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ORAL ABSTRACTS - THURSDAY, 21 MAY 2015be suggested coaches of football officials allocate more time to the decision-making development oftheir officials instead of focusing largely on the physical fitness side, as is currently the trend.S08.3Match success in elite Australian football: a 14-year analysisBrendan H Lazarus(1), AM Stewart(1), WG Hopkins(1,2), RJ Aughey(1)(1) Institute of Sport, Exercise, and Active living (ISEAL), Victoria University, Melbourne,Australia(2) Defence Institute, Oslo, NorwayPurpose: Aspects of the fixture list and team characteristics are likely to affect match outcome inteam sports, but evidence for such effects in Australian football is mainly anecdotal. The aim of thisstudy was to quantify these effects at the elite level in this sport.Methods: Match statistics of 5112 Australian football matches from seasons 2000 to 2013 wereaccessed at AFLtables.com. Aspects of each match included location (home vs away), travel status(travel vs no travel), days break between matches (≤ 7d vs ≥ 8d), and differences between theopposing teams in their mean age, weight and height. A logistic-regression version of thegeneralised mixed linear model was used to estimate the effect of each aspect on match outcome.Effects were expressed as extra matches won or lost in every 10 matches against an otherwiseevenly matched team.Results: for every 10 matches played, the effects were: playing away, 1.5 losses; travelling, 0.7losses; days break, 0.1 wins; being older, 2.8 wins; being heavier, 1.7 wins; and being taller, 0.3losses. Adjustment for age difference did not substantially reduce the effect of weight. All theseeffects were clear, mostly at the 99% level. Conclusions: The effects of playing away, travel andage difference were not unexpected, but the trivial effect of days break and the advantage of aheavier team will challenge current notions about balance of training and recovery and about teamselection.S08.4Seasonal training periodization of an elite team in the Australian Football LeagueD Ritchie(1,2), WG Hopkins(1), Jonathan D Bartlett(1,2)(1) Institute for Sport, Exercise & Active Living (ISEAL), Victoria University, Footscray, Victoria,Australia(2) Western Bulldogs Football Club, Footscray, Victoria, AustraliaIntroduction: The advent of intensive monitoring of team-sport athletes now allows coaches andsport scientists to address important practical questions about training and game volumes andintensities. The aim of the current study was to conduct an analysis of the training periodizationpractises employed by an elite team in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the 2014season.Methods: Perceived load (exertion × duration) for the 44 players was obtained after each trainingsession and match via individual interviews, while total distance of pitch-based training sessionsand matches was monitored via GPS units. Weekly totals were quantified in six blocks of training80