Carlton urged to ‘get serious’ about AFLW
SACKED Carlton coach Daniel Harford says the club focused too much on the men’s program at the expense of AFLW – and paid the price.
Harford, speaking for the first time since an internal club review cost him his AFLW coaching position, despite having 15 months to run on his contract, said it was time for the Blues to “get serious” with the AFLW, and said the league could also do with some introspection.
“I’m really fortunate. I’ve got other opportunities,” he said on his RSN radio show.
“The time is now for the footy club to get serious with the program and catch up to the rest of the competition.” The club’s review identified that it required a full-time coach for the AFLW team, which Harford said was indicative of the growth of the competition.
But he said it wasn’t just the senior coach that needed to be a full-time employee, saying judging a part-time program on full-time standards was a skewed position.
“I’m still not 100 per cent convinced of what high performance in a part-time program actually is,” he said. “If you’re measuring from the men’s program perspective, well, you’re in the wrong room.
“If you’ve got part-time people … trying to develop and initiate this high performance program, after working their other jobs for the day, that’s a real challenge, I reckon.
“The club needs to invest and the game needs to have people in the different silos (like development, fitness, coaching) … they almost all need to be full-time employees of the footy club.”
A review of the men’s program was conducted at the end of 2021 and led to the departure of then-senior coach David Teague.
Harford said implementing the findings from that review and its “really aggressive mandate” had potentially been at the expense of AFLW.
“There’s clearly been a real focus on the boys program,” he said. “I think perhaps there was an eye taken off the AFLW program.
“They give themselves a bit of a clip in the release, as well, where they say that the review found a clear vision for AFLW was required.”