AFL soft cap cuts leaving football departments at skeleton staffing levels and coaches ‘out of juice’

The AFL’s soft cap cuts are hitting hard and it is falling on senior coaches to put in crazy hours. This is how many some are doing.

Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says he is often too tired and too busy to give radio interviews. Picture: AFL Photos

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 said on Saturday the Western Bulldogs no longer had “much time” to conduct opposition analysis and that 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 past five or six years”.

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Nathan Buckley lost Matthew Boyd (Fremantle), Brad Gotch, Anthony Rocca and Garry Hocking from his coaching panel last year.

The AFL ripped $63 million out of the football department soft cap in what was widely regarded as a gross over-reaction. The mass redundancies have forced the survivors to work their knuckles to the bone and become more versatile.

There are grave fears that, by season’s end, the mental and physical toll will become unbearable for some.

Recruiting divisions have also been cut to the “bones of our bum”, which 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 (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.

Chris Scott says the coach-to-player ratio is not where it should be. Picture: AFL Photos

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

“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-to-player ratio is not where it should be”. The AFL baulked at slashing list sizes, leaving far fewer coaches to nurture a similar number of players.

Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge says he is often too tired and too busy to give radio interviews. Picture: AFL Photos

Scott said being a senior coach was a “stressful existence”. Beveridge is working an extra 20 hours per week.

“In many ways AFL House will tell us this is a reset that we needed to have,” Buckley said.

“But I think based on the off-field personnel that we had to … support our players … we’re definitely operating on a lot less than we’ve had in the past. In the end the product is the thing that matters.

“In many ways if it’s a less shiny product, but it actually breaks things up a little bit and then it’s a little more exciting or a little bit different or less organised, then potentially that’s what you’re going to get.”