On yer bike Charlie

[lufcmike]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/soc ... 6219457738.

Article in todays Adelaide Now.
The Reds want Charlie Walsh to help with fitness and conditioning.
Seems like another brilliant move by management, except that was'nt that one of the criticism levelled at the crows poor performance, that they had a lot of soft tissue injuries. He is not a medical practicioner and its a bit late in the season for conditioning of players!
So Charlies role will be what? He can stand on the sidelines with his excerise bike and get get the players to keep warm by riding the bike during the player substitution rotations!!!! and gives them a motivational speeches.
If he's there for motivation, maybe it would be cheaper and easier to get the girls from the premises just across from the Entertaiment centre on Port Rd to motivate and massage aching limbs, unlike the season to now at least that could have a happy ending!

[spaceCowboy]

Conditioning needs to be happening all year round imo.

Would prefer someone with proper football conditioning background though.

[Hammerzeit]

Conditioning needs to be happening all year round imo.

Would prefer someone with proper football conditioning background though.

I though we did, an ex-Fulham fitness coach that resigned pre-season due to a difference between his and Rini's methods. I could be wrong though.

[smooth_pockets]

Yeah Charlie Walsh sure did wonders for the Crows injuries...

[Stuckey]

This is another strange one from AUFC. As Luciano Trani who is our assistant coach who was brought in having a great reputation in conditioning.
So AUFC already has a football minded conditioning coach?!

[The Claw]

Now really is the time to start worrying about the ongoing lack of football people being recruited to the club. Walsh may be great at cycling, but what does he know about football conditioning.

Gerard, Griffin etc seem to want to tun us into an AFL franchise, probably lucky Neil Craig has found employment or he would have been headhunted... but Andrew Jarman is available so perhaps he is next for AU??

[sevengoals]

Plan B or C?

ADELAIDE-BASED Socceroos physio Les Gelis may help the Reds solve Adelaide United's injury crisis.

The Reds' injury woes is worrying the Australian players union and Football Federation Australia officials.

FFA head of medical services Dr Jeff Steinweg said the FFA was prepared to offer Adelaide medical advice after the club's board called for a medical review when the squad was rocked by a high rate of soft tissue and impact injuries.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/soc ... 6220314320

[Interloper]

Now really is the time to start worrying about the ongoing lack of football people being recruited to the club. Walsh may be great at cycling, but what does he know about football conditioning.

It was Walsh's fitness and conditioning that turned Adelaide into a dominant team in the AFL for the first 2 full seasons of Craig's Reign. Despite Craig's complete lack of tactical flexibility, that would be shown up later. Really Adelaide should have won the premiership in 2005 & 2006 because of him.

So Walsh has history in effectively moving from one sport to another. However, there are some huge obstacles to him being effective at Adelaide:

a) It required huge pre-seasons at the Crows to work, something AU don't have this season and won't have next with the AFC champions league.

Additionally the crows had a sympathetic coach and someone who had worked with Walsh before. Whereas Rini has spurned competent fitness coaches in the past and apparently refused to place any importance on strength, conditioning or fitness.

b) The trade-off was *increased* injuries. The crows were extremely fit and usually ran over the top of teams. But the players also tended to get injured and stay injured.

This is already a problem with AU and probably not something that would be helped by working with Charlie Walsh.

c) The best years of Craig's reign relied on a core of all-time greats (Ricciuto, Mcleod, Edwards, Goodwin, etc.) to provide the creative impetus that could be leveraged by ultra-fit "lesser" running players.

The plan fell apart as these players retired and Adelaide were unable to replace them or push-through younger players, while constantly leaking quality players through poor man-management. Without the creative core, the support staff of athletic lesser-lights were unable to contribute anything meaningful.

Again, not only is this a problem Adelaide United has, but they have it even worse.

It doesn't reflect badly on Charlie Walsh that he isn't the man for the job, Adelaide United is a shambles and his efforts would only be wasted. Perhaps at the start of last season he would have been useful with that squad(eg. Flores stated he came to Australia to improve his fitness. Which he clearly did under Vidmar/Stubbins. ) But not now.

[The Claw]

I think shambles is the word to sum up united right now, and I agree with most of what you said Interloper

WTF did they do in the longest pre-season on earth is anybody's guess???
Coolen has a lot of explaining to do IMO....

[lufcmike]

Just reflecting on our long pre season.
What did they do?
Was it too long ?
Are they overdone?
Maybe we did do it dutch style, like the great Johan Cryff.
The only training he did was a couple of deep knee bends in the shed before the game, lit up a Peter Styvesant had a drag on that and put it as he was walking up the tunnel.

[BC]

Wow, great post on the crows interloper. Concise and immensely accurate.