Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson is imploring his players to do more outside of footy in an attempt to correct their work-life balance.
His comments come after the club made a concerted effort to help bushfire-ravaged community recover by travelling out to small communities last month to offer their assistance.
Clarkson said current work-life balance with professional footballers was out of whack and urged both Hawthorn and the wider football world to do more outside of the game.
“The whole game itself has become too anal in terms of the professionalism of the game,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“Whether it’s a little thing like taking some time off to go and help others like we did or even in terms of the whole work-life balance, I’ve been one of the coaches who has been driving the professionalism of the club for a long period of time and I’m not doing that on my own.
“I’ve really been pushing hard that our next little edge won't come in finding something to do with the game plan or finding something to do with fitness or strength but in fact searching for this professionalism is we’re taking ourselves away from the reality of life and the balance of that.
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“We want to try as a footy club and as an AFL community to try and connect a little but more with our outside world and we want to do that a little bit more with our work-life balance and not be able the footy club so much.
“But we also want to do it with when things like (the bushfires) happen, how can we go out and help people and put aside footy for a time.
“We’ve got 45 weeks of footy to get ready for the season, does it really matter if we miss two or three days to go help people in need.”
Hawthorn get their premiership season underway against Brisbane at the MCG next Sunday afternoon.
You can listen to Alastair Clarkson on SEN Breakfast in the player below.