Demons reap the rewards from aggressive training regime

Melbourne’s fitness boss believes the club’s “aggressive” training regime in the weeks off before the grand final held them in good stead win the club’s first flag in 57 years.

After winning the qualifying final and then enduring the two weeks off between the preliminary final and Saturday’s decider, the Demons had essentially played once in four weeks.

Steven May and his Demons teammates train the day before the grand final.Credit:Getty Images

That was in stark contrast to their opponents, who many people thought had built momentum from their three wins in three different states en route to the grand final.

But renowned fitness guru Darren Burgess - who is set to return home to Adelaide next season - believes it actually helped them because of how they structured training.

“Everyone spoke about our program in the last month being a disadvantage, but we actually saw it as an advantage,” he told The Age in the rooms after the game.

“We trained really hard on our two weeks off and we think it provided almost an injury protection.

The Demons won this season’s battle of attrition.Credit:AFL Photos

“What we wanted to do was prepare the boys so that, no matter what circumstance came, they were able to tolerate it and the way in which we did it was by training really aggressively.

“We just trained really, really hard. It sounds simple, but that’s what we did.”

Saturday’s extraordinary 93-point turnaround wasn’t the only recent example of the Demons over-running their opponents. They also came from 44 points down against Geelong in round 23, when a Max Gawn goal after the siren confirmed their status as minor premiers.

Unlike in so many recent seasons, Melbourne had one of the shortest injury lists in the competition for the majority of their campaign.

The ACL-stricken Adam Tomlinson was the only first-team player who was unavailable for the grand final. Jayden Hunt had successfully returned from an ankle injury and wasn’t selected, while Steven May played with a significant hamstring injury.

Burgess admitted there is always an element of luck with injury runs, but he said the Demons did alter their fitness program in the past 18 months.

“We trained slightly shorter, but all of the GPS and contact loads and all the data we look at, we actually overloaded the boys so that, in theory, the game is a bit easier,” he said.

“That’s the theory, [but] it doesn’t always work out like that.

“We tried to overload them during pre-season so that the in-season period is a little bit easier. There is some risk with that but these guys embraced it, the coaches absolutely loved it, and we were able to get to where we wanted.”

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Sam McClure is a sport reporter for The Age and winner of 'best news reporter' at the AFL Media Association awards.Connect via Twitter or email.

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