"Schedule" wins. And Losses. Do they exist (and in what form?).

[Flamethrower]

These things are only a problem if you let them be. When I heard Ross Lyon bring it up during the week leading up to the game it just gave the St Kilda players an excuse to not give 100% from the start, and to give up when things got too hard.

And that is how it played out.

The question is would the game have played out that way if Ross had taken a positive approach to the short breaks and challenged his team to win despite this. We will never know, but it always seems to be mentally fragile teams that succumb to these "difficulties" while mentally strong teams take it all in their stride and win anyway.

[MrMahatma]

So does all this mean:

- we only won cause Saints were tired
- Freo only lost cause they were tired
- thus if no one is tired, we don’t win and they don’t lose, so tip Freo this week?

[Grantysghost]

So does all this mean:

- we only won cause Saints were tired
- Freo only lost cause they were tired
- thus if no one is tired, we don’t win and they don’t lose, so tip Freo this week?

You've cracked the code.

[mjp]

What I'm saying here is that there are 100% losses related to the schedule. It isn't necessarily the number of games or short turnarounds or really any SINGLE thing...but there is no doubt an accumulation of factors that contributes to poor results.

Are some things an excuse? Of course. But some are real. The players from Melbourne and Freo arriving home after 10-days away and losing badly...yeah - I have no doubt they would have been distracted by "life stuff" upon arriving home and it contributed to poor outcomes. They are people and being single point focussed when away would quickly change upon arriving home - wives, girlfriends, kids, pets, houses, friends...there would be a LOT to catch up on and everyone would exhale upon arriving home...does that give them an excuse for losing? Nope. But I don't think it helped them in any way.

Saints playing 3 games in close proximity? Absolutely an issue...was our 'extra day' a big advvantage? Maybe not...but ONE DAY can make a big difference to a corked calf (for example)...doesn't change your status for the game (you still play) but the impact on output can be a LOT.

Having a state league group that plays on different days is another issue...different recovery schedules, different training weeks - it's not easy.

Is it everything? Nope. But it's not nothing and I don't think we are considering it enough. And it isn't about the fixture needing to be more equitable - it wont be - but WHEN and WHERE (home or away) that games are scheduled.

[jazzadogs]

Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson at the ABC had an article on this topic yesterday. Because it's not behind a paywall, I'm just sharing the link but not the text. Link

Key points are basically that yes a short break does statistically impact performance, and the distribution of short breaks is not even across the competition. We are sort of middle ground for this - 5 games with a shorter break, 3 with even break, and 5 days with a longer break.

Swans have 8 games with a longer break, and Hawks have 8 games where they have a shorter break than their opponent!