HALF-TIME, a screen drops down over a whiteboard of instruction and first-half analysis. Vision starts and players, in a theatre setting can see selected game vision depicting exactly what coaches have talked about.
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The session is short, to the point on what can be sharpened, before players resume warming up for the next half.
North Ballarat Roosters strive to be the best, most professional football club outside the AFL. This is about culture, this is about technology, this is about processes and this is about the people.
The Roosters are the only regional club left in the Victorian Football League, but this is a far cry from a bush club playing footy at a higher level. You can see shades of how the Roosters work in leading clubs through the Ballarat Football League but to actually spend a full match day with the Roosters is beyond such a comparison. They are impressive.
Vision – which they also cut for post-training analysis on Wednesday nights – is just a small component. Press Box spent a full match day with Roosters’ coaching staff at Eureka Stadium as they took on Carlton’s Northern Blues last round: coaches’ briefings, team meetings, lines meetings and observing the chess-like moves and live statistical feed in the coaches’ box during play.
Roosters’ head coach Gerard FitzGerald oversees the show, his coaches work in smaller teams and draws it all together to ensure players and staff are working to the same goals. North Melbourne development coach Ben Dyer was on hand to offer his insight. FitzGerald said being a good leader was based on trust and belief in the people around you. Many Roosters’ match day methods are introduced from what FitzGerald has gathered from peers, industry research and learnings from the club’s AFL partner North Melbourne.
“In many ways we try and replicate what the AFL does in our environment,” FitzGerald said. “We look at what we could reproduce here, what we are capable of in our own environment.’
FitzGerald said evolution, and being prepared to change, in tactics and processes was crucial to compete. The half-time vision analysis has been in place about 18 months. GPS trackers on players is controlled by the strength and conditioning team, but key figures have been displayed in mid-week meetings since mid-season. FitzGerald is a statistical-driven coach and, while obtaining more acute data each season, maintained it was imperative to know how to best interpret and deliver data to players.
Sometimes change was about people. In the past two months, the Roosters have delayed post-match meetings about 15 minutes to allow players more time with family and supporters in the rooms. FitzGerald had seen this play out in AFL clubs and is watching the impact unfold in his own club rooms. Players are more connected and supporters share in the whole club experience.
The game is then analysed, in lines and as a team, and focus shifts to next game.
This environment develops the region’s best players, coaches, sports medical staff and analysts in this town, for this town, yet most behind-the-scenes work goes unrealised by the average fan.