Football NSW teams up with High Performance specialist Dr Craig Duncan

Football NSW is pleased to announce a partnership with world-renowned High-Performance specialist Dr Craig Duncan in a range of new initiatives to better support and educate coaches, players and parents.

The first such initiative is a weekly series of brief video ‘vignettes’ in which Dr Duncan provides insight and advice in to some key areas of preparation and performance for the game.

Topics covered in upcoming videos include subjects such as sleep and the importance of rest and recovery, fluid replacement, specialisation, warming up and cooling down and so on.

The opportunity also exists for viewers to contact Dr Duncan and ask him for advice and answers to questions that they may have.

In launching the initiative this week, Football NSW’s Head of Football, Peter Hugg was looking forward to the partnership with Dr Duncan.

“It is tremendous and a real coup for us to have someone of Craig’s expertise and experience at the elite level, help us deliver relevant and appropriate messages that can be readily applied across community and grassroots football.”

Dr Duncan’s work with Football NSW will include a specific focus on helping to guide parents through what is often a difficult, misinformed and conflicting path full of conflicts in what is best for a young footballer.

“Whilst we have wonderful courses and technical support for our coaches, referees and administrators, one of our weaknesses in the past, is that we haven’t provided enough advice and guidance to parents of players, and helping them through the maze of what is best for their child”, Hugg continued.

Dr Duncan equally was anticipating his partnership with Football NSW.

“I am pleased to team up with Football NSW and help them deliver some best practice principles that have been trialled and tested in the elite space with international teams but are equally applicable to our junior and youth players.

“As a high performance strategist and practitioner, through these brief videos I am keen in reducing scientific and academic concepts to little snippets of information that can be implemented quite easily by everyone regardless of age and level.”

Dr Duncan is highly experienced in high performance sport, particularly football, having had periods with both Sydney A-League teams, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers, an extensive time with the Socceroos as Head of High Performance which included the 2015 Asian Cup win under Ange Postecoglou and the 2018 World Cup campaign in Russia. He was also a member of the Iranian team under Carlos Queiroz at the 2019 Asian Cup and most recently he has spent time consulting with a number of other Hyundai A-League and National Rugby League clubs as well as lecturing at the Australian Catholic University.

Click below to view the first clip in a series of weekly videos

If you have a question for Dr Craig, please feel free to contact him at  drcraigduncan@gmail.com