Mathew Inness masters three sports as strength and conditioning coach

Mathew Inness masters three sports as strength and conditioning coach

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For years Mathew Inness had one sporting focus: bowling fast for Victoria.

Now he has three.

When Inness, 45, arrived at training at Essendon Cricket Club at 5.45pm last Tuesday, a lot of his day’s work had been done.

There was more to do.

The former Vics left-armer had spent the day at the Western Bulldogs, where his title – head of sports science and physical performance – has far more heft than his first-class cricket batting average.

From the Whitten Oval it was on to Windy Hill as bowling coach in support of Essendon senior coach Asanka Gurusinha, the former Sri Lankan Test star.

After 90 minutes running an eye over the Bombers’ quicks, Inness headed home to plan some sessions for the Malaysian track cycling team.

He has been the cyclists’ strength and conditioning coach for almost six years, a period that has brought success on the international stage in the sprint program.

Football, cricket and cycling: The depth and breadth of Innes the sporting manager and educator is impressive in a professional career that started when his cricket career finished.

Last Saturday Essendon Cricket Club marked its 150th year by hiring out a room at the MCG and launching a hall of fame.

It was a great haul of cricketers indeed.

There was Test man Simon O’Donnell.

State players Jamie Siddons, John Grant, Keith Kirby, George Davies and Jack Stephens.

Long-serving player and administrator Harry Nunn, 254-game club great Craig Berger and legendary scorer Mike Walsh.

And there was Mathew Inness, the paceman who joined the Bombers with a bunch of mates from Broadford when he was 14.

Peeved to be picked in the fourths, he chose to go back and play Country Week cricket.

When he returned a week later, he was selected in the fifths!

But he climbed the grades quickly, and was in the firsts by 1994-95.

He went on to win the bowling award five times, take 207 wickets at 16.54, play 102 matches and gain life membership.

When visitors to Windy Hill walk into the cricket club’s social room, they are greeted by a photo of Inness letting fly for the Vics, a flashing run to the wicket preceding the delivery of the ball.

Inness joined Essendon’s roll-call of state players when Victoria introduced him to Sheffield Shield cricket in 1997-98, his debut coming against NSW at the MCG.

It was a tough initiation: Michael Slater clattered 137 and with opening partner Rodney Davison (169) put on 219.

The visitors went on to declare at 9-532, but the Vics managed a draw through keeper Darren Berry’s first-innings 166 not out (Inness had a first-class batting average of 7.16, but he shared with Berry a last-wicket stand of 118).

Starting out with 19 wickets from six matches, Inness had some strong seasons for the Vics and an exceptional one in 2000-01 when he scalped 43 batters.

His teammates admired not only his skill, but his spirit.

“He’s probably the first guy I faced who at speed could swing the ball away and in … being left-arm, he was always a nightmare,’’ former Victorian wicketkeeper Adam Crosthwaite says.

“Most left-armers would go across you. He would swing the ball away, then he would swing it down the line… he made me look stupid in the nets. You’d play and miss, play and miss and then you’d have your front pad blown off.’’

Crosthwaite adds: “Playing with him, you just knew he was going to give so much more than anyone. He was one of the best teammates you could have. Just kept running in.’’

Ex-Victorian batter David Hussey says Inness was a “clever bowler who knew exactly what to do and how to get batters out and set them up perfectly’’.

Hussey says Inness often bowled through pain, remembering how he shrugged off a knee injury early in his career.

But Inness says the state selectors began to choose two fast bowlers supported by all-rounders like Cameron White and Jon Moss, and he fell down the pecking order.

Still wanting to play first-class cricket, he headed to Perth.

“I didn’t want to go,’’ he says. “I loved playing for Victoria. But there was just more opportunity over there.’’

Inness had little impact in his first two years in the WA squad.

His third represented the rejuvenation of his career: 40 wickets at 20.12.

“It was probably my best season… plenty of wickets and three five-fors,’’ he says.

Click the link at the top of the page for more in this article.
He seems to be a very good guy at our club and I hope we keep him for a while to come.

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A packed schedule… Wowee.

I suppose it reflects the challenges and financial reward folks in these types of roles with caps etc. From a Dogs perspective it’s good he’s got a range of experiences.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GVGjr

Mathew Inness masters three sports as strength and conditioning coach

Click the link at the top of the page for more in this article.
He seems to be a very good guy at our club and I hope we keep him for a while to come.

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Are we able to see the rest of this article as the link leads to a subscription page only

It’s good to read information on support staff like Matthew Innes. When you see them helping coaches and players it’s nice to know a bit about them. Hoping he is able to help our players achieve the best they can and that propels the team to great heights.

Cont

Then, to the surprise of many, he retired.

But he did not retreat from WA cricket: he became its strength and conditioning coach.

When he was playing for Victoria, Inness had completed a sports science degree, and in the off-season he went to the Cricket Academy as a scholarship coach.

“I was doing some bowling coaching and helping a bit with the strength and conditioning,’’ he says.

“I always had an interest in it. I wasn’t sure if I would go down the coaching path or the strength and conditioning path. But over time I moved more towards the S & C.’’

In Perth he completed his masters and linked with WAFL club East Perth and the WA Under 18 team.

As he bowled his way to those 40 wickets for WA, coach Tom Moody let him know the strength and conditioning position would become available at the end of the season.

It came at a perfect time for Inness.

Despite his success that season, he was “almost over playing’’.

“I was ready to go down that path,’’ he says.

He was with WA Cricket for four years, overseeing the physical preparation of its male and female teams, from the Under 17s through to the Sheffield Shield.

When he returned to Melbourne early in 2012, Mathew Inness made the switch from cricket to football, joining VFL club Williamstown as high performance manager.

He also did his PhD through the Western Bulldogs at Victoria University.

Inness had played state under-age football as a teenager and for a time was in the Murray Bushrangers’ squad.

After having a knee reconstruction when he was 17, he never played football again.

“But I always preferred cricket,’’ he says.

At the Dogs, he’s risen from the strength and conditioning coach of the Footscray VFL team to high performance coach to his current role.

Watch a Western Bulldogs game on television and you’ll see him on the bench, overseeing the player rotations and seemingly scanning the ground in search of injuries.

“There’s always injuries,’’ Inness says.

“There will always be some. The easiest way to avoid injury is not to train. But then when you don’t train, you’re not prepared for the game. There’s a trade-off between doing enough training and making the athlete resilient, but where that line is, you’re not actually sure until you almost cross over it.’’

Inness had always enjoyed cycling – Victorian teammates can remember him putting in plenty of miles on the bike – and became involved with the Malaysians through former Australian champion Gary Neiwand.

Inness got to know him at the cricket academy in Adelaide, when Neiwand was in the AIS cycling program.

The relationship kicked in quite a few years later when later John Beasley, the coach of the Malaysian track team, was casting around for a strength and conditioning coach.

Neiwand suggested Inness.

He’s been working with the cyclists since 2017.

“It’s been really good. We’ve had a guy (Mohd Azizulhasni Awang) win a world championship and he also won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics,’’ Inness says.

The team had been training in Melbourne but since Tokyo has been based in Kuala Lumpur.

Inness now does most of his work online, giving the cyclists programs to follow.

Football, cricket and cycling: three sports and two of them allow him to take the emphasis off one.

“AFL’s all-consuming,’’ he says.

“It’s actually good to come here (Essendon) … if it was a tough day at work, you can come here and almost reset your mind. It’s good to have different focuses rather than thinking about the one thing all day.’’

His professional career has also given him a sense of fulfilment that cricket never did.

Despite playing 81 first-class matches, a tally that included a County stint with Northamptonshire, and taking 281 wickets at 25.77, he says his cricket ultimately disappointed him.

He always wanted to play for Australia and in a premiership at Essendon.

He did neither.

“You think about the things you didn’t achieve, rather than the things you did achieve. I saw my career as a failure because of that,’’ he says.

“I almost tried to, not forget about it, but I don’t want to think of myself as a cricketer, because I feel like I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve. Having achieved things after cricket, it actually gives me that satisfaction.’’

After his relocation to Perth and later his move into football, Inness continued to follow Essendon Cricket Club’s fortunes, but had no official role until this season, when president Simon Tobin asked him back.

“It’s probably been a break of about 15 years,’’ he says.

After he said he could commit to a one-night-a-week role, he returned to see the Dons had kept his photographs on the walls of the social club.

The hall-of-fame induction surprised him as much as he had surprised a few batters with his in-dipper.

“It was a bit embarrassing, really,’’ he says.

“I’ve been gone for a long time. Compared to some of the others it’s a bit awkward.

“I definitely owe the club a lot. They helped me out through those early times and sort of getting me on the path to where I am. It’s good to come back here and help out some of the young fellas coming through now.’’

Just as the versatile Inness does in his two other sporting vocations.

We are lucky to have Matt at the club.

We have been an extremely fit side over the years and see games out to the end. Amazing the amount of work he does over three different sports.