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So its been a quite day at work today and I’m still a bit dirty with the whole Pocock thing so I thought I would have a look at one of his main reasons about leaving that being the travel demands, and the damage he may have done by using that as an excuse, which might deter other players from coming to Perth.
Everyone knows that Perth is a long way from everything and that our players travel a lot and according to Pocock it was taking a major toll on him and his body so much so he had to leave to be in a town closer to the other teams. But do our players really travel more than others.
I looked back at the Force’s 2012 Super Season and used a site that calculated the distance between airports and the average flight time. I did this for both the Force and the Brumbies as David has chosen them as he believes his flight time will be cut down.
Yes in deed the Force travels more then the Brumbies but not as much as some might think.
A few things first the total travel distance and time don’t include mid week return flights as I was not able to work out if the teams returned home eg. In round 4 the Force traveled to Sydney to play the Tahs and then in round 5 we player the Rebels in Melbourne. As there was no way to find out if they first returned to Perth and then left again to Melbourne I assumed they went from Sydney to Melbourne and spent the week there. I did the same for Brumbies matches also.
It also doesn’t include any added travel time for wallaby commitments as this doesn’t count for all players. But it would add a bit more travel for a player like Pocock.
So accounting for the Above the Force in the super rugby 2012 season traveled:
Total Distance traveled 45,460.6KM
Total time in the air 45.9 Hours.
Compare this with the Brumbies 2012 season
Total Distance traveled 39,751.30KM
Total time in the air 43.2 Hours
The Brumbies numbers were also help for the fact that they didn’t have to travel during their South African trip as first they played the Bulls then the Lions which are 50KM down the road.
So that’s a difference of 5709.3 KM and 2.7 hours in the air.
Nothing in the grand scheme of things so for the average super rugby player travel shouldn't be an issue when thinking of playing for the Force.