Dodge joins the province after his previous position as Head of Strength & Power at Adelaide Crows, who compete in the Australian Football league.
Sam, welcome to Ulster Rugby! How have you found settling into the club so far?
“I’m really enjoying it so far, we are only a few days into pre-season but the team have been great, the staff have been great and everyone seems really excited to get back in, which is always a really good sign.”
Can you tell us a bit about your career background before joining us?
“I’ve just come off working in the AFL over the last three years with the Adelaide Crows as the Head of Strength & Power. I was previously at Bristol Bears for five years and have had stints with Welsh Rugby across various national age grade and women’s programmes. I’ve also worked in Welsh Judo, Welsh Tennis and MMA – so I have quite a diverse background!
I think something that you take away from working in a few different environments is that you are guided by the different physical profiles that you want to develop and they all have different needs and qualities. It helps to round your philosophy around ensuring the athletes are the best physical condition to perform in their sport, whether that’s on the mat or in the cage or on the field. How they perform is at the forefront and having that diverse experience helps broaden your skillset in achieving that.”
We are only a few days into the pre- season, what can you tell us about the kind of things you have been doing as the team returns?
“The main thing from an Athletic Performance standpoint is getting as much information on the guys as possible. So, how much mass have they put on in the off season, their fitness levels on return to training, where their body comp lies, their strength and speed - so we’ll use the first few weeks to collect that data before using it to inform the players’ future training directions as we roll into the season- while still going hard on the field and looking to make improvements over the pre-season period.
On Day 1 the boys were put through a fitness test and then into some skills sessions. We’ll be ramping up the intensity as we go through the weeks. It’s a short enough pre-season and there will be a big emphasis on rugby, we have to make sure as much work with the ball is done as possible."
Because of the length of the rugby season, how important is that baseline fitness that is built during the pre-season?
“It’s more important than ever now with the rugby seasons getting even longer. A lot of it will come down to how well players can maintain themselves during the season, you are very rarely off, especially the international players. I think the guys now need to be well prepared all year round and the best way to do that is develop those qualities and maintain them with training consistently and developing as the season goes on.”
It's early days and you have only just met the squad but what is your early assessment of where the squad is at fitness wise?
“There is an emphasis on gaining mass in the off-season and the guys have definitely gone after that. We haven’t got the full data set just yet, but the staff seem happy with where the guys are at. They have been hitting it hard in the gym, getting after it on field, so it’s been as much as you could ask for!
Both Matt Maguire and Cian Gormley (First Team AP coaches) have both done a brilliant of job of making sure the boys had a solid program over the off season so we’ve come back in a good place!"
The S&C team and Athletic Performance teams, how closely do you work alongside the coaching staff?
“Because we are getting our conditioning in as part of rugby training, we work very closely. We meet before every training day to look at the sessions in the week and try to provide some guidance on the intensity and durations of these.
We have specific physical demands we want to get out of each session so the rugby coaches are vital in designing drills that allow us to achieve these while still improving the players technical/tactical progress. We have to be rugby centred and try to integrate this in the programme as much as possible.”
What can you take from your experience at Adelaide Crows into the role here at Ulster?
“I had no previous experience of the AFL and I was really fortunate to work under a great High Performance Manager in Darren Burgess, he was vastly experienced across both EPL & AFL football and seeing how he operated, you pick up a few pieces.
A big thing was learning to take my philosophy into a different sport, they have similarities but have completely different needs. I had to go back to the drawing board, re-design my programme to meet the needs of that game.
Every club is different, culturally, the players available, the way they train, the way they trained historically. I think what’s positive is I’ll be rebranding my rugby philosophy with the background of not being rigid with it, I think hopefully that will improve what I’m able to provide to the club.”
What is key to getting the best out of our players conditioning?
"No one person is the same, so the big thing for me over the next weeks and months is getting to know the boys, finding out what motivates and drives them and find out what they think they can work on, how they can contribute to that and how they go about it.
We have a lot of talent in the squad, some young lads, some senior players, so it will be a case of tailoring the programme to make them better, but we have to make sure they are engaged, are enjoying the programme, growing in the programme and feel like they are being listened to in that – if you get those things right, you are onto a good start.”