FIVE games in three weeks could be considered a performance manager’s worst nightmare, but Darren Burgess holds no fears.

The head of fitness at Melbourne has plenty of experience in short breaks between games, reflecting on his time in the English Premier League to ensure the Dees are in a strong position to attack the next block of matches.

“From what I can tell around the media, people are making a really huge deal of it, whereas this is quite normal in a lot of other sports,” Burgess said on Episode 5 of The Talking Points.

“The shorter quarters now mean that the games are almost identical to soccer in terms of the physical output.

“So hopefully it’s stuff that we’ve seen before and I’ve been able to calm the players down that this is quite normal, and this is not unique in any way, and hopefully offer them some insight into how we can go about handling it.”

While Burgess has had to create an entirely new program for the next three weeks, he has been able to utilise some handy contacts along the way.

“I thought it might be wise just to send it over to a couple of people that I knew overseas, one in NBA and one in soccer, … just to get their take on it and to make sure we weren’t missing anything,” he said.

“It’s always nice to get some cross referencing.

“They came back, and particularly the Premier League guy, was almost identical to what we had, so that gave us some confidence that we’ve got the right program.”

Watch the full episode of The Talking Points with Burgess below, as he provides an insight into how the club has dealt with the challenges of 2020.