Chief executive officer Steve Rosich today announced that Jason Weber, the former national physical performance coach for the Wallabies, has accepted the position as sports science manager.
“The appointment is a big coup for the club,” he said.
“In addition to having overall responsibility for Fremantle’s strength and conditioning operations, Jason will oversee the club’s medical operations and report to general manager of football operations Chris Bond.
“Jason is a first-class operator in his field with extensive experience in managing international programs for national athletes.”
Weber, 38, said the challenges provided by the job were a motivating factor in accepting the role.
“Certainly, the way the club has been presented to me by (senior coach) Mark Harvey, Chris Bond and Steve Rosich makes it a place that I definitely want to be working at,” he said.
“Mark is the type of leader that I want to work with and I’m very keen to support him in what he is trying to achieve at the Fremantle Football Club.”
Weber, who prior to a six-year stint at the Wallabies worked as a strength and conditioning co-ordinator for the NSW Waratahs and Queensland Reds rugby union teams, was not fazed by the change of football codes.
“The principles that you apply in strength and conditioning work across the board,” he said.
“One of the challenges is to have a good team around you in terms of strength and conditioning operations and medical operations, and then ensure that we work extremely closely with the coaching group.”
In June, Weber and Darren Burgess, the former head of sports science at Port Adelaide and current Socceroos fitness coach and head of sports science, undertook a recently completed independent review of Fremantle’s strength and conditioning operations.
A second independent review of the club’s medical operations was conducted by Australian Institute of Sport head of Physical Therapies Department Craig Purdam and Peter Stanton, the former medical coordinator at the Brisbane Lions medical operations.
“We commenced the independent reviews of our strength and conditioning operations and medical operations well in advance of season’s end to give us the opportunity to have new staff, structures and operating plans in place prior to the 2009 pre-season,” Rosich said.
“As a result of the two independent reviews we conducted a thorough interview process involving several candidates, all with national or international experience in sports science.”
Rosich said that because of Weber's impressive work on the independent review, the club’s sports science committee, including Harvey, Bond, board member Ben Allan and himself, added Weber to a short list of five candidates.
“As a result of a comprehensive interview process, Jason Weber emerged as our first choice to fill the newly created position of sports science manager,” he said.
“With the expected influx of new, young players to the club via the 2008 National Draft, Jason’s expertise will elevate the level of expertise for our core operations of sports science and medical operations.
“With Jason now on board, we will be boosting our sports science team with additional people and resources in the coming weeks.”
