Burnout may be all in the mindset

TERRY MADDAFORD takes a look at the rigours of long seasons in a variety of collision sports.

The almighty television dollar, intense training sessions, a longer and more demanding schedule and emphasis on defence are seen by experts as contributing factors to the "burnout" of New Zealand's top rugby players.

Top basketball coach Tab Baldwin agrees that rugby and other "collision" sports have a legitimate gripe.

Baldwin, a long-time friend of All Black great Jeff Wilson, said he was amazed at the demands on top players.

"I have seen guys such as Josh Kronfeld on the day after a match," Baldwin said. "He, like other rugby, rugby league and gridiron players, was beat to death.

"I have no idea how rugby players can get themselves back up to play again the following Saturday. To expect them to play 10 months of the year as they are now doing is ludicrous.

"This mental burnout is a byproduct of the hammering they take week-in, week-out. You should love your sport, but surely there comes a time when it is right to say enough is enough.

"You can't compare my sport or others, like baseball, where they might play more times in a year but with nowhere near the same intensity," said Baldwin.

"Sports such as basketball and soccer are nothing like the collision sports.

"My guys might be nursing an odd bruise or two on Sunday, but come Monday they are ready to play again."

The American NBA hosts 82 regular season games, with a maximum of 108 if a team are stretched in going all the way in the playoffs.

Ice hockey has about the same number of games, but with only six players in action at one time, and with a 20-player roster, playing time is well-spread.

"Even the demands in NFL [gridiron] are nowhere near as great as we expect from rugby players here," Baldwin said. "They play just once a week in a season which barely runs 18 weeks."

Those franchises have a 54-player roster which, when compared with the 26 allowed in the Super 12 or National Provincial Championship, makes sense.

"At some stage, the rugby players must take a step back and consider what they are subjecting themselves to in order for someone to make a heap of money," Baldwin said.

With such importance placed on winning in rugby's so-called "professional era," and with it the need to find the money to keep it afloat, training has become very physical, with a heavy emphasis on defence.

Surely, there comes a time when coaches must back off.

Take, as an example, the battering prop forwards take in hits with their opposites in a game or the scrum machine at practice.

No surprise that so few of rugby's hard men play beyond the age of 30.

John Hart, often unfairly maligned in his time as All Black coach, made a stand when he insisted on taking 36 players to South Africa.

It was, he said, to give players much-needed rest.

With hindsight, it was perhaps a move before its time.

The rugby year started for our top players with January's Super 12 pre-season training followed by a minimum of 11 competition matches. In previous years, that total would have been 13 with semifinals and the final.

Then follows, maybe, a few club games before the All Blacks' three home tests against Samoa, Argentina and France next month, followed by four Tri-Series matches (July 21 to September 1).

Some internationals will overlap the NPC (August-November), which finishes just before the All Blacks' five-match, three-country tour that starts in November in Ireland and ends in Argentina just three weeks before Christmas.

While a 30-match schedule in nine months is obviously demanding physically, the mental burnout is just as great - some say even greater.

By getting two teams in the top four of the Super 12, the South Africans, who have a similarly hectic schedule, showed they now think smarter. They are not talking burnout.

Rugby is now about mental toughness and the ability to play what has become a physically demanding game of chess.

Hart said some referred to the demands of 30-match tours - now a distant memory - but matches then were nowhere near as physically demanding.

Maybe rugby should look at a league-type interchange that would allow coaches to juggle players, he said.

Unlike league, where four substitutes and up to 12 interchanges are allowed during a match, rugby has seven replacement players, but they can be used only once.

The hits in rugby today are huge. The game has become more like rugby league, but perhaps with even greater demands because of its continuity.

New Zealand Warriors coach Daniel Anderson agrees that league is physically and mentally demanding for elite players.

"The switch to weekend State of Origin matches will help," he said.

"After just one such match I could see the difference in the players who were not involved. They welcomed that break. But there will always be some sort of weariness.

"Rounds 11 to 18 [in the NRL] are the turning point of the season when teams must keep battling for a place in the playoffs, but at the same time fight the mental and physical fatigue which is creeping in."

Anderson and Hart agree that burnout is an issue, but perhaps it is not the only one. Managing the players and their time off and on the field is important.

The Warriors have Thursdays off. Anderson says players need a break not only from the physical work but from him and him from them.

Perhaps mindset, not burnout, is the real issue.