Former Carlton fitness boss explains the club’s 2024 injury crisis

Former Carlton fitness guru Andrew Russell says he had little to do with rehabbing players towards the end of his stint with the club.

The Blues were strongly criticised in 2024 for having so many players on the sidelines due to soft tissue injuries, which Russell shouldered a lot of the blame for.

He insists that the Blues will be much healthier in season 2025 largely because injury-prone players including Jack Martin, Caleb Marchbank and David Cuningham have since departed the club.

“It was challenging on a couple of fronts,” Russell said on SEN Breakfast.

“A lot of Carlton’s issues with injuries are going to be resolved because list management has made decisions on some players.

“So some of those players who in the past have been a bit fragile and haven’t been able to handle big loads have moved on.

“Even without anything changing and if we just did the same program, it would be a very normal injury list next year based on those players that have left the club to start with.

“That’s the first thing. A lot of those guys with injuries actually came from other environments versus the guys that we developed ourselves.”

The former Port Adelaide and Hawthorn high performance boss says a change in structure at Carlton denied him the chance to work closely with players in the medical room more recently.

He instead focused on those playing week in, week out alongside the coaching staff led by senior coach Michael Voss and key assistant Ash Hansen.

“For me, the leadership structure that Carlton set up meant that I actually didn’t have a huge influence over a lot of those issues,” he added.

“I wasn’t involved in a lot of the rehab of a lot of these players once they got injured, which is the way the club set it up.

“That was a bit disappointing that I couldn’t have more of an influence on some of those guys, but I was the one in the hot seat and I was the one that copped some of the criticism for it.

“In the end I focused on the healthy group, working with ‘Vossy’ and Ash and the coaches.

“We had a healthy group that was in great shape as well and that sort of got glossed over a bit. We actually had a lot of guys play a lot of footy last year and play really, really good footy.

“Obviously ‘Crippa’ (Patrick Cripps) was the top of the pops with that in terms of how consistent he was over the season.”

Russell was asked if he would have liked greater control or autonomy over the fitness and rehab program, especially in 2024.

“The structure was changed in my time there and it wasn’t what the structure was throughout the majority of my career,” he added.

“That’s just how it happened.

“In my time at Port Adelaide and Hawthorn, and earlier at Carlton, the leadership structure was different.

“I probably would have pushed a bit harder in that space if I had my time again, for sure.”

Russell stepped away from Carlton at the culmination of 2024, a season in which the Blues played in an Elimination Final having made the Preliminary Final 12 months prior.

He has been replaced by Rob Inness who the Blues signed from the Sydney Swans in September.