Ken Hinkley

on their brackets.

Everything else was in the football clubs, were back at the level they were pre-COVID, but the only part that was held up and still held up in some ways has been the soft cap for coaching departments.

That has a massive effect and a flow-on effect into all spaces, Gerard, not just, like everyone thinks about how many coaches you can get out there and coaches are overpaid, but

The things that we do and have done in coaching is a far bigger product than just X's and O's.

We spend an enormous amount of time on wellbeing.

We spend an enormous amount of time on health and mental health.

We spend an enormous amount of time on connection with players, which they crave today.

People don't realise...

what the young people today really crave.

They crave this connection and to be able to do that successfully and provide the environment to do that and connect at your football club, it was taken away in lots of ways.

We used to regularly have a pre-season camp to build on.

The main thing we'd build on would be connection and relationships when we do those camps and to understand our individuals really closely.

because that was the critical piece of being a good coach.

And that was taken away as soon as soft caps come out, because you couldn't afford to spend, you know, whether it would be a hundred, $150,000 on a, on a, on a performance style camp to that created game styles that created, as I said, relationships and connections that built your, your team up that much and that well, that you knew everything about your players.

And I think that's what gets missed now.

We, we,

We don't always know exactly everything that's going on with players.

Now, there's some parts that we perhaps are never going to know and shouldn't know, but there's not much that we shouldn't know about our players and their ability to perform at AFL football.

That's where soft cap hurt.

Well, I think they've made some inroads into, you know, mental health, you know, with the psychs and mindset coaches and stuff that clubs employ now.