at theclub (1993-2000) he guided the side to the finals sixtimes, winning the TAC premiership in 1998. Kellyplayed 80 games (1979-1984) for the MelbourneFootball Club before embarking on a career incoaching. His renowned nous at getting the best outof young players has served him well at Fremantle.Steve Malaxos – Assistant Coach, MidfieldFrom the Senior Coach: “Withseveral new players cominginto our midfield this yearSteve has probably had thebiggest challenge in terms ofgetting the chemistry right ina crucial area of the ground.”Steve Malaxos issynonymous with footballexcellence in WesternAustralia. He started his playing career as aforward with Claremont in 1979 and won theSandover Medal in 1984, as the fairest and bestplayer in the WAFL. In that year he was also namedWA Sports Star of the year. He was an inauguralmember of the West Coast Eagles and was theirfirst Club Champion in 1987. He was appointedcaptain of West Coast in 1990. He started coachingin Sydney with the Swans Reserves team in 1999and 2000 and was Assistant Coach with the SydneySwans from mid-1999 to the end of the 2003 season.He gained finals experience in three of his five yearsat Sydney before returning to WA in 2004 to takeup an Assistant Coaching role with Fremantle.Michael Broadbridge – Assistant Coach, PlayerDevelopment and Opposition StrategyFrom the Senior Coach: “Withmany years of experience atCollingwood during a verysuccessful time at the clubhe has brought a lot of newideas and a fresh approachto a lot of the other things weare doing around here.”An All Australianunder 17’s player, Michaelplayed a total of 144 games in the WAFL withEast Fremantle and Swan Districts before makinga successful transition into coaching. He guidedthe WA under 18-side to a National Championshipand two runners-up places. His success in thedevelopment of young footballers was recognisedwhen he was named the National under-18 coachin 1999. After spending five years as an AssistantCoach under Mick Malthouse at Collingwood,Michael has returned home to join Fremantle’scoaching staff at the end of the 2004 season.Simon Eastaugh – Ruck Development andRehabilitation Skills CoachFrom the Senior Coach: “We were mindful thatwe needed a spread of ages on our coaching panelbecause some players relate to different ages indifferent ways so Simon’s fresh out of the game andhas a strong relationship with many of our players.”It wasn’t that long ago that Simon Eastaughwas pulling on a Fremantle guernsey, retiring in2002 the former ruckman has traded his bootsfor a clipboard as part of Fremantle’s coachingstaff. But it’s not all meetings and planning forthe energetic Eastaugh who still takes an activerole in the club’s training sessions as ruck coach.On the track he’s still as hard and is often seenwearing the red marking bag and offering himself18 Docker July 2005 fremantlefc.com.auas a step ladder for marking practice.His competitive streak is still well and truly alive,inThefact Fremantle ruckman Aaron SandilandsTsays despite battling the likes of Peter Everitt andDean Cox his toughest opponent is Eastaugh.“I co-ordinate the rehabilitation and ruckcoaching however the role has evolved in thetwo and a half seasons I’ve been doing it tothe point now where it also includes rehabskills development in conjunction with clubbiomechanist Kevin Ball,” said Eastaugh.“We make sure players doing theirrehabilitation can join the main squad withthe right amount of skill work behind themafter being out for a period of time.”The likable big man spent 13 years plyinghis trade as a player after being drafted as a16 year old by Richmond in 1989. A long runof injuries restricted his opportunities at theTigers and he moved to South Australia tocontinue his career where he played 50 gamesfor Norwood in the SANFL in 1996 and 1997,including a Premiership in his final year.His dream of returning to the AFL wasrealised when drafted by Essendon where heplayed 17 games before heading west to be a partof Fremantle’s ruck brigade in 2001 and 2002.At 32 he is the club’s youngest coach and saysbeing fresh out the game has served him well,particularly in his ability to communicate withthe players. More than half of the club’s currentsquad are former team mates of Eastaugh.“You understand what a lot of the playersgo through in terms of not being selectedor being able to understand what Chris issaying to them and where they stand.“There are still a lot of players on the listthat are former team mates and they probablyfeel they can talk to me more easily at times.I think that is an advantage for the coachinggroup and the playing squad, I can give theman ear to chat to when they need it,” he said.Game days now see him in the heat of thecoaches’ box where he evaluates Fremantle’sclearances including all boundary throwins,ball ups and centre bounces.“My job is to analyse what is happeningaround the clearances and where we arefalling down or where our strengths are.”The skill and rehabilitation part of hisrole is well served by a life long passion forfitness. While in Adelaide he owned and rana gym before branching out into corporatetraining, concentrating on injury prevention andtreatment. During pre-season training, Eastaughworks closely with Strength and ConditioningCoach Ben Tarbox assisting in the strengthwork and weights programs for the players.“It’s a very diverse role but I think that isimportant. Chris (Connolly) has been a biginfluence in that area and insisted that I have avariety of roles and that’s why I thoroughly enjoythis job. I’m involved with players in differentfacets of their game whether it’s the football sideof their game or strength and conditioning or skillEastaugh keeps a watchful eye onAaron Sandilands
Coachesdevelopment while they’re injured,” Eastaugh said.“It’s one of those fantastic roleswhere you never get bored because thereis always something happening.”And on the matter of winning and losingnow that he’s moved from player to coach?“It’s a little bit different when you’re coaching.You actually feel both highs and lows harder thanwhen you’re a player I think because you knowhow much planning and homework we do goinginto games. When it really works well it’s fantasticand there is no better feeling and it’s a differentemotion altogether than playing. When you haveyour losses you’re really super disappointed becauseyou put equal amount of work into those gamesas you do the wins and for it not to have workedas we would have liked is really disappointing.“I’m worse now after a loss than when I wasplaying… my wife Alex says that anyway,” he laughs.Kevin Ball – Skills Coach and BiomechanistFrom the Senior Coach: “I think accuracy isthe most important skill a player can have. Wehave seen the game evolve into a possessiongame and you will always have players on thelist that need to develop that to an acceptablelevel. Kevin teaches kicking, tackling andindividual skills and we’re confident that ourplayers are improving in those areas.”They say it’s not the number of possessionsyou get but what they do with them that’ll hurtthe opposition the most, so its little wonderclubs are investing so much time in teachingplayers the best way to use the ball and haveopened the doors to ‘biomechanics’.It was in the realms of the AFL tribunal thatthe term ‘biomechanist’ first snuck into commonfootball vocabulary. These human movementexperts were brought in to help prove a bump wasunavoidable or it was physically impossible forGuidingan arm to swing any other way but Senior CoachChris Connolly saw the potential for more.Fremantle is at the forefront of skilldevelopment in the AFL and is just one oftwo teams that have a biomechanist on staff(several others use consultants). Kevin Balljoined Fremantle’s coaching team in 2003,the second year of Chris Connolly’s tenure atFremantle, after working together at Hawthorn.“I remember Chris wanted me to come downto the Hawks and give a lecture. I had everythingorganised and when I got there he said let’s go andget a coffee and we had a chat over lunch for an hourand at the end of it he said that was a job interview,‘are you keen to do some work with the Hawks?’“Chris has a really good scientificbrain and he saw that as an area where theclub could get an edge,” Ball said.After gaining a degree in Applied Scienceeamat Wollongong University he worked at theAustralian Institute of Sport for seven years beforemoving to Melbourne to complete his Masters atVictoria University and is currently completing aPhD. With significant experience in a variety ofOlympic sports the chance to utilise his skills inthe AFL was an opportunity too good to pass up.“Specifically I work on kicking andtackling. I co-ordinate the guys kickingprograms and also now have more to do withtheir individual skills across the board.”“Chris has always said that kicking is one of thetoughest sporting skills to master and he’s right.Firstly you have the ball drop onto the foot whichis a fine motor skill then you have a gross motorskill where you swing your leg through and there isno other sport that has really got that,” Ball said.“Serving in tennis also uses both motor skillsbut it’s a round ball and if the toss isn’t right youcan catch it and do it again but in footy you can’t.“The orientation of the ball is difficult infootball and you’re performing these skills on abig ground which means you’re under more fatiguethan most sports and also under the threat of beingtackled or bumped by an opposition player.”Tackling has also been a main focusfor Ball during his time at the club and ismodest in his assessment of Fremantle majorimprovement in that area of the game.“Brisbane brought in an idea that Chriswanted to implement called ‘crash tackles’where you take guys to ground. What I set aboutdoing was working hard on technique, a lotof guys will say tackling is about confidencebut what I’ve found it that if you’ve got goodtechnique then you do have confidence.”“When Josh Carr and Heath Black came intothe group this season their technique was quitedifferent so I worked with them to adjust that to getlower and closer to the body and they have beenoutstanding in their improvement. The style weemphasise is also beneficial for injury preventionbecause there’s not as much arm tackling and youuse your shoulder to get closer to the player andtherefore reduce shoulder injuries and the like.”Across the board Fremantle has seen an increasein their skill effectiveness but Ball believes thereis still much to learn and we’re only just starting tosee the benefits of the hard work from the players.“My aim is that you get the technique rightand you adapt that into training and then intogames and transfer all the way through.“It takes a few years to develop and you canstart to see that now. You can get some very goodshort term results but the longer the changestake the more stable they are so you find thatquick changes come back down quickly as wellso it’s a matter of patience and practise.”Ben Tarbox – Strength and Conditioning coachFrom the Senior Coach: “Ben comes from theWA Institute of Sport and is getting his headaround the fitness demands of AFL football butcertainly brings outstanding knowledge to ourclub and plays an important role at Fremantle.”After eleven successful years at the WestAustralian Institute of Sport (WAIS) theopportunity to develop and co-ordinate afitness programme for professional athleteswas too good to pass up for Ben Tarbox.“It is challenging and a big learning curvefor me coming into football particularly with thedemands that playing combined with the travelevery second week places on the players,” he said.As head of the strength and conditioningprogramme at WAIS he prepared someof Australia’s best athletes during fourOlympic campaigns and has broughtthat knowledge to Fremantle.“It has been absolutely fantastic so far,coming from amateur sport to professionalsport and an organisation like Fremantlethat is so dynamic has been so much fun.“I really like working at the footy club andthink it has a really good feel about it. We hada good feel and nice culture at WAIS and I wasthinking it would be difficult to replicate that butit’s at least on a par, if not better here, because thereis so much diversity across the organisation.”Ben TarboxBall offers advice to Byron Schammer after a liftAs the club’s Strength and Conditioningcoach, Tarbox oversees the weights and fitnessprograms for every player and individualisesthese for optimum effect. He says players thathave been in the AFL system for sometimemostly require a steady maintenance of theirfitness levels while the younger boys are givenprograms to build body mass and strength.It’s a tough ask to accommodate 44 differentbody shapes, sizes and stages of development.While key position player Graham Polak wasadding eight kilograms to his frame duringthe pre-season Peter Bell’s programme had toaccommodate rehabilitation from off-seasonsurgery. To ensure the best results are achieved ina timely manner there is a strong union betweenseveral of the club’s key fitness staff includingTarbox and physiotherapist Jeff Boyle.“There is such a wide range of things thathappen in a two hour period during a game, thedemands on these guys are phenomenal. That isone of the most challenging things, getting theseguys fit enough to play the game but not doing toomuch so they’re fatigued going into the game.“The actual physiological demands of gamesand the effort they have to put in is far greater than Iexpected it to be. For example Matthew Pavlich runs14 kilometres a game and it’s at pace with contactand the need for accurate skill execution,” he said.“These guys run further than a city to surfevery week with contact. Most average peoplewho run the city to surf need a couple of weeksto recover whereas these guys are doing it everyweek at pace while bumping into each other.“Each week I get to know them a little bitbetter so you’re better able to identify theirneeds, modify their programs to suit them bothphysically and also mentally. I try and get afeel for what motivates them because I havefound that it is just as important as figuringout what they need physiologically.”After helping our Olympians bring back goldTarbox has lofty goals during his time at Fremantle.“When I joined the club I thought Iwant to be here for at least four years andin that time I want to help Fremantle win aPremiership,” he said with a steely resolve.fremantlefc.com.au July 2005 Docker 19
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FD36a Docker JUL05-REV.indd - Fremantle Football Club

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