Jason Weber (00:13)
Going welcome to two coffees and a coach. I'll go backwards again. It's very late on a Friday afternoon. It's been a big week. Darren Burgess has made it all the way from Italy. How are you mate?
Darren (00:17)
.
Good man, how you going?
Jason Weber (00:29)
It's good, it's been solid. Now we're gonna roll straight into it because we don't have the time, Euro language lessons coming up. We're gonna go out with, like I think part of what we do in this floor is trying to help our industry, right? Am I right?
Darren (00:47)
we're not certain we're getting paid to do it, so yeah.
Jason Weber (00:49)
No, we're not. We're not. We're not. And if we did get paid up, don't reckon we'd be paid very much, but it's, it's okay. We try anyway. Now I'm just going to throw one out there for our, let's go with early career practitioners. I've interviewed a couple of people this week, which originally because of the way the resumes were written and all the rest of it, cover letters, I didn't hold out a lot of hope.
to be honest, but I have been really pleasantly surprised, like really surprised, in fact, stoked with a couple of the people I interviewed. To that end, my question is, Virgil, I've been lucky enough in this series of interviews to interview the way I want. So you go in the in the boardroom.
And they do the HR questions and I'm like, right, we're going to the gym. We just go to the gym and walk around and talk. And we do some stuff like we talk about running. We talk about this, that in the domain I'm in, you know, we're talking about power sports. People move a bit. They demonstrate. They show me a bit. showed them it, but you really get to know where they're at and what they're thinking. And in fact, even today, we're having discussed some problems with one of the, one of the folks started thinking through. was really good to see.
some problem solving right down there. You've been around, how does an applicant get their resume reading a bit better? Now the two people, I don't know, mate. So the two people I interviewed, and they're fundamentally for S &C jobs, both of them, both of them have got elite experience in Olympic lifting and explosive sport. Let's go athletics.
Darren (02:20)
Eddie put that in your razor blade. Eddie put that on there.
Jason Weber (02:39)
In my opinion, that's experience you can't buy. that's, you've got to tell people that because when you start digging into the nature of how we program, when you program like particularly, cause I work in Olympic sports now, you got somebody who's trained for Olympic power sports. And when you look at things like sprint cycling, which is sprint cycling is a very straight equation.
Darren (02:48)
If.
Jason Weber (03:07)
lower limb cross-sectional area relates directly to power on the pedal and you go. Simple as that. How you put it together, they're important skills. So how do we frame our resume to make it convey what we've got? It's half.
Darren (03:27)
It's a question. So there's two aspects to this, or probably more than two, but two that come to mind immediately. Certainly, reckon we spoke about this maybe a year ago. Clubs are now using AI to sort through resumes. Right. So you certainly to address the essential criteria first in order to get a look through the door. if, I imagine if you've anti-sabotage for a job.
Jason Weber (03:40)
Yeah, okay.
Darren (03:51)
we might get a thousand applicants. ⁓ No, last year when the Crows advertised for a job, we got maybe 150 and that was sifting through individual resumes. We didn't use AI. But certainly I know clubs over here do. So you have to address the essential and desired criteria first to get through the door. But then how can you make yours stand out and
Jason Weber (03:54)
We didn't get a thousand.
Darren (04:17)
suggest that what I think you ought to do is something like, so this person might have had an experience, you said Olympic lifting, explosive sports. Let's say they're working with the Australian bobsled team because winter Olympics are coming up. I think four or five points, well it's just up the road actually here in Milan, four or five points underneath that.
Jason Weber (04:30)
Yep. Got a couple athletes in that. We're good.
My boys will be there.
Darren (04:43)
would say Olympic lifting, Olympic lift programming, demonstrate, it might be, that's how you do it. You just put four or five points under your experience to say, is what it involved.
Jason Weber (04:57)
Yeah, I agree. And I think the cover letter. So when you go to the AI thing, so I was writing some cover letters this week for my daughters, but nothing to do with sperm conditioning. But again, an early career practitioner in medical trying to get a job. And we did the same thing, but I focused in the cover letter to ensure we talked about the specific skills that she carried in. Yes, addressing the criteria, but I agree, mate. Like I think
And I think people got up like, like if you put down Excel skills, like I'm going to go, I'm going to write up. But if you're a sprinter, if you played elite basketball, if you did like that athletic experience in a strength and conditioning career, I personally think where I can tell me I'm wrong. I think it's invaluable.
Darren (05:49)
You reckon you.
Jason Weber (05:54)
Invaluable. One of the greats, Peter Birch. I'm going to throw his name out there because I love him. He's got three gongs from Richmond. He probably had a couple of gongs as to I see at Hawthorne and he'll probably end up, he's back at Hawthorne now. They're on the up again anyway. But I hired him when he had no qualification. Did you know what his qualification was?
Darren (06:00)
Hiya. Good man.
Jason Weber (06:22)
elite Commonwealth games level long jumper. And mate, he was brilliant and what he brought and that was when I was in Australian rugby, but the quality he brought in, now he went and studied, he's got a master's degree now, he caught up. But he brought this brilliant calibre of technicality that, mate I had some good people working with me at the time, you know, some really good people, Johnny Pryor and
Darren (06:26)
Mmm, this is very good.
Jason Weber (06:50)
Dean Benton, as crazy as Dean Benton is, he's an awesome practitioner. know, Virgil brought another level. So that's been my benchmark for years. I've got an athlete who's got incredible insight. They're committed to a coaching career. They've already done a couple of things. Maybe they're not at the level you need them yet on the academic side or whatever, the ASCA side or...
But mate, I reckon looking for talent like that is a thing.
Darren (07:19)
Yeah, I think there's no doubt that experience at the verge level is massive. So I think that's a really important thing to put on your CV. I think those not necessarily softer skills, because if you put excellent with Microsoft Excel or something like that, you want to be able to demonstrate that.
Jason Weber (07:44)
You
Darren (07:46)
So you want to be able to show, yeah, actually detail it. if you Python coding, I'm probably going to ask you to do some coding as part of the weeding out process.
Jason Weber (07:48)
You'd want to be able to recreate Excel for mine in this day and age.
Yeah.
All right. Let's can
I throw one there real quick, which I'm not the only like personally in my resume, like I've got my academic, so I've got a link to where my publications are. But I also have a link to a server that has apps that I've built and things that I've built on there. know somebody else who's currently in the AFL industry. He's a really sharp practitioner. does the same thing. And he should do because the stuff that he builds, the
the IP that resides in those applications and statistical methodology behind it, I think is important. So if you're trying to demonstrate an ability, yeah, I reckon deliver all that stuff, right? For sure. it's not being, I don't think the competition around, like if you go into Juventus for a job, competition's heavy, a thousand resumes. I think you want to let them know what you got. Now,
If you sound like a turkey because you can use word and Excel and you can use emails, well, you're going to get spat out. But if you can program in R and you're a sports scientist and hey, I understand how to use PCA and multi-dimensional reductions and all that stuff, like that's what we're looking for. But their skills.
Darren (09:22)
Yeah,
so you've got to outline that on your CV and then somehow, or not somehow, and then make sure you can back that up for sure. So yeah, I agree. I'd include more rather than less and leave it for the person asking to filter that.
Jason Weber (09:26)
5%.
I think backing up demos for sure.
Absolutely. Especially if it's AI, God forbid. Mate, tell me, you look exhausted at the moment on backing that is because you've had 16 days of non-stop football fanatical fun. Talk to me.
Darren (09:43)
Especially if it's AI.
of the
Well,
obviously there's a little bit, I know the Australian Open's going on, I couldn't tell you who's playing because over here they're obviously sinner obsessed, so I know that sinner's still going and I just don't watch the local news or anything like that because I can't understand it. But with the Australian Open going on and you're playing every second day and in
Jason Weber (10:06)
And it's still there.
Darren (10:18)
In days off, they are training every day. And I what the tennis schedule looks like. Certainly the European football schedule, we have just done a number of days on the bounce, as you suggested, where staff and players have been in every day. And I I would imagine right about now, what are we at late January? The AFL boys have had the
Jason Weber (10:21)
Yeah.
Darren (10:42)
have come back on the eighth or ninth of January and then had four compulsory days off.
Jason Weber (10:42)
I just had it.
and they just had four days off last weekend. And most went last weekend.
I think there's more this weekend.
Darren (10:52)
Yeah, I can tell from some of the Instagram profile of the players that I follow that they're not sweating it out in training. The contrast is unbelievable, right? And I imagine there'll be media around in Australia if there's an injury or two in the next few weeks that say that they're not training hard It's just so different. And I don't know who's doing it right. But I've got players here who've been on their legs
Jason Weber (11:14)
time.
Darren (11:18)
10, 11, 12 days in a row. And that's not unusual for cyclists, for runners, for rowers, for ⁓ tennis players, for individual sport, but AFL and to a lesser extent, say basketball guys are on their legs and girls are on their legs every day. So who's got it right?
Jason Weber (11:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's maybe, maybe there's cultural element to it. In the US, the MLS, so Major League Soccer is gearing up and most teams at the moment are either on a pre-season camp or just returned from and have started playing some games. And I'm getting stories from multiple different teams of, we went in and they went straight to camp and then boom, boom, boom, second week, injury, injury, injury.
So what, like I'm not judging anybody. I don't, have no idea, again, you go back to they finished the season back in, think they late November, maybe October. What we guys doing, it seems like there's been this big drop off and then they come back to camp and wonder why they get gassed. And that's, we know that happens. know, college football, go back to spring football soon and that'll be, know, you get all the freshies in and.
Darren (12:30)
Yeah,
Jason Weber (12:31)
I get beaten up.
Darren (12:32)
you go from this time off to I'm planning our preseason at the moment with the commercial guys in terms of where we're going and what it looks like and how many games and ⁓ and we'll do. Well, you can't say that, Jason. We are in the process of planning at the moment. ⁓ So exactly. So we will have a six week preseason. And we will do.
Jason Weber (12:40)
Oh, you said you were coming to Perth. No, I know, I know. I said you. I said you, mate, not the whole team. You're coming for a beer.
Darren (12:59)
We'll probably have in that six weeks, or four full days off. That's The rest of it will be, will be training and on those days off will be travel days and like that to Asia and hopefully Australia. it's, it's just so contrast, so contrasted with what the AFL are setting up with their players association rules. And I've long been an advocate of saying that, give them more time off.
Jason Weber (13:04)
Yeah, right.
Darren (13:26)
the season finishes and then have more consistent training. Yeah, because three weeks off for Christmas and then four days off, it's just not done anywhere else in the world. I don't think it's doing the players any favors at all.
Jason Weber (13:30)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've spoken to a number of, uh, whatever you want to call it high performance managers, which I might come back to that time in a moment, but let's call it that for the moment. Um, couple of those guys over this past week in a bit in the AFL and they're, they're echoing the exact same thoughts that. Gee, you know, like we look in a bit skinny, like we just need consistency to come back and guys that like teams are trying different strategies. You know, there's some of them are pushing.
We had a public holiday in Australia last week. so do you wrap the days around that and all of those things? But most people are of the opinion now that the consistency is insufficient.
Darren (14:17)
Well, the thing is, I'm all.
The danger of doing it the other way, and we've only got about five minutes left and I want to get onto your high performance program, but you're Jason Webber, AFL athlete, and you get from, say, September until after Christmas off. You come back January and that gives you 10 weeks of straight training to get ready for the season, which is more than enough.
Jason Weber (14:28)
Huh.
Yeah.
Darren (14:48)
The people are going to say, yeah, but from September till Christmas, that's three months, four months. That's blah, blah, blah. Okay. You come back in January and you'll know good. You will get found out in that 10 weeks and eventually your career is over. Right. So you'll get find out. It's a natural selection. If you don't want to work from September, October, November, December, four months, you can hire a personal trainer. can do all those things. No problem. If you don't want to work, you'll get found out.
Jason Weber (15:13)
I made on that point.
Laura, it's on that point. And this is for you to tell me, I'm asking a genuine question here. In AFL in Australia, there is less total talent, I would imagine, than in football. So Juventus would have, let's say you carry, I'm just making a number up. You carry a squad of 30 guys, but let's say you've got 10 that are like elite at the top end of the bracket.
Now, if one of those 10 came back and they weren't at the level required, you'd be all sorts of contractual things, but you could in theory get rid of them and get another one at that level, buy them in. Whereas AFL, there's like nowhere else to go. Like you can have that elite guy that, and I could name names of people I've seen do exactly this. Yeah, they're elite. They're at the top end of the game. They don't do stuff. And then they come back and then suddenly.
they get injured and staff have their names splashed across the media. Yeah, but then they don't get found out and they still get paid and everybody else gets blamed because of their injury. Eventually, well, yeah, they must still make it to retirement.
Darren (16:10)
So you get panned out. get exactly.
Yeah, eventually. Yeah, eventually it's going to come,
especially in a physical sport like AFL, it's going to come back to haunch you. But I agree there would need to be some understanding that in these three, four months, it's a player dominated, not me, Darren Bird, as high performance manager of the AFL, sending out programs every second day.
Jason Weber (16:35)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Yeah.
Darren (16:48)
to 90 % of players who won't do I think the system needs to be reviewed a little bit because not actually doing the players any service and it's certainly not doing the clubs any Right, you've got about three minutes for a high performance manager and.
Jason Weber (16:58)
didn't show us, nah.
Mate, three minutes, real
quick, real quick. This is just in the manclature thing, mate, which has got me weirded out because I'm reading Reggie Mays at the moment. What's your job title? What's your job right now? What is your job title?
Darren (17:15)
Director of Performance is the actual title.
Jason Weber (17:17)
Director of
performance, which is actually quite common in football in the world football, right? Which I quite like, I myself and just lead strength and condition coach. That's it. I'm getting a bit, I don't know, concerned or. Who's it called about why we've got high performance managers of waffle female Academy teams. Like we've got the high performance manager.
everybody's now now everybody's called HPM. I'm like it seems a bit over.
Darren (17:45)
I think it goes to a, yeah. Well, I mean, look, from a technical point of view, we're not here to judge what is high performance and what isn't. But if within an organization, you are in charge of the performance within that organization, no matter how big or and your goal is to maximize that performance, then technically you could be called a high performance manager.
Jason Weber (17:57)
Nah.
Technically you could, but you'd have
to have oversight on medical, on psych, on everything. And that's not the case. That's not what I'm saying. Yeah, I know.
Darren (18:16)
I think so. Yeah. Okay. That's a different question. Yeah. That's a different question.
If you don't have oversight over the lot, then yeah. Yeah. Then maybe it should change to physical performance manager. Maybe it should change Liverpool. I recall my title was something like head of strength and conditioning or head sports science and conditioning or something like that. So maybe that's a more appropriate because I didn't have, I wasn't
Jason Weber (18:22)
But that's what people are being called now.
Just simplify.
Darren (18:43)
Over the medical. Yeah. Well, I think also in the last minute, the amount of time that people, young and old, spend on trying to determine what their title might be is extraordinary. Just do the job. Nobody, but nobody looks at titles when they're hiring people. Nobody. Not CEOs, not...
Jason Weber (18:55)
Nah.
Well, except
it would appear in the US where I found another guy this week who is two years out of university and he is the director of sports science at an NFL club. And I'm like, WTF.
Darren (19:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that he might be called the director of sports science and we can argue whether that was a good appointment or bad appointment with two years if he is looking for another job, right, and a recruiter sees director of sports no recruiting company that I know of are silly enough to go, this a director. No, he's been...
Jason Weber (19:22)
But yeah.
I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering.
Yeah.
I know.
Darren (19:46)
leading the sports science delivery of a, yeah, yeah, he's not a director. He's been leading the Yeah. so then to go from there to director of performance at, the Houston Rockets. No, you're not going to make that jump because your capabilities are within GPS. That's it. So you can call yourself whatever you want, but people know what you're doing. Yeah.
Jason Weber (19:48)
He's getting stalked up massively. Actually, he was running GPS. That's what he was doing.
I know I'm just looking at the semantics of the whole thing. I'm going to say it because
there's guys in the US at the moment who are unbelievable practitioners who are getting losing their jobs because of what head coach is doing because there's so much head coach goes all of staff go and just seeing some really great practitioners really like getting snapped for no reason. I just find that
Darren (20:25)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Weber (20:33)
Abhorrent. It is one of the more imbalanced components of our industry. Listen, my friend, I know you need to go. You've got things to do and people to see. You have a great week and I will see you on the other side. You're always good to chat, mate. I'll see you in Perth when you bring your Ventus.
Darren (20:37)
It certainly has got to go.
chat mate, we'll see you next week. mate.
