Eastern Football Netball League: Fairpark coach Sean Stanton sets up training by video during footy’s long lay-off
With footy sidelined until at least June, a Ferntree Gully coach has adopted a novel approach to keeping his boys fit, training by social media. WATCH HIS VIDEO CHALLENGE.
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Fairpark premiership coach Sean Stanton has issued a fitness challenge to his group following a ban on club training and the postponement of the EFNL season until May 31.
Speaking via a video message to the players’ Facebook group ahead of the club’s Division 3 campaign, Stanton laid down the gauntlet to his charges.
“We’re basically going to put some competitions in place where the group breaks up into teams and have some competitions around keeping fit,” Stanton said.
“As a club, we understand we’re not able to catch up as a group at the moment given the extreme circumstances we are facing, but we wanted to come up with an option that would keep our playing group engaged and keep them motivated to work on their fitness and general health.
“We know that social isolation can impact mental health, so we just wanted to have a bit of fun with this, while ensuring we keep the mateship present, which has always been the strength of the club.
“All we can do now is make sure we’re in the best shape we can possibly be in.”
Stanton said the competitions will entail groups of six or seven players headed up by an elected leader, with each week’s results to be monitored by the coaching group.
“We’re going to have a leaderboard on which group’s doing what each week,” he said.
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“We want each person in the group to do say two or three things a week – they need to post that on the (players’ group Facebook) page so we’ll monitor and track it.
“Whether we do it per session or whether it is per kilometres … we’re sort of working through that at the moment.
“In the video message I sent to the playing group, it was really around I can’t be there to monitor it, it needs to be driven by you guys, you need to be accountable for it.
“If they do the work, they’ll give themselves every chance to have a good year when they come back.”