Laura Kane: AFL football boss grilled on the game’s most contentious issues

What’s it like being the most influential woman in football? Jay Clark grills Laura Kane on her role shaping the AFL’s most contentious issues.

Laura Kane New Head of Football at the AFL. Thursday, August 31, 2023. Picture: David Crosling

It was the sharpest barb ever hurled at the AFL’s new-look administration.

With his blood still boiling at the end of a hostile week, North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson said with a clear sense of anger that if the AFL had “really strong leadership” forward Paul Curtis would have played on Thursday night.

In Clarkson’s mind, and Nathan Buckley’s and Jason Dunstall’s and countless other champion footy figures the essence of the game is under threat when a player such as Curtis is banned for three matches for a tackle which unintentionally concussed Port Adelaide’s Josh Sinn.

But perhaps Clarko’s flamethrower wasn’t just about the tackle rules.

The sledge was interpreted in club land on Friday as a not-so-subtle-dig at the seniority at AFL house following significant staff departures and club blowback in recent years.

Privately, clubs are saying the chasm between them and league headquarters has never felt greater over a range of issues including soft cap and assistant coach wages, player sanctions, umpiring standards, and the need for an experienced chief operating officer to support AFL CEO Andrew Dillon.

At the end of last season, a rules summit was organised where some of the biggest name players in the game basically begged the league to ditch the sub in favour of either a four or five-person bench.

Instead, the AFL kept the sub in possibly the most possibly unpopular move in the caper.

And on the tackle front, the AFL will at season’s end reconstruct the match review matrix to be able to downgrade suspensions for tackles and accidents like the Curtis one.

But why doesn’t the league make the changes immediately as Clarkson questioned on Thursday night?

In the past 12 months there has been memos to clubs about interpretation changes to the holding the ball rule and warning about pushing players into marking contests.

This is the same league, after all, which preached the need to be ‘nimble’ to save the game through the pandemic.

But in terms of the concussion war, and potential class actions, the league can see the legal freight train steaming towards it, and has subsequently hit the pause button on the tackle controversy after one of the most unpopular tribunal verdicts under the matrix system.

The AFL’s executive general manager of football, Laura Kane, said unlike the other interpretation changes over the past 12 month, the match review overhaul required more significant work and ultimately AFL Commission approval.

“It is something we could look at, but it won’t be something that would change this season. It would be next year,” Kane told the Herald Sun.

“It was canvassed with clubs last year and we started to have the conversation and it didn’t feel like we were ready to make a change.

“It is a change to our guidelines, the rules, and the way we administer the game, so it is not something that can be done immediately.

“I understand clubs wanting their players to play and I understand, for North Melbourne, the comments that next year the player might get less are challenging for them.

“But it is not the way the process can run for this particular rule.”

To Clarkson, the wait to make necessary change “doesn’t make sense” when the league has already effectively conceded a complex revamp is on the cards.

So the game is stuck with a match review matrix which is out of whack, and it has been clear for the past 12 months since the Toby Bedford on Tim Taranto case last year.

Kane was adamant the high mark was safe despite ongoing fears and dangers about knees being thrust into the backs of players’ heads in marking contests.

But, in the meantime, clubs are becoming increasingly frustrated about some ways the game is being run, including stagnated assistant coaching salaries, lack of soft cap growth, and a trigger-happy fines system.

Chris Scott has been a vocal critic of some of the AFL’s decisions.

Brad Scott says AFL coaches have never been more disenfranchised.

TWIN BLOW-UPS

Essendon coach Brad Scott said he has “never seen a coaching group more disenfranchised with the way they’re treated as a whole”, while his twin brother Chris fumed at the league for sanctioning new star recruit Bailey Smith, again, for making an obscene middle finger gesture on Easter Monday.

Scott questioned the league’s priorities and obsession with fining players and coaches such as Port Adelaide boss Ken Hinkley for his blow-up with Hawthorn players last year.

“The fact that it (Smith middle finger) is a fine is bewildering to me,” Chris said.

“There are far more serious things in the game that should be addressed.

“I would query how consistent the AFL are with these things because on one hand they seem to love it and promote things like Gather Round and Port and Hawthorn, and on the other hand they feel like they need to fine people.

“I would pick a side if I were them.”

Kane said she had spoken with Chris Scott this week, admitting the conversation was again a mix of being “light, easy and fun” and “robust and hard” with the two-time premiership coach.

“He covered a lot of territory in that press conference, so it is a bit of both (fun and robust), and that is OK too,” she said.

“Sometimes we have really different views on what we should do, but our job is to listen to all of the views, understand everyone’s position.

“But ultimately we have to make a decision, and that is not always going to be in favour of one person.

“That is our job to balance things as best we can. I would speak to Chris every week.

“We probably agree on 90 per cent of things, but it is the 10 per cent that we fight about.”

The soft cap is due for another modest increase at season’s end but Kane said the league was not locked in to the numbers amid vigorous debate among the clubs about how much is required to look after staff.

“Not everyone agrees, everyone has different views about what we should do,” she said.

“Everyone is in a really different position. We have to weigh up all of those opinions and ultimately we have to make a decision, but it is something we are talking about.”

POWER STRUGGLE?

The league’s football department has undergone a makeover in recent times amid accusations of a reported “power struggle” between Kane and CEO Dillon over recent appointments Geoff Walsh, a highly experienced former Collingwood and North Melbourne boss, and Nick Carah.

Kane said there were no such issues or tension points between herself and Dillon, and lauded the skills Walsh and new general manager of football operations Carah brought to the league.

In her team is also Josh Mahoney, who ran the football departments at Melbourne and Essendon, as well as consultants such as Geelong champion Joel Selwood and AFLW superstar Erin Phillips.

The team were key in delivering the findings of a competitive balance review last year and rejig of the draft and academy system amid major uproar.

In coming months, they will push forward with plans to reignite representative football at the top level including a State of Origin and International Rules games for men and women.

Laura Kane with AFL boss Andrew Dillon at Marvel Stadium.

While the umpiring continues to be frustration for fans, Kane said the league was happy with the on-field product, steady scoring rates and efficiency in the forward half of the ground over the first six rounds.

“Some of the best quality games of football we have ever seen were played last year and even this year,” she said.

“We have made multiple changes to the game from a safety perspective and it is not something we are going to back away from.

“But what it is equally important is the quality of the on-field product.

“What people to watch in stadium and at home, and the game our players play is fast and exciting, and it is unpredictable and I think we have that now.”

Kane said her team was up to the task of running the most competitive league as part of the biggest sport in the country despite club criticisms.

She said Walsh brought a lifetime of football experience.

“Geoff Walsh was my first boss in footy when I started 10 years ago and he is someone who I have relied upon and has been a really big part of my development the whole time,” she said.

“So when I got the job I appointed him to my team as a football consultant and he has helped us through the competitive balance review and he will help us through the next phase of Tasmania and a whole heap of other projects.

“The other half of the department looks at running the business of football, the operations, the logistics, and Nick Carah is another person who I have known for a really long time.

“He has been in amateur football and importantly he has been involved in business operations for different organisations like banking, real estate.

“So, I’m really pleased with the team we have been able to put together, and I think we have a range of skills.

“’Dills’ and I speak multiple times a day about all sorts of things, and the privilege (of running the game) isn’t lost on us.”