IN the second of our   two-part interview with Mark Leather, Wanderers’ new head of sports development tells Marc Iles how the oval ball codes manage to get maximum performance out of their players

 

WANDERERS drew inspiration from rugby league and rugby union as they sketched out a blueprint for their new sports science department.

The club have promised no stone will be left unturned next season in an effort to get the ultimate out of a squad that vastly underachieved for the most part of the previous campaign.

Although Dougie Freedman brought with him a completely new approach on the training ground when he arrived from Crystal Palace last October, it is hoped the changes he has implemented in the backroom this summer can help the team evolve from play-off latecomers to one that can lead from the front in the coming season.

Mark Leather, the man who has been brought in to head up the new-look department, has revealed that the structure used behind the scenes at top rugby clubs in both codes could provide a hint of what is now in store at the Reebok.

“I have talked to a lot of people in rugby union and rugby league and the one word you hear a lot in those sports is ‘performance’, whether it’s a club side or a national team,” said the lifelong Wanderers fan, who has also worked with Wigan Warriors.

“Clubs in those sports tend to invest a lot into getting the very best out of their players by looking at the right details and that is exactly the model I want to achieve here.

“We are not technical staff or coaching staff but knowing how the team sets up or what formation we are looking to play might just have a knock-on effect on how a player should train, or what his recovery should be.

“We are lucky enough at this football club to have a budget that allows us to take the guesswork out of certain things. We have a superb performance analysis department with some excellent staff already in place and the work they do is crucial to this whole thing.

“There will be no square pegs in round holes. I want to bring in expertise from sport in general and make sure they can do a great job for this football club.”

Several backroom staff will leave the club this summer but it is understood their roles will be filled by experts brought in on a part-time consultancy basis.

Among the expected changes are closer monitoring of the players’ nutrition, greater use of the GPS system to monitor workload in training and a completely different approach to injury prevention.

Leather also says a sports psychologist will be used on a regular basis.

“I don’t really like giving it that label because people make a bit too much of it, but you have to treat players like individuals,” he said. “Every one of them works a different way, reacts to things differently, and in a team environment it is really important to know that if you want to get the best out of people.”

One of Leather’s first tasks will be to gain a complete record of every single player’s medical history, which has involved a lot of trawling round former clubs in the last few weeks.

“It’s easier said than done with some of the lads who have played abroad,” he admitted.

“I want to compile a complete history and look at all the data and information I can to try to see if there is anything that we can use.

“If a player has had a hamstring problem in the past, has that then led to other problems? It’s mapping things out like that.

“I want to try to get through all that data while there are not as many time constraints on me over the summer and once we’ve been through all that data then maybe that might mean we’re better placed to improve the wellbeing of a few of the players.”

When Freedman came to the club his squad rotation system came as a shock to some – as did his overhaul on the training ground.

But Leather believes football in the Championship requires a completely different way of thinking than it did in the top flight, where he last worked with Wanderers in the Sam Allardyce era.

“This division is completely different to the Premier League, it really is,” he said.

“When you are getting through 46 matches, often on a Saturday-Tuesday throughout the season then you have to approach things differently with regards to exposure time to training, number of games you can play, when you rest. The manager already has his own views on that and they are similar to my own, which is great.

“There is no coincidence that the upturn in performance in the last few months of last season came with a change in the way the players were training.

“They are the foundations I need to build on now.”