Essendon coach John Worsfold has found himself in a 14-day self-isolation back in Western Australia as he returned home to be with his family.
With the AFL in a lockdown period until at least the end of May Worsfold flew home, but because of the timing, he will now have to enter quarantine.
“I managed to get back to Perth yesterday, but I’m in self isolation for 14 days because I couldn’t get back prior to the WA borders closing so that’s the reality of it,” Worsfold told SEN’s Whateley.
“It was something I felt I needed to do. My family were going to come over for Round 1, that then couldn’t take place because of everything that was happening so I’ve managed to get home which is critically important for me and my family.
“I’m here for the next two weeks at least as we see what the next move has to be.”
Worsfold admits he will probably run out of ways to occupy himself in self-isolation.
“I’ve got plenty to do, I’m going to do some online study so I’ve cranked things up already and I mowed the lawns yesterday afternoon,” he said.
“I’m quickly going to run out of things to do, but I’ll manage.”
With the AFL football department cap set to be slashed as clubs look to save money, Worsfold believes teams will still look for ways to edge ahead of the pack.
“The pulling back of the football department spend by about 30 per cent is going to force everyone to say what is absolutely necessary and what is the stuff we would like to do that will keep us at the forefront of development that we just can’t afford to do at the moment,” he said.
“We saw when the soft cap came in the first thing to go was the altitude camps which was a fairly big spend in the football department for what people believed was maybe a small advantage, but no one could definitively say that was going to be a big difference and this is going to have a massive effect on how we look at everything we do.
“We know AFL clubs will not take that lying down. They’ll look for ways to do it without spending as much money.
“That won’t stop the motivation and the drive to look for ways to improve and be the best we can be in the current environment, but this will certainly shake everything up in a massive way.”
Listen to Gerard Whateley’s conference call with five AFL senior coaches below