Damien Hardwick urges AFL to name restart date as he sounds warning over potential cuts to lists
Richmond coach Damien Hardwick wants the AFL to go out on a limb and name a restart date so clubs and players have something to look forward to, while he’s sounded a warning over potential cuts to list sizes.
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Damien Hardwick says clubs would need to slash list sizes by as much as 40 per cent and drop all development responsibilities if the AFL radically reduced football department spend.
The warning from the reigning premiership coach came as he said he would love to be handed a date by the AFL about a likely start point so clubs could start planning for a return.
He said clubs would be ready to play as early as two weeks after returning to their clubs.
Hardwick’s Tigers have won two of the past three premierships through securing elite talent but also developing a raft of young players like Sydney Stack with elite coaching from eight lieutenants.
He says under streamlined list sizes clubs could no longer park young developing players or take a punt on kids who are yet to mature.
Effectively the league would become like America’s NFL, which cherrypicks ready-made players from college football.
Instead the AFL would need ready-to-play talent and let state leagues or feeder pathways coach younger players.
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He said the clubs had got their head around a new football department spending cap that could drop as much as $4 million from $9.7 million.
“I think we have. The landscape and new economy we keep talking about is the soft cap is going to come into play and be reduced by a significant amount,” he told the ABC’s Offsiders.
“Whether it’s 30 or 40 per cent we are not too sure but what will come into that is the playing list has to be cut at a similar rate for mine and the reality of the situation is at the moment we are a performance and development industry and if we go down this path it’s primarily going to become a performance industry for mine so it’s going to be a really interesting period for the AFL’s history but we have some great people in charge who will make some pretty smart decisions.”
Gold Coast would face the impossible task of reducing its list size from 51 down to as low as 35 given it has extra list spots because of the AFL’s extra concessions last year.
Suns chief executive Mark Evans told the Herald Sun there would need to be an elite development program somewhere across the talent pathway to keep standards high.
“It is difficult to take a firm position (on list sizes) until you can understand the entire model. If list sizes were smaller what are mechanisms to allow you to find replacements in the middle of the seasons and how does that fit into the talent pathway? You would still need to have a strong talent pathway programs around the country,” he said.
Hardwick said he was keen for the league to hand clubs a date for a return as possible.
“I really applaud the NRL for their aspirational leadership of giving a date. I would love a carrot, I would love a date to work with,” he said.
“The really challenging aspect for us as coaches and players is we haven’t got a date to work with. When to start, your training to prepare for that date, is something we haven’t got at the moment.
“We have got a great group of coaches who have worked really hard on getting a great understanding of what we require but as soon as we get that we have some certainty and we can plan because it’s one of the things we haven’t got at the moment and it’s really challenging from a mental aspect.”
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