Does'nt suprise me. The team don't appear to be conditioned properly to meet the demands of RL

What's the philosophy that's got them wanting to leave?

Would you care to elaborate?

Yes he probably would, he's an expert on our club (not a fan or supporter mind) in case you are not aware.Whatever the case we will in full Phil Clark mode be inferior to Wigan on this issue. Not that you need to be an expert to spot that

I know - my invitation was a slightly tongue in cheek one, since he doesn't usually wait for an invitation to wax lyrical about the shortcomings of our club.

Whens the next reserves or academy home game?

Quote ="charlie"Whens the next reserves or academy home game?'" wakefieldwildcats.co.uk/news/sup ... d/2011/07/

Quote ="charlie"Whens the next reserves or academy home game?'" wakefieldwildcats.co.uk/news/sup ... d/2011/07/

Its the philosophy of laying off the hypertrophy, in the 4 week Academy break the lads have spent every session running up hills no weights at all.

Its a philosophy adopted by Stuart Wilkinson I think he was called, Leeds Conditioning coach who
was seen as a sensation a 8 or 9 years ago, signed for Wigan at the time Millward took over, basically credited for the players losing bags of weight and getting bullied all over the park. Andreas Leifeith and Colin Sanctuary also worked with Wilkinson both are/were lecturers at the University of York and all produced several published sports science articles together.

They are very knowledgeable guys, but know bugger all about rugby league and the players/how to get the best out of them.

Any good coach needs knowledge but also how to transfer that knowledge to the players, these guys do not.

I have supported Trinity far more than you ever could hope to. Fact.

As have my Wigan supporting family both on the field and off it financially. Fact.

Very nice fella's, very knowledgable with regard to sports science and their articles are interesting reads. That said, i agree with Jonh, our philosphy towards developing and conditioning players from academy to first team needs to change.

The question is whether that's at the hands of the Head Coach who isn't utilising his coaching team effectively or whether members of that team need replacing.

The players find them pompous and condescending and do not like the philosophies they practice.

It was not that way at the start and the results showed in the first season under their coaching the team were in outstanding aerobic condition, but sadly the novelty wore off very quickly and the clashes started, a number of players have stated to me this has been a massive motivation for leaving the club.

So in short, the players want to bulk up and get strong, but our coaching staff want them to be leaner and fitter?

To put it in extremely simplistic basic terms yes.

The players especially the juniors do not feel they are being given the right guidance when it comes to preperation, and feel significantly weaker than the opposition week in week out.

Add to this the fact that they do not relate to the way they are coached and the way the information is passed over, major personality clashes.

To be fair to jonh I noticed last week at the saints game how their players seemed to have a completely different shaped physique to that of ours. They looked a lot leaner and stronger

I do not make things up for the fun of it, people do not like me because i maybe tell the truth that some do not like to hear but I can assure you this is fact. Colin Sanctuary was a mate of Beans who did a spot of part time conditioning coaching at York whilst lecturing and doing most of his conditioning with cricketers. Beans recommended him, he got the job, the players took to his methods initially, this novelty wore off pretty quickly.

Mark my words when he goes he will be back conditioning cricketers his main love and will not be involved in rugby league again. Huge knowledge, but no ability to coach rugby league players.

Jobs for the boys again. It is obvious that our players are not conditioned properly for RL and that shows with some of the younger players who have made the step up from the reserves who have no size about them (muscle wise) and also the fact our players in the main are weaker and have less stamina than the other SL teams.

At the risk of being like a broken record if we could get Geoff Evans back, then things may start looking up as far as conditioning is concerned.

Although Evans certainly got the players in the best condition i've ever seen at Trinity, he hardly helped Bradford acheive much more than Wakefield. Not sure if he's still there.

I have noticed this as well. Our players look physically smaller than almost all of the opposistion teams we come up against which means we often get dominated in the tackle in both attack and defence.

Yeah KK but his job is conditioning and on its only conditioning will only do so much. Certainly under Mcnamara it was not Geoff Evans fault that the coaching was crap.

Players spend so much more time with a conditioning coach than they do a technical coach.

In my opinion a good conditioning coach can save an average head coaches career.

Karl Harrison is a great example Eddie McGuiness was a great conditioning coach and the club had the best season ever. Harrison took all the credit, McGuiness left they recruited a muppet the same players and coaches totally folded the only difference was Dean Thomas replacing Eddie.

If Harrison had recruited a good conditioning coach to replace Eddie I firmly believe he would still be a SL coach. Good coaches surround themselves with good staff.

Fair point.

Jonh do you think the conditioning is one of the main reasons why in the last two seasons the club has fallen away significantly performance wise in the second part of the season?

There's a few issues here then,

The first is the players questioning their coaches expertise and assuming that they know better which is highly unlikely for a senior player let alone a junior.
So let's assume that the players just don't feel right about the way they're being prepared and are judging their physical fitness against opposition players and friends from other pro clubs who are being prepared differently and hence have a more muscular physique, which is something that's very envogue with young teenagers at the moment. This is still no basis upon which to openly question the expertise of those who have studied their science and are delivering a conditioning programme which has major benefits over some others but also has downsides.

Current trends in the game are to strive for greater mobility as opposed to size. looking at some of the peak players in the game like Luke Lewis a winger turned back rower, James Grahams footwork is what sets him apart, the NRL is beset with long limbed athletic built players such as Jared Yow Yeah even Paul Gallen displays great athletic ability despite his natural build. My point here is that perhaps the Wakefiled conditioners are right, perhaps they are nearer to the cutting edge of Rugby League conditioning than some of the other conditioners at other clubs?

It's easy to pander to the desires of young athletes who want the six pack, guns and ripped torso but it might not necessarily be the best way forward if they want to progress as far as their potential will allow.

I'm not saying who's right one way or the other but there is a case for both and it's not the place for young players to question their conditioners as to which is the right path to take. Of course if they don't like the direction they're being taken in they have the right to leave and as John suggests some of our young players are exercising that right but should the club change it's philosophy based on conditioning because players don't like it. It's not as if our juniors are getting tonked every week so there must be something that's allowing them to compete with their peers who are being conditioned in other ways.

The next point deals with the suggestion that our conditioning coaches are arrogant and won't listen to the concerns of the players. Much depends on how the players have voiced or displayed their concerns to the coaching staff but let's presume that they've been respectful in this. The coaches need to educate the players as to what the aims and goals of their conditioning programmes are, while I've stated earlier that the players are unlikely to know better than the coaches but it's also true that they aren't completely ignorant of the subject and let's not forget that it's the players personal physical condition that's being discussed so they deserve some consideration. Beyond the personal there's also a duty to educate the players from a professional point of view, with hard work and good coaching these players will have a long career and it will be a huge benefit to all concerned in that career if the players understand how to condition themselves and understand how different training techniques will affect their bodies. I would expect as a matter of course that the conditioning team sit the players down individually and as a squad and explain their philosophy, each player should have a personal programme and he should understand why he's on that programme, what it will achieve and how the results will aid his game and long term career.
If our staff have become complacent and lazy due to familiarity, which does happen, then they might not have done this thoroughly and frequently enough which would inevitably lead to questioning and frustration from the players.

In terms of the novelty wearing off then once again that can be as a result of the coaching staff being complacent. There's a propensity for coaches, teachers etc who've being doing the same job in the same place for too long to stop seeing their charges as individuals and to treat them like cattle who don't need to understand they why's and the wherefores of their daily routines. This extends into the programmes that the coaches employ and the variety of routines they use, complacency and laziness leads to a lack of imagination in the development of the sessions they deliver and that's when monotony seeps in. The correlations between the players feeling as though their regimes are the wrong ones, the lack of explanation from the coaches and the repetitiveness of the routines are there to see if those involved are clever enough to step back and look for them. This situation can also be remedied by reversing all of the above and beginning a series of consultation with the players in which they can have some input and feedback with regards their personal programmes.

As for Colin Sanctuary being a cricket conditioner, I know this to be absolutely true and agree with John that he will be back in cricket when he leaves Wakefield. That said I don't see a problem with him being at Wakefield as long as we balance his lack of RL knowledge with someone who does understand the nuances of RL conditioning demands.

Speaking more specifically about the hypertrophy issues, 4 weeks is a very short time in which to either build or lose muscle mass and unless your saying that Wakefield players do not have an ongoing strength programme that incorporates periods of hypertrophy then I don't see the problem with 4 weeks of hill running.

Just off the top of my head that's my take on it!

agree on most but some of the young un's would like a go in the first team ... because some of the so called first team players are just NOT GOOD ENOUGH !

I know you know the game and I enjoy a well thought out post, but what you keep relating to is good coaching. These men are not good coaches in a rugby league environment. They have a massive wealth of knowledge but they cannot coach that to rugby league players.

They show most players very little respect (not just juniors) and the players cannot relate to them and there philosophies. It is a coaches responsibility/job to lead players and get them to buy into the philosophy they practice. Regardless of how good this is if you cannot coach it you will never produce successful results.

As for the NRL players 8/10 years ago I would agree regards size. Today the forwards are very much a similar size but the Aussie backs are not only far bigger and stronger/powerful they are also better athletes. The gulf is size though between British backs to Aussies/Kiwi's is shocking.

A basic principle of conditioning is the bigger a muscle is the more strength is can produce, this is then converted to power, power aids in speed footwork etc etc. At a time I was conditioning (under a shocking first team conditioning coach) I had the opportunity to lead a session with the Brisbane Bronco's who were preparing for a world club challenge match, they all carried more bulk including fat were massively stronger yet fitter,faster and hugely more powerful.