Wow, Fergus, you certainly are on a roll, maybe you could pick a couple of your most important points and expand them into an article for us all to consider in detail, there is some amazing stuff here in the last 3 threads, I love the concept of precovery, an optimal individualised state of readiness, as to visiting Ireland at least once, could not agree one, just add falling in love with an Irish girl as well, mine was Joanne Chapman, memories of her will last a life time, fitness testing was a good point, how often have you tested players when thety reurn from a break and then put a program in place, then re-test in about 4 weeks and find that only a few have made gains and in fact some have gone backward, reason they were fresh coming in and were able to produce their best efforts, circus tricks on Swiss Balls are not functional exercises unless you are a circus performer, I like the quote that has been attributed to Dan Baker, apologies Dan if you did not say this, “show me a player who can power clean 140kg and squat 200kg, and I will show you someone’s whose core is strong enough”, in season we do virtually no conditioinng work, unless you are not getting close to a full 80 minutes on game day. cheers, ashley