Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley believes there will remain a need in the game for vast amounts of coaches and specialty staff.
The coronavirus crisis and subsequent financial strain has forced AFL clubs to place on hold their backroom personnel as reported ‘soft cap’ cuts of $3 million could be forced into place.
Asked by Gerard Whateley if football departments will be reshaped because of the pandemic, Hinkley agreed, but does not feel the game will be better off by reducing the number of coaches and niche roles.
“I couldn’t imagine it not being some type of reshaping,” he said on SEN’s Whateley.
“I certainly think that will be the case and (reshaping) what lists are going to look like. All of the things that people have been speaking about over the last week is what’s on our radar. What’s this going to look like?
“People saying that the game may be better for it, I don’t think that’s probable, I don’t think that’s possible in my world.
“The game is done really well now and any time you go back you take a step back but I’m of the opinion that eventually the game will catch back up to where it is today and go forward and be better than it is.”
Hinkley has seen first-hand the broadening of the standard coaching staff over the years and feels that recently created specialist positions will return when the dust settles.
“With Malcolm Blight back at St Kilda, that was basically two or three coaches - Malcom, Peter Jonas, myself,” he added.
“Malcolm was basically coaching the program at that stage.
“Then you move onto the Geelong days where I was with Bomber (Mark Thompson), Macca (Brendan McCartney), Sando (Brendon Sanderson) and Ronnie Watt, then Daryn Cresswell, Nigel Lappin. That was an expanding coaching team.
“It was quickly up to six and seven, plus the head coach.
“Now we are nines and tens. We are creating jobs to develop young people and get them better prepared to play AFL football.
“What we don’t do is just coach them in football. We coach them in a lot of other things.
“We have plenty of welfare people, plenty of psychs around them now. Our physical people to condition them properly, doctors and physios to make sure we look after their physical performance and also their mental performance.”
Hinkley remains realistic regarding the situation but is adamant there is a need for the ever-expanding nature of a football department.
“I’m not sure, no one can be sure,” he added.
“We talked about list sizes and managing 45 players. Clearly if that number changes, it would shrink other numbers as well.
“But there’s some chance that won’t hurt us at all. I just feel the game is really professional.
“When we travel the world and see bits and pieces of the game, we all come back and most people would say that Australian rules football is done at a really high level in lots of areas.
“We are lucky to have our game the way we have it. Well administrated and performed well on the field.”
Listen to Hinkley's chat with Gerard Whateley below: