Damien Austin began his role as the Club’s new High Performance Manager last week and is looking forward to the challenge of a new pre-season.
Austin comes to the Lions from the Sydney Swans, having worked as a part of that club's high performance team for four seasons. Speaking about his immediate plans for the role, Austin reflected that,
“Building processes that the players can get through injury free (in) a 23 round season is going to be a big one for the Brisbane Lions this year.”
The Lions’ junior players (first to fifth years) will return on November 9, while the older group will start on November 23.
“The program won’t change between the two,” Austin said.
“The older group should just be a bit more resilient and be able to come to the program a bit more adjusted. Hopefully they’re fitter too (so) that they can go straight into a more intensive training load than the younger guys will initially start with.”
“Training in the off-season will be an acclimatisation to the skill levels, that will progress over a period of time in duration,” Austin said.
“Running will be quite high at the start of the pre-season but as that diminishes the skill components increase as well.
“They’ll have a bit of a break heading into the NAB Challenge and then round one we’ll hopefully hit that running.”
The 2016 AFL Fixtures were released on Thursday and the Lions will open the season with the longest road trip in the AFL, taking on grand finalists West Coast in Perth in Round One.
“It puts some challenges to the recovery program with the fixtures and the travel that we have,” Austin said.
“As soon as the game finishes we’ll get straight into recovery. The next couple of days are based on recovery and going into a game keeping the schedule quite fixed.”
Austin began his role following major damage in the gym from a burst water pipe. The gym is now undergoing refurbishment ahead of the players’ return from their break.
“It’s a bit of a shock to see it at the moment.
“We still have a couple of weeks to get that sorted. We’re all taking the glass half full approach that it’s a good chance to revamp the gym (in the way that) we want.”
