Tara Murray
When Werribee players run out on the field each weekend in the Victorian Football League, it’s the end result of hours of hard work.
A group of staff work each day behind the scenes, making sure the players are best prepared to do what they do best.
Mark Micallef is the man who oversees the high performance department at Werribee. Including players, he has 110 people reporting to him.
“The staff put in as much as the players,” he said.
“People see the on field perspective, but they don’t see the team behind the scenes that run a successful high performance program.
“There’s a number of different elements to the high performance team. There’s the coaching department that consists of eight to nine coaches.
“There is the analytics department who review the games and look at the coming week. There’s the welfare department with our welfare manager Damien Frankling who has been around for many years.
“There’s a club chaplain and a psychologist. They all do a fantastic job.”
A normal week for Werribee starts on Monday, with the first of three training sessions for the week.
Micallef said much of this session was about looking at what had happened on the weekend.
“We review things on a Monday and Tuesday,” he said.
“On a Monday every game the coaching group goes through the match
and puts footage into our online platform, Hudl, for vision reviews.
“The players then have a quick chat with the coaches. [Coach] Michael Barlow will go through the trade mark of the week and overall view with the players too.
“The development coaches will work with those who played at local level. Premier data allows us to watch all the games and edit them.”
While Mondays are a lot about reviewing things, Tuesdays are the main session.
Thursdays are a lighter session with the focus on the week ahead.
Micallef said the hardest part for the club is the time factor. While many of their opponents are made up of a majority of full time athletes, Werribee’s players are combining work and education as well.
“We have two to three hours every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday night and then game day,” he said.
“We’ve got some really good people that put the club above everything else.”
Micallef said his role consisted of about 70 per cent planning to ensure they can get the best out of the playing group.
While there is the normal weekly, Micallef said that can change depending on what day the game is and how long the breaks are between matches.
He said they try to keep the Tuesday and Thursday sessions the same each week due to the players having a life outside of football.
Recovery is one element that varies from week to week, player to player.
“We have the geographic challenge, with a lot of players having to travel quite far,” he said.
“For the players it’s 44 kilometres one way on average to get to the club.
“Sometimes we do satellite sessions, with a Melbourne group and Geelong group. Sometimes it’s on Zoom or sometimes we get them into the club.”
Werribee was due to face Richmond on Wednesday, June 8 in its round 12 match.
