Gerard Whateley

Bring your mums for free.

And we start with the art of coaching with Ken Hinckley.

Kenny, welcome.

Good morning, Gerard.

How are you today?

I'm well, I'm well.

How did you take in what came from the AFL yesterday?

There's tension pieces in a few places here, and one of them is what happened when the soft cap was reduced around COVID and whether the care for players, both medical and in the mental space, was compromised as a result when that wasn't fully restored.

What's your perception there?

Yeah.

What's been built into these recommendations has the potential to be profound.

What needs to happen with the soft cap to actually bring it to fruition, do you think?

Should the medical spend be removed from the soft cap?

Yeah.

What layer of trust do you have that in the long term, when we look back in several years' time and all this is implemented, that it will have proven a benefit to every player in the competition or that it will be bureaucratic and onerous and costly?

And this goes to your overall point of sidelining the coach from the toughest of circumstances is the wrong strategy.

The Art of Coaching with Ken Hinckley, a valuable perspective on what was handed down yesterday and its ramifications.

Phil Davis, who has lived a lot of this through the Players Association in the years, and you'll have heard him talk on this front.

He'll join us at 11 and give his perspective on the recommendations and how they might be implemented.

You'll have your thoughts.