If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

[bulldogtragic]

Before Friday night, many have taken a keen interest in whether certain people are doing their jobs properly. I think PG and Bains will move on a few people from a few different roles. My issue has been with the communications department, but if this is true this is my nomination:

"Although Matt (Suckling) ticked all of our boxes last week in the return from his Achilles injury, I'm afraid that pre-game he had a flare up of his symptoms and we were required to withdraw him from the game," medical services manager Chris Bell told westernbulldogs.com.au"

"We're going to be really cautious with our approach with Suckers and make sure we get some continuity in his training and look for him to return in the next three to four weeks.”

So Bell and his team cleared him to keep training, to prepare to play and do the warm up - up until 9 minutes to go - because he's fine... Now he's out for about month!! This is a crazy situation. Suckling is playing his best and most consistent year, so we've robbed the team. Matt is out of contract, and now will be relying on a lot of good faith from Sam Power to reward him despite not being able to get on the park. So he's been robbed potentially. I'm absolutely filthy for Suckers and his ability to earn every dollar in this next contract after a good year. Seriously filthy.

This is compounded by repeat injuries to the same players, and a litany of problems since he's been with us. I'm sure he's a great bloke and means well, but Suckling being fine to missing a month now is not something the best person for the job displays. If we made mistake after mistake, and then made one which hurt our employer and a colleague, I'd expect to be on seek.com.au already.

[AndrewP6]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Maybe it was just an unfortunate aggravation of the injury. Maybe on tests it appeared fine (ticked the boxes, as they have said) and it just... happened. Some players are just injury prone, and the Achilles would be under a lot of stress in AFL. If anything, they seem over cautious bringing people back.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

I've not done an Achilles before, specifically, but having my time with sports medico's and physios I can't believe that's the event. Although the personnel might be different, we sent Clay Smith on with an ACL, we've seen the same guys get the same repeat injuries. I don't see it in isolation. If you look at our injuries, our high ACLs, soft tissue injuries and clearing players to have them injure themselves very quickly (or in a warm up 9 minutes before the game), then I can't write this off as a once off. And I hope Matty Suckling isn't deprived on what was shaping as a better contract. The players must have complete faith in Bell, and to me at least, it looks like Suckling has had his trust burned.

[boydogs]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

If anything, they seem over cautious bringing people back.

Absolutely. And they've just turned that up to 11 now we are no chance of finals

[westdog54]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Maybe it was just an unfortunate aggravation of the injury. Maybe on tests it appeared fine (ticked the boxes, as they have said) and it just... happened. Some players are just injury prone, and the Achilles would be under a lot of stress in AFL. If anything, they seem over cautious bringing people back.

With the utmost respect Andrew, I just can't buy that.

As BT rightly said, he's gone from fit to play to out for another month within the space of a warm-up.

Yes, many of our injuries have been put down to bad luck, and yes, injuries happen. But our management of these injuries is just coming up short far too often to be written off as bad luck.

Bell needs to be under massive, massive scrutiny. And it shouldn't wait for the off season. It needs to happen right now.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Yep, Suckers was training mid week and in fact playing in 9 minutes time, that was the view point of Bell at the time. By all accounts nothing manifestly disasterous occurred in the light warm up. Nothing to account for now, 5 missed games. Now Bell says Suckers is 40,000 minutes off playing again. First call on Friday night was 9 minutes to play, now the current Monday call is up to 40,000 minutes to play.

Missed it by that much...

Either he was way wrong in the first place, or has little confidence in his/their management and diagnosis of Suckers. In any event, I can't see how a professional elite sporting environment can continue to make these injury management blunders. What the real issue might become is that if the players don't think they can stay injury free at the club, then maybe for their careers and pay packets they begin to consider leaving for clubs that don't have our ingrained problems. If I was Suckers, and lost 4-5 games of career best footy while negotiating my last big contract, I'd be asking my manager to bring this up to Sam Power. Players need to have complete faith in the advice they're getting (ie Clay Smith going back on). It simply cannot continue along at this poor level if there's even a hint player retention or player satisfaction with the club is being detrimentally affected. I'd bet the house it is. So let's pray for change as soon as possible because we will be a better team for it.

[ledge]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

I wonder about the western oval surface causing the problems.
Is it prepared to be the same state as the Etihad surface? Eg hardness and grass length.

[dog town]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Achilles injuries often just flare up like that. Once you have it then unfortunately it’s a constant battle to manage it. If he had been getting through training I don’t see how they could have known it would suddenly come back in the warm up.

[AndrewP6]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

With the utmost respect Andrew, I just can't buy that.

As BT rightly said, he's gone from fit to play to out for another month within the space of a warm-up.

Yes, many of our injuries have been put down to bad luck, and yes, injuries happen. But our management of these injuries is just coming up short far too often to be written off as bad luck.

Bell needs to be under massive, massive scrutiny. And it shouldn't wait for the off season. It needs to happen right now.

Fair enough, we can agree to disagree. Suckling has had Achilles issues for a while now, it's not some new thing. Plenty of teams have significant injury lists.

[Axe Man]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Achilles injuries often just flare up like that. Once you have it then unfortunately it’s a constant battle to manage it. If he had been getting through training I don’t see how they could have known it would suddenly come back in the warm up.

Absolutely correct. I've had achilles tendinitis for years. It's been pretty good for a long time now and all of a sudden last week, for no particular reason, I get up out of bed and I'm limping around.

I'm not sure how happy I would be if people judged my employment performance on a couple of small pieces of information, without all the facts and with no understanding of my profession. I'm all for a review of the medical department, no different to any other department, but I can not reasonably assess their performance myself as a laymen from the outside with no idea of the specifics.

[Bulldog4life]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Dale Morris spoke very highly of our doctors and medical team on the channel 7 footy show.

[Bornadog]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Absolutely correct. I've had achilles tendinitis for years. It's been pretty good for a long time now and all of a sudden last week, for no particular reason, I get up out of bed and I'm limping around.

I'm not sure how happy I would be if people judged my employment performance on a couple of small pieces of information, without all the facts and with no understanding of my profession. I'm all for a review of the medical department, no different to any other department, but I can not reasonably assess their performance myself as a laymen from the outside with no idea of the specifics.

I had a minor issue with my Achilles. I don't do heavy exercise, I walk about an hour every morning. Sometimes it would give me no problems, then out of the blew it would hurt.

We can't comment on something we don't know the full detail of. Yes we have the right to question why this has happened but to start calling for heads in the medical team is a bit far fetched.

[Mofra]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

Maybe it was just an unfortunate aggravation of the injury. Maybe on tests it appeared fine (ticked the boxes, as they have said) and it just... happened. Some players are just injury prone, and the Achilles would be under a lot of stress in AFL. If anything, they seem over cautious bringing people back.

If he was cleared to play and a warm-up aggravated it to the point it needs 3-4 weeks rest, there is a serious issue with the medical clearance protocols.

We have a huge injury list and evidence we've mismanaged played injury, it absolutely has to be a focus for review during the off-season.

[Bornadog]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

If he was cleared to play and a warm-up aggravated it to the point it needs 3-4 weeks rest, there is a serious issue with the medical clearance protocols.

We have a huge injury list and evidence we've mismanaged played injury, it absolutely has to be a focus for review during the off-season.

We have had 5 players with soft tissue injuries including Wood, and Dickson recurring hammies and Suckling with his Achilles heel which has been a problem for two years now. The rest have all been broken bones, knees etc .

Hardly a disaster, however, agree the department needs to be reviewed as does the whole footy department to see where things went wrong this year.

[Mantis]

Re: If you were Peter Gordon, who would you move on first in a post season review?

If he was cleared to play and a warm-up aggravated it to the point it needs 3-4 weeks rest, there is a serious issue with the medical clearance protocols.

We have a huge injury list and evidence we've mismanaged played injury, it absolutely has to be a focus for review during the off-season.

From discussions I had with some informed people on the weekend it sounded like we also botched Tim English's diagnosis which meant a potential 1-2 week injury turned into something much more significant (like 8-10 weeks)

From the outside I have zero confidence that our medical & conditoning team are doing a decent job, because if they were we wouldn't have had an injury epidemic these past 3 years.

Time for a change in personnel.