If Berrick Barnes can play 3 games in 5 days......

If Berrick Barnes can play 3 games in 5 days aren't we underestimating players fitness. Maybe we should have treated the BaBas game as a warmup played the first team and then all got on the plane. It looks like we couldn't have done any worse. It's @
and ridiculous to send an underprepared team. They haven't done their homework!

Lets get this right.

You want players to play on a Saturday, then Sunday morning board a plane at Cardiff (or coach to London) and start a jouney half way round the world, arrive jet-lagged in Australia on the Tuesday, have two day straining (not allowed to train on the Wednesday) before a match in Brisbane on Saturday?

How about not playing the Barbarians and flying everyone out earlier and playing some clube sides in Brisbane before the test.

Or stopping off in USA/Canada/Fiji and playing them on the way.

Ok LT apart from ignoring my main point didn't seem to do Hook Rees and Ryan much harm. Can't be worse than playing in a gale. Anyway we want to see the boys play don't we? The schedule was wrong but back to Berrick Barnes?

I don't feel we pressurised Barnes or for that matter any of the overworked Aussie squad members as much as we could have. In any case I didn't think Barnes had a stand-out game, he missed two kickable penalties which would have made the score much less flattering. Agreed though for someone playing a game every two or so days he didn't look bad at all.

Pocock and Genia were the real freaks for the rate they've been playing, were it not for those two I'm not sure we would have lost. They obviously both have outstanding stamina and are exceptional athletes. We ought to play to outright nullify them rather than just tire them out and that's easier said than done, both are quite arguably number one in the world in their respective positions.

But anything's possible, to be the best you have to beat the best and to win in Melbourne the boys will have to play to the best of their abilities for 80 mins, plain and simple.

Well you have to consider the fact that players who play all three matches will most likely do light training at best during their non match days.

So playing 3 matches with little training and maximum recovery time, massages, physio's etc is possible.

biltongbek wrote:Well you have to consider the fact that players who play all three matches will most likely do light training at best during their non match days.

So playing 3 matches with little training and maximum recovery time, massages, physio's etc is possible.

Indeed, its not as if they'll get back into the gym setting new personal bests on squats or even taking part in contact training

If Berrick was Samoan then there'd be claims of the schedule being unfair to tier 2 sides

Maybe the secret is less training and more game time?

Dontheman wrote:If Berrick Barnes can play 3 games in 5 days aren't we underestimating players fitness. Maybe we should have treated the BaBas game as a warmup played the first team and then all got on the plane. It looks like we couldn't have done any worse. It's @
and ridiculous to send an underprepared team. They haven't done their homework!

he was sh1t though

For last years ITM cup competition, to squeeze it in before the world cup, the teams played twice a week for the whole competition.
It meant a lot of B players getting a few runs but some like Vito pretty much played it all.
Some people said aint it great playing lots of rugby but not bothering with too much of the training nonsense.