Tigers Prehab Plan Keeps Premiership Players On Pitch

Sun Herald

Sunday March 5, 2006

By WILL SWANTON

STINKING, rotten injuries wreck everything. Exhibit A: Newcastle last year. Knights first-graders missed 194 games between them and the club got the wooden spoon. Wests Tigers had only 53 injury-related absences and won the premiership.

St George Illawarra are going to extravagant lengths to keep their blokes on the park. They have an army of support staff - including masseurs, physiotherapists and doctors - working on injury prevention.

Penrith have programs in place, but coach John Lang says there's only so much you can do.

Tigers coach Tim Sheens has said the team's dream run with injuries was no fluke. The Tigers' "prehabilitation" course is a major, if unheralded, part of their title defence.

"Some say it's luck - there's an element ot it, of course - but management has a lot to do with it as well," Sheens said.

"At the start of the season our doctor does a complete screening of every player to ascertain areas of possible problems. Last year we only used 26 players, which is a very, very good season. Thirty-plus is probably an average season.

"When a knee explodes or a shoulder goes, there's not much you can do about it, but we do what we call prehabilitation to lessen the chances of injuries.

"It's like having a Rolls-Royce. If you don't get it serviced and don't regularly look after it, it'll go downhill pretty fast. We invest over $3 million in our players so we've got to invest money in not just getting them fit, but trying to get as many hours out of them on the field as you can."

The Tigers are big on core stability. There's endless work on strengthening ankles and knees, the lower back, which helps with groin and hamstring problems, minor muscles groups that used to be overlooked. Shoulders are made flexible as well as strong so there's some give in a collision.

"It's not only about the hours you get out of your blokes on the field, it's also about what they can produce," Sheens said. "You can have a team on the field that looks like your best team, but if they're only firing out of their six cylinders, that's a big issue.

"You need your key people as close to 100 per cent as possible. We had that last year. Penrith did it in 2003. Back in 1989, I did the same thing with Canberra."

It's crucial for clubs to avoid injuries because the salary cap prevents them from having the depth of back-up players they used to. Replacements from outside the first-choice square are rarely near the same quality as the player they've replaced.

Lang said: "I really do think luck plays a big part. In 2003, everybody wanted to look at us and see what we were doing, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. We just got a bit of luck."

© 2006 Sun Herald

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