Two Coaches & a Coffee

Season 2, Episode 13

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 13

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Sipping a gin from Western Australia, I couldn't help but think of the glamor versus the reality of work travel, a theme that surfaces throughout our chat. Co-host Darren Burgess joins me, fresh from a Singaporean encounter, to dissect both the visible and behind-the-scenes intricacies of sports—ranging from player performance to the holistic methods shaping modern sports medicine. As we unpack the delicate matter of Connor Rozee's hamstring injury and the subsequent decisions made by Port Adelaide's leadership, we traverse the complexities of responsibility in professional sports and the media's unwavering gaze that often intensifies the situation.

Technology's advance into the domain of sports is ushering in an era where data is king, but who does this kingdom belong to? In this riveting session, we explore how innovations like SpeedSig are changing the game for player evaluations and contract talks, illustrated by Kevin De Bruyne's strategic use of his own metrics. We stand firm on the belief that athletes should retain ownership over their data, all while dissecting the layers of international privacy laws and advocating for a more nuanced approach to predictive analysis. The conversation promises to evolve, with untapped topics on the horizon and the unwavering spirit of our discussions extending beyond an empty gin glass. Join us next time as Darren and I continue to blend insight with a dash of humor, serving up a thoughtful conversation that's as refreshing as the gin we started with.

SpeedSig Intro

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

G'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Gin. This is a really special episode. Darren Burgess has raced off around the world. He's in Singapore at present. I'm in Western Australia, it's dinner time and I'm sitting here with a gin, not a coffee. I've had enough coffee for today. My blood has exceeded its caffeine level for today. So, Burjo, you're in the travels. How are you mate?

Darren Burgess:

You well. Yeah, let's not make this sound any more exciting than it is. It's literally one night in Singapore and I'm about to get the red eye back home. So yeah, it's literally one night.

Jason Weber:

Anyway, it's been good. Speaking at a conference, you make an interesting point. People say to me oh, how interesting is what you're doing? And I'm like, right, I sit in front of a computer 23 out of 24 hours a day drinking coffee and doing like everything. It's just work. It's still work.

Jason Weber:

I will say today, I'm going to say today I met with I'm not going to say the team, but I met with a super rugby province. I met one of the physios, a young physio, female, and she was awesome. When I say awesome, I mean in the construct of one of the most innovative young minds I think I've met in some time and I just was very impressed for a physio to think about holistically, not just about treatment and really linking in. And I do think the particular environment she worked in is quite holistic. I think their S&C and medical staff are quite close, which is great, because I do a lot of work in America where I don't see that. But I was very impressed. I was very impressed by the innovative way in which she thought she was very humble. I don't understand this, I don't understand that, but I'm keen to learn. I'm just super impressed. So it's really good. I'll say from my perspective for today, to have interacted with really cool practitioners like that, so I'm super impressed.

Jason Weber:

But we've had a good week. Man, we spoke last week. There were some people who said we were like we did the Nostradamus thing, that we talked about that hamstring injury at Captain of Port Adelaide. Now I'm going to preface this. We're going to talk about what happened, but only the outcome. We don't know any details, so this is hypothetical. So, port Adelaide, Captain Connor Ozee, the week before last weekend or, sorry, two weeks ago, he has a hamstring incident in a game. They pull him out of the game. He then has the week where everybody reports that he trained and then he played and then they pulled him out of that game. Whatever it was, was it before halftime? I think it was.

Darren Burgess:

No, it was after halftime. Just after halftime, just after halftime.

Jason Weber:

Okay.

Darren Burgess:

But he spent a lot of time on the bench.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, yeah. So he was ineffective. Combat ineffective is the term they would utilise in the military. Now I think we should examine this not from the perspective of we know anything. We don't know what happened, but let's go through the motions.

Darren Burgess:

He's had an incident. I'm on the bench five metres away while all this is going on.

Jason Weber:

Oh yeah, well, there you go. We're watching him All right, so let's play it out, berger.

Darren Burgess:

The incident happens. What did you say? Well, he obviously started and there was a lot of speculation. People probably won't understand the media scrutiny, I promise. Teams are under here in Adelaide. It's just brutal, you know that well. Teams are on, are under here in adelaide. It's just brutal, you know that well. But um, it's all like it's leading leading stories on sports bulletin back page, probably front page. Um will rosie play. Yeah, rosie will play um on wednesday night apparently. Uh, there was footage of him sprinting um and so at training. So that's fine, we're playing Thursday night. There's 55,000 people. He gets named and looks like sometime in the middle of the second quarter. He sort of pulls up a bit short and then he spends about 8 minutes or so on the bike and then comes back on, but just doesn't look like his usual dynamic self as somebody who's, you know, not watched him much. But we're on, we're on the bench going.

Darren Burgess:

I'm sure he looks right early in the third quarter by something out and um yeah and the coach what everybody should know, those who don't know the incident and I've obviously worked for the coach involved, port adelaide under Dan Hinckley. He was incredible. In the press conference he said it's my fault, my mistake. I let the player down. It was ultimately my call and I'll take responsibility. It was the wrong call. This is the coach.

Jason Weber:

But I think that's really important to talk about Berger because let's say, right, so he's had the incident and now it's not Connor anymore. It's just an incident, right, an incident. We're going to assume there wasn't much on MRI Because they would have MRI'd it 36 hours later. I will say that one of the threats you'd face you shouldn't MR super early, like guys running off the field and going to an MRI scanner is ridiculous, but anyway, so let's hope they've done it about 36, 48 hours later. Whatever They've got not much signal. There might be something. There was a definitive incident, but I would hope that immediately post-game, clinically the signs would have been low. So everyone's confidence must have been high early. You said you mentioned he sprinted through the week and there was good vision of that.

Darren Burgess:

On TV they showed him sprinting.

Jason Weber:

Okay, so that's good. My only bent on that is was he sprinting in the way that he would normally sprint, which is, like you know, I'm confirmation bias king, because I would speed stick everything, but whatever, I think right. So they've gone with the decision to go. Now here's the thing. This is a really important one for me is that, let's say, the performance staff and the medical staff have all sat around and said, look, we're pretty confident, there's a risk. Let's say we're at 70% probability of this is a good thing, 70% of success. Now the great General Colin Powell, who marched into Iraq with the, you know, ran the US military. He famously said if I've got 70% probability of outcome, good outcome, I go Right. So Ken Hinckley's made a call. Someone's got to make a call. He's the boss.

Darren Burgess:

Now he said in the press conference and I can only go on what Ken said Ken Hinckley is physically incapable of lying, right, he's one of the most honest humans I've ever come across. Ken said and Ken is physically incapable of lying, he's one of the most honest humans I've ever come across. He said I saw it with my own eyes he could sprint, he could kick, he could do everything. I saw it with my own eyes, but he used his words. But when fatigue set in, obviously he couldn't quite go. That's cool and that begs the question we'll come back to obviously he couldn't quite go.

Jason Weber:

That's cool and that begs the question we'll come back to. What are we really trying to assess? Is it one-off effort sprint or is it? How do we assess volume of repetition? But I think the fact that Ken's come out and said it's my call, that's fine. But having sat in the hot seat as you have, let's say, down the track, there's a couple of injuries and the performance staff at this team don't worry who it is. They get reviewed on the injuries and we've got to remember now the coaches called that athlete in.

Jason Weber:

Now I've sat and watched last year the wallabies unfold with what happened there. The coach makes the call. Eddie Jones famously says it was my training plan, my players blew up, he got fired, but I'm sure he walked away with a lot of money. But Australian rugby is in disarray. So that ultimate ownership, because I've been in the situation where I got hauled over the coals and I got pulled out publicly, publicly for injuries when I was the one on the sideline saying don't play that guy, don't play him, and he gets played and gets injured. Yet that gets pulled against you.

Darren Burgess:

So I, you don't know what happened. No, no.

Jason Weber:

But I think we should say Taking the responsibility and oh, I respect Ken Hinkley. I think he came straight out and said it. Yeah, but I do wonder what other signals were there. And that's the art right rather than the science.

Darren Burgess:

I guess you've got a five or six-day turnaround from when the injury happened. I think there's a six-day turnaround for them. So you can't really assess the impact of fatigue, you can't really bring on enough fatigue, too much fatigue, 100%.

Darren Burgess:

Like. You're certainly not going to put them through a full game of AFL, so it's a tricky one. What can you assess in that time? You probably can only assess function and probably all their objective markers, probably all their visual markers. They all came up drunk, so I've got full faith in that medical and performance team. I'm a bit biased.

Jason Weber:

No, I agree, I think it's just an interesting one.

Darren Burgess:

In that situation Would you say there is some signal, therefore we're taking them out, or it's a massive game, massive play on Mate. You've got to say, with the signals that they would have been getting, or we're taking them out, or it's a massive game, massive playoff.

Jason Weber:

You've got to say, with the signals that they would have been getting, which is GPS, they've done the scans, they would have done everything. Probably an oddball.

Darren Burgess:

They would have done everything isometric.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, I'm not questioning Port Adelaide's approach. No, not at all, and I respect Ken Hinckley implicitly for what he did. My question? There's two questions. One is as a scientist, can I figure out another signal? That's the speed sync thing. But that aside, I'm going to throw another hand grenade and that is that I've been discussing with a national sporting body around about how things should grow and work.

Jason Weber:

I think there's a real case for, as a profession, I would argue as a professional that we should keep a diary on this. So let's say you're the high-performance manager of a team and this incident like we've just described has happened. You should keep a record of what was said and what you recommended because ultimately there are points in time that come where you are questioned and it's not our decision, our role as whatever you want to call it high performance manager, sports science manager, whatever is to advise. We don't technically make a decision. The coach makes a decision. In the Ken Hinkley case, he has put his hand up and said I made the decision to go. I'm all for that right, but we can't then I would not. I would hate to see that staff get hauled over the coals in six months' time for an injury, ravaged, situation where the captain had been destroyed and whatever Like. I just think there has to be accountability.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, what we're trying to do and we'll move on to the next one. But in that situation it's a perfect. It's a perfect time and over. I guess someone who leads a department I'm going right. What was our process? Who was our line of communication? Who made the decision? If it was, you know, in that sort of situation it's absolutely the coach who makes the call. And what sort of leadership did he show after? It's pretty bloody good, oh excellent.

Jason Weber:

What sort of leadership?

Darren Burgess:

did I show during the process? Did we do everything? If you came in, if you, jason Webber, came into the club for those six days, as someone who's not emotionally invested, who couldn't care whether it was a showdown or whether it was a game against the last place team, were the processes good and I'd be really confident in the case they were, and that's all I'd be worried about Agree Almost take care of, about Agree, and then the athlete would almost take care of itself, agree.

Jason Weber:

And what I would counsel and I can only do this from I have this idea always of I'll walk in the shoes. If I was in the shoes there, if I went back into sport in that capacity, I would keep a documented journal of what I recommended. Okay, because having gone up against boards before who have brought rubbish, I would say I would keep a documented journal, official, including email trails, of what you recommended. Now, in that case, everybody might have been on the same page Great. But there are going to be times when you say I don't think that guy should go. Coach says it's my call Great. But we got that on record because I know, not just myself, I can name other people and there are guys you know, darren, we look at the level of PSG and clubs like that that have been high-level staff performance. Staff have been hauled over for injuries that aren't their fault.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, it's a really delicate one and it's um.

Jason Weber:

I don't think there's any any great solution to it, because ultimately protecting back then in the boat.

Darren Burgess:

If management decide that you're the reason, then it doesn't matter what you put it wrong because, you're the reason.

Darren Burgess:

It's just you. Just you can help yourself on the way out. But I've got a question for you. I am speaking at this speculative conference today, which was a BeefPro Asia conference, and my discussion today, as part of my work with BeefPro, is to talk about technology and sport and who controls the data. I mentioned SpeedSig as one of the emerging technologies that are coming up in the game. I'll give you an example.

Darren Burgess:

At previous clubs that I've been involved with, where I've been in charge of the analysis department, we have used information to assess whether a player's contract is worth renewing, and what you do is you have a look at their physical point of view, from a tactical point of view, you have a look at their information, you model that against similar players in similar age groups with similar injury history and you have a look at how they did. And then you um try and model uh exactly what the decline or in fact, the non-decline of all of those factors, both technical and um physical, um speed c would be part of that suite, along with a whole range of different testing services. You put them all in various um uh statistical tools and you come up with a um I guess an algorithm that is used to predict fucking too long on that already. That's what I've been. Uh, what?

Darren Burgess:

What preparing for this presentation made me question is if the information coming into your system is crap. If you're relying too much on gps that we know is not quite accurate, if you're allowing too much on um I don't know poorly collected wellness data, or you know poorly collected sleep data? Um with trackers that are not particularly you know. Whatever it might be using the central magazine to predict a player's future? Um? A? That's dangerous. B? Um. Who owns the information? Who owns it? So can?

Darren Burgess:

you, there's a great, great story before I finish, with kevin de bruno, one of the best players in the world, who wanted to contract renegotiations with manchester city with his own data that he collected from Opta. And he went and got that himself and his management company went and got that himself and said no, no, no, don't you tell me about my goals and assists. Here are my expected goals and assists. I can't help it if the striker won't put them away. I'm doing all the work. Now you could argue that Gidon is one of their players, so of course he's going to get a pretty good contract, but it was a great discussion today on who owns the data and we've got to be careful how these players' careers are under jeopardy.

Jason Weber:

Great, great stuff mate, no mate, magnificent, really quickly. For anybody who's not familiar with football soccer data expected goals is the probability of score based on getting the ball into a goal-scoring position, so it's a highly valuable statistic in football slash soccer man. I spent 18 months working in the University of Western Australia Law School doing a paper on data privacy and you were a part of one of those presentations and there's no question in my mind, both as the academic who pursued that work but now as a business that deals in data. My opinion is the data is the players 100%. It has to be, it has to be, it has to be.

Jason Weber:

There are rules internationally, particularly the GDPR in Europe. In America, there's about 52 different rules. America is not one country, it's like 52 little countries all banded together but they all have data privacy laws. But the push is towards the athlete owns the data. Now, my entire data system is built on, predicated on, ensuring that that athlete's data is his. I think if an athlete moves from one environment they move from the Adelaide Crows to Port Adelaide their data goes with them, everything. Now, that doesn't happen everywhere, but there's no question and I think that the example you used of the player getting his own data and having it analysed. I think that's going to happen. I think that's the future man, it should be.

Darren Burgess:

That's smart.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, I think it's really good.

Darren Burgess:

You've got to analyse.

Jason Weber:

And you make a great point about. Well, how do we trust the signal coming in? What do we think about GPS? It's a great argument. It's what we've got at the moment, but is what we've got really as good? Can we predict future outcomes? I don't know.

Darren Burgess:

You present error ranges, then you're okay. I think, as long as you know, it's like the old days of taking skin color scores and people are saying you've gone from 51 to 58, they're very much like good stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you project error ranges, which is what I've always done, if you project error ranges, which is what I've always done, and the error range is the CV percentage of the particular tool that I'm using. So there's plenty of published data on GFS that show what the coefficient variation is. So, as long as you're predicting, as long as you're using a range when you're predicting, it's just a little bit of a. If you give me food for thought on the red eye, I'll play on the sleep Before you go to sleep.

Jason Weber:

Then let's have a quick shot. I'll have a quick shot over the bow of sports science. Right is that? I think everything you said was spot on, absolutely spot on. But I think the days of sports scientists being the download GPS, put it into Excel is rubbish. I think sports science really has to push, and I know there are people pushing. There's no question but the ability to model data and understand how you model data and to bring out the ranges. Within that, you know there's all manner of techniques and sometimes, sometimes, bullshit baffles brains. You've got to be careful.

Darren Burgess:

People can overfit models, so I think there's a One more before we go, because I know this is a bugbear. I've just seen you for those listening. I've seen Jason just down at the other, quickly. So for the last four minutes. Nfl started today. This is right in your wheelhouse or this week. Sorry, a lot of the training started this week. Have there been any Achilles yet, and when can I start chalking them up and when are we going to talk about them again?

Jason Weber:

Mate, look, I do have my toe in the NFL pond. There's a fair bit of discussion. There's been a lot of discussion around the place. I had the privilege of talking to a great practitioner in Australia, Professor Craig Purdom, yesterday for two hours Magnificent.

Darren Burgess:

One of the best.

Jason Weber:

Absolute gentleman of science and sport in Australia, absolute tendon specialist and the most humble man. But there is unquestionably in his the way he expressed to me and some of the radiologists I've spoken to recently there's no doubt there's got to be. His thought was there's got to be some pathological indicator underneath. You can't have tendons just exploding for no reason. So I don't think we have a definitive answer by any stretch, but I think, again we come back to that what signals can we define? And I think anybody that I've worked with in the NFL I'm certainly saying like we've got to start looking and if there's signal like and the signal might be the player I'm waking up with morning stiffness, not anywhere else but in your Achilles. You get up and the foot's stiff, stiff and it takes time to warm up Straight away, that has to be actioned and you need to be looking at that and your predictive model start to build from there. To be honest, because there's got to be a pathology.

Jason Weber:

The tendons don't just explode for no reason. I think there's the case where there are radical overloads, like there's one picture last year of a player got compressed. A guy landed on his shoulders and compressed his ankle that hard that you go. Well, okay, that's external load. But I think people jumping on the sideline in the Super Bowl I can't, there's got to be a pathology under that. So everybody's looking, everybody's looking at the moment. But let's fold that page over and we'll dog ear it and we'll come back to that one, darren, because you can't chalk them up yet. But I think people are going to be looking.

Darren Burgess:

Forward to having the conversation. Matt, I have a plan to catch. People are going to be looking, so I look forward to having the conversation.

Jason Weber:

mate, I have a plane to catch. We draw to a conclusion our Singapore enterprise. I'm out of gin and it's time for me to go. It's been a pleasure, as always. As always, Darren.

Darren Burgess:

Thanks very much.