BEHIND the scenes, and behind the screens, Football Technology/Recruiting Assistant Darren Farrugia is in the thick of the action. I assist Pete Roberts, who’s our Football Technology Manager, and help to get all vision set up - on match days, we set up the coaches’ box, and I get up the stats, and run the stats box with our volunteer statisticians. We have the custom stats that we do ourselves specifically for the coaching staff. I make sure that everything’s good, and at the end of the match, pack up the coaches’ box, get the vision for coaches on their hard drives. Then, they can do their analysis that night, before reviewing the next day.
The week gets off to an early start for Darren and all in the Football Department, getting information and vision through to everyone who needs it. On Monday morning, I get to Prowess Sports at about 7.30 in the morning, to collect the main vision and the rest of the games for the round. I copy all the vision, and sort out the alignment with different camera views - behind the goals, various angles and the like. I get it up on the server, and upload to the players’ computer lab as well. Then I get the VFL vision, so any MFC player who played on the weekend can watch their own individual vision.
Despite the fact that he grew up a Melbourne supporter, and loves the game, Darren’s is a fast moving occupation, not one for indulging in spectating. I have always been a Melbourne supporter, but I try not to get caught up in it. On Mondays, I also have work to do on opposition information, putting that material together for Dave Dunbar’s presentation. The information includes rotations, time spent on ground, anything specific he is after from the last three weeks.
During the week, the vision and statistics keep coming - but from different places, and for different purposes. On a Tuesday, I collect the recruiting vision from Champion Data, with players from the SANFL, WAFL, TAC, trial, AIS games etc, so that the recruiting staff can look at players, and can get onto it quickly. This is also available to the part-time recruiters - they can look at vision, can select players and have the vision cut up, and tailored so that they can look at specific players in more detail.
While the start of the week is undoubtedly busy for Darren, the activity never stops during the week that follows. Wednesday is a usually a footy free day, depending on the day of the match, but this week on Thursday is the main session, usually out at Casey. We do filming and stats and capture the vision for the coaches. Dave has the opposition meeting, so we show the vision he wants. We get reports from part-time recruiters, cut them up and put them on the database, so they’re there for people to look up. Some of the older recruiters still write their reports and send them in, but most email their documents to us.
First arriving at the Club almost four years ago, the intervening years have been busy ones for Darren, in football and away from the game alike. In 2006, I did work at Prowess Sports while I was still at uni, studying sports administration and for the Commonwealth Games, I did stats work, at the hockey and basketball. I kept in contact with Pete Roberts, who was at Prowess then, and when he came to Melbourne, he needed an assistant. Everything happened after I came to the Club in 2008. A couple of months later, I became engaged, and since then I’ve got married, bought a house, and now we’ve got a baby on the way.
Now that he’s in the game, it’s pretty much a year round commitment for Darren, even when the season comes to a close. I do recruiting work as well, in the off season for footy. I go to Canberra in the first week of October for the draft camp, and from then till December there’s the National Draft, the Rookie Draft and the Pre-Season Draft. I edit all the information and vision together, and get everything ready for the draft seminar day. Training re-starts during this time, so I guess that I have two weeks before Christmas free, through to about the middle of January.
