Daniel Harford speaks out about Blues AFLW woes after sacking

Sacked Carlton coach Daniel Harford has teed off at his former club in a scathing outburst in the wake of being let go.

Sacked Carlton coach Daniel Harford says the club has been far too focused on the men’s program, to the detriment of the women.

Harford, speaking on his breakfast radio show on RSN, called for the Blues to “get serious with the program and catch up to the rest of the competition.”

An independent review into Carlton’s AFLW program, found that the AFLW senior coach position needed to be full-time, and that there was “at times confusion with the game plan and lack of alignment and consistency with its implementation.”

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The review also criticised professionalism on the part of the players, saying “opportunity exists in the current AFLW environment for players to improve professional standards and elite behaviours, to build and maintain an effective, high-performance culture.”

Harford led the Blues to a grand final in 2019, and a semi-final victory in 2020, but had missed the finals in the last three tears, winning only two games in season 7.

A similar review of the men’s program saw the departure of David Teague in 2021.

Carlton president Luke Sayers said Harford, who played 153 games for Hawthorn, wasn’t able to “service the role in a full-time capacity”, and subsequently had parted ways with the club.

Harford was contracted in the role for a further 15 months, but when asked on air whether the parting of ways was mutual, he was less than diplomatic.

The program wasn’t given the same attention as the men. (Photo by Albert Perez/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“Well, when you’re contracted for another year then it’s a sacking, isn’t it,” he said.

He said judging a part-time program on full-time standards was a skewed position and that players likewise couldn’t be judged on part-time schedules.

“I’m still not 100 per cent convinced of what high performance in a part time program actually is,” he said.

“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.”

He said having “part-time athletes who have other lives who are trying to squeeze” AFLW into their schedules was a factor in professionalism, identified in the review as an necessary area of improvement.

It’s been a rough patch for the Blues. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“If you can pay them so it’s more of a full-time situation, then those things will rise along with it,” he said.

Being involved in an athletic recovery business as well as with media commitments, Harford says he won’t be coaching in 2023, and says he is looking forward to “(having) weekends in footy season for the first time in 30 years.

“It’s going to be incredible.

“I’ve been very blessed…(AFLW has been truly a life changing experience for me in footy and in life.”