The popular reason given here for our inibility to run out games has been a lack of fitness, or match practice in the case of messyrs Judd, Hadley et al. Would anyone else be interested to hear from Cordy with regards to how the club is handling and developing the fitness of the players? It'd be good and probably of some comfort to hear from a genuine expert.

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

march premiers Don? We're up for September action buddy.

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This might sound extreme in the context of alleged sexual assault, drunken violence and a drug trafficking charge...

Donstuie, easy answer... YES

Cordy is the key to our future performance. Get him on board to chat.

He will enlighten a hell of a lot of us if he gives us insight into the players' condition prior to his arrival, since his arrival and where he's heading with the players. It's not an overnight fix.

It was an incredible feat and story how Swan got him on board. There was someone else with Swannie at the time (name escapes me) whilst in Sth Africa.

Swannie went there on a mission to get him and he got his man.

Cordy is a no nonsense man who has an objective and makes it happen. He was instrumental (and lets say influential) in putting the off field team together. His charter is simple; get the players AFL fit!

The conditioning dept at Carlton was a rabble and needed personnel on board ie he understood the objective of the board and he knew it wasn't a one man job, and certainly not a job for the faint hearted.

From what I hear, he holds a lot of power. Not much gets in his way for him to achieve his long term and short term objective. He's on the right track and we're heading in the right direction. I believe players are improving exponentially despite us supporters seeing things differently from our 2008 performances.

He will create a super fit team. We're very lucky to have him.

Well done Swannie (again)

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

I have heard an interview with him where he said that when he joined the blues we weren't even fit enough to be a VFL side......

Have a look at the injuries lists of all the clubs also. Fingers crossed for Hartlett, Anderson and Benjamin

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“Every single element of the Club has to be the best in the league, meticulously and methodically, and only by doing this will we be elite and challenge for number 17.”
Greg Lee

Sounds good in theory Bondi, but all I saw was a team only fit enough to run out 1 quarter in the first game, a half in the second and three quarters last week. And it wasn't just the players coming back from injury either.

And there is NO excuse in my view for our fitness staff to have allowed Stevens to have reached round 1 in the shape he was in. The guy had an entire year to prepare himself for Christ sake, and they're suppose to be supervising that preparation.

Obviously the fitness is improving, as you would expect now that the real stuff is here, but why have we had to sacrifice the first month of the season to have a side fit enough to maybe beat the Dees in round 5?? Will all our seasons start this way??

So yes Donstuie, get Cordy on here, let him say his peace and maybe all of us armchair critics will then shut-up when the Pies run over the top of us midway through the 4th quarter on Sunday.

Here's hoping, just been touching on this in another thread. Hopefully he's training them into the ground as an initial base for this and future seasons. Fits in line with his previous comments on the shape of the side.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

nightcrwaler wrote



You're right the proof will be inthe pudding.

With regards to what I've posted, it's not theory. I know some of the chronological events which have taken place in shaping the off field conditioning department.

What you must remember regarding Cordy's part in the shape players are in is not directly a result of Cordy's regime. Cordy wasn't on board for the whole of the preseason; he had other contractual commetiments to fulfill prior to starting in 2009 from what I understand.

I think we will better tojudge him after the next preseason.

How players turn up for round 1 is dependent on the players' input, and the deision to play underdone players is not that of Cordy's; that's the MC. So playing unfit players cannot be blamed on Cordy.

Do you think that Ratts and Cordy don't butt heads? In footy teams with many people in the decision making process, different opinions will always come to a head. The outcome depends on who has the final say, or the weight in numbers.

I don't think the Pies will run over us in the last quarter. I'm not saying we will win, but I can't see the fade out as witnessed in the Tigers game for many reasons, other than the obvious; improvement in match fitness of the players.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

While most supporters were reaching for the vaseline after Juddy went round the 'Tan, Cordy scoffed and claimed that half the Doggies list could beat that.

Playing guys that are underdone is not Cordy's decision, but he does modify the workload to see it done.

There is absolutley no need for any running player to play 100% of game time. Its about effort when you're out there.... How much of the game does Ryan Griffen play?

Start thinking post-2000 people. Footy has changed... We stink so bad because the off-fiel side has not been up to scratch. Its getting there, but I have no doubt that there are a few more roles to fill - like a specialist Speed & Agility coach. No ex-footballer is going to cut the mustard in this role.... If Dick wants the best, then he needs to Follow Eddie's lead and head to the US where the sprinters are FAST and if they can catch, they play football.

A specialist tackling/wrestling coach wouldn't go astray either.... The bloke at Storm is probably the best in Australia. There are better o/s though... Go back to South Africa and take advantage of the ordinary Rugby administration - there would be plenty of quality scraggers looking for a new start.

and so on...

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Hmmm you make a number of very good points. Essendon* have a specialist sprints coach and look at those soft tissue/hammy injuries mount up. Every game seems to bring another soft tissue injury. Now Im not saying this is because they have a specialist sprint coach and they focus on fast running but Im wondering if all this emphasis on playing at a fast tempo for as much of the game as possible is causing it. Im not sure you can play footy like that and expect to come out injury free, not in a fast collision type of game that footy is. Obviously speed is important but so is stamina and keeping injury free.

im not backing up Cordy here or anything, but i have been discussing Carlton with my physio (one of the head physios for the melbourne storm) and she said that up until this yr carlton were a joke. the players did not take anything seriously and the storm used to laugh at them. no judd, cordy, ratten and co have taken the raines, everything has changed. she rekons to build a fitness base, it takes a minimum or 3 whole preseasons, and we have had just 1!

this means that i dont expect too much fitness from the boys just yet, plus we have players under-done!

p.s. sorry if this is abit off the topic!

I don't expect things to change overnight. I'm just curious to know about what Cordy is planning to get the players to reach their full potential fitness-wise, just to put people's minds at ease about the direction we're heading.

Also, there'd be no way we'd be able to get the man himself on here. I was thinking more along the lines of cfc.com doing a feature with him. Or Mike and Dan perhaps.

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WADA medical director Dr Alan Vernec describes Essendon* FC drug case as biggest scandal in team sport the world of sport has seen. #WC2WB

#GUILTY

Not off the topic at all - and extremely good point - it does take a few pre-seasons to build up - patience my friends.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Words of wisdom, mate....