Manager on Thursday

25/06/20: SC - “We have tried to trace it back to see when it might be possible to start pre season and working back from that when we can give the boys some time off.

Stevie Crawford has been working behind the scenes monitoring possible players who could be additions to his squad as along with the new physio, Jamie Sutton, he has been planning the schedule up until the possible start date in mid October. He told the website that it has all been about behind the scenes things:-

“We have tried to trace it back to see when it might be possible to start pre season and working back from that when we can give the boys some time off.

“We have to prep for and try and make sure that we are preparing right. It is about gradually building up to a pre season that might be different this year because the players have actually been out now from March 13th. That is when they last kicked a football, albeit some are out and about in a park now trying to do some ball work.”

Dunfermline have brought in physio Jamie Sutton from St Johnstone following the departure of Kevin Bain to St Mirren. Stevie said that to start during a global pandemic is probably the strangest start possible:-

“He officially started in April. He is itching at the bit to get started but at the moment there are restrictions obviously that he is dealing with that are stopping him from getting his feet under the table so to speak.

“We are having dialogue where we can set dates and try and work out what the best prep is for the guys off season. Building up to a pre season in a programme where really injury prevention is going to be a major consideration this season.”

The manager has been watching the closely incidences of injuries both in Germany and England which are different from what can previously be called normal.

“These are challenges that we are going to face and when you listen to managers in the Premiership speaking and how they are rotating squads because some of them are playing more than one game within a six day period. That adds to the problems but they are talking about players of different sizes and different bulk, how everybody has to work with different methods to try and get them to a certain level of fitness.

“That is something that we have to be open minded to. We should not be going into our pre season just hammering boys and giving them the longer distance stuff because a lot of them have been doing road running.”

When Fitness coach Gary McColl returns off furlough Stevie will be looking for feedback from the players to work out how prepared they are.

“We need to accommodate and get everybody through pre season without any injury concerns.”

Whatever phase out of lockdown that the country is in is going to determine the protocol and the challenges to getting players back into training:-

“It is not just as simple as saying, if we start on 17th October let’s start six weeks before, maybe about 1st September because whether we are in phase three or phase four will also determine the costs that the club faces.

“If things progress the way they are then hopefully the 1st of September can be the date we can work towards though it is not official yet.”

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