Clubs say savage football department cuts taking a toll on staff

CLUBS fear the AFL’s excessive soft-cap cuts are “cooking” their streamlined football departments and will drive even more people out of the game.

Premiership coach Luke Beveridge admitted the Western Bulldogs no longer had “much time” to conduct opposition analysis and said he had to spurn radio interviews because he was “out of juice”.

Nathan Buckley revealed Collingwood’s coaches had been burdened with “130-140 per cent of their workload from the last five or six years”.

The AFL ripped $63 million out of the football department soft cap in what was widely regarded as an over-reaction.

The mass redundancies have forced the survivors to work their fingers to the bone and take on foreign roles to become more versatile.

Given it is only Round 4, there are grave fears that by the end of the year the mental and physical toll will become unbearable for some.

Recruiting divisions have also been cut and the knock-on effect could impact the quality of the draft.

One list manager said: “The draft is the lifeblood of the whole competition and if we strip it back too far we could cheapen the product, and if the product suffers the broadcast deal – which pays for everything – is less.”

There is a belief the AFL looked at the busy Medallion Club at Marvel Stadium at the end of the under-18 national carnival and assumed there was plenty of recruiting fat to be trimmed.

But most of those talent spotters were volunteers or part-timers and clubs are set to make more recruiting decisions based on low-quality vision because they cannot afford to fly scouts around the country to attend matches.

“If you’re watching a player in particular you sort of don’t take your eyes off them no matter where the ball is,” the talent expert said.

“We could leave games and not know who’s played well or who’s won because we’ve been tracking (player X).

“Sometimes you get more out of a player when they’re nowhere near the footy then when they actually have the ball in hand.”

Development at AFL clubs has also taken a hit because, as Geelong premiership coach Chris Scott said “the coach-toplayer ratio is not where it should be”.

The AFL baulked at slashing list sizes and so far less coaches have been left to nurture a similar number of players.