Andrew Russell

So when it's not about kicks, marks, handballs, one of the most important experiences I ever had in my professional career, but also my personal career, was spending time with a new group of people in Kokoda when the Hawthorne Football Club started fresh in 05.

The very first thing we did was,

was we jumped on a plane and went to kakota with a whole bunch of people that didn't know each other when i say a whole bunch of people it was obviously players but that whole football department was new i i think there might have only been one person in the football department that was a carryover from prior so we had to build connection extremely quickly and that seven days we had together was extraordinary because you think about the amount of time you spent together in that environment

You know, apart from sleeping for eight hours, there is 16 hours a day where you are forced to just talk to people and connect.

And it's got nothing to do with football.

And that's where football clubs need to work really hard is build connection to start with.

If you haven't got it off the field, you are no chance to get it right on the field.

Wow, exactly.

And the thing about it is it's fragile, it's dynamic, and it takes work.

And so we're not talking about perfect environments.

We're talking about environments that change moment to moment, and that's football clubs.

And because of the stress involved in football clubs, that can change extremely quickly.

But it's no different to anything in all of our lives.

And your on-field leaders, I mean, they really drive it, you know.

Without that on-field connection between the players, then you might create a good team and you might win a lot of games.

Certainly very difficult to win premierships.

And probably more important than premierships is what you see is the teams that are constantly up the top.

You need a lot of things to go right to win, but teams that are constantly up the top, it's just like, well, something is going well in that environment that gives them a chance.

Well, and it takes the pressure off the designated leaders in the team.

So, you know, the captain, the vice captains.