‘No incentive’: Great’s big issue with AFL pre-season as coach unhappy with ‘deflating’ problem

Four-time Hawthorn premiership player Jordan Lewis believes there is “no incentive” for AFL players to play in pre-season practice matches, following the raft of injuries suffered over the summer.

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Lewis’ comments come after Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick told AFL 360 he was left ‘really deflated’ by the numerous ailments his Suns suffered last Friday.

Bulldogs skipper Marcus Bontempelli, Sydney’s Errol Gulden and Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters are among the most recent examples of stars struck down by injury this pre-season.

For Hardwick’s Suns, Mac Andrew, Charlie Ballard, Lachie Weller and David Swallow were pulled from the Community Series match against Sydney well before full-time due to respective injuries.

“Look, (we haven’t pulled up) as well as we’d like,” Hardwick told Fox Footy on Monday night.

“You’ve sort of got to put them (the players) in harm’s way a little bit, but it (the block of practice matches) can be a really deflating experience by the end of it, and then you’re shuffling deck chairs to try and make it work.

“It is a challenging period, and whether it’s through training or the pre-season games, you ride on a knife’s edge.”

Asked directly if it was necessary for clubs to play opponents in the lead-up to the season season proper, Hardwick said: “I think you do. I think ‘how many?’ is probably the case.

“I think definitely one (needs to be played). Other clubs will push for two and I could be talked into it, but I think the challenge for all of us is we’ve got the world’s longest pre-season, we’ve also got the longest season, and something has to give.

“One of the struggles for us is we come back (and) we train for two-and-a-half, three weeks before Christmas, then we have three weeks off, then we come back, then we’ve got community camps … So, everything isn’t … it doesn’t flow.”

Lewis asserted there was “no incentive” anymore for players to front up for pre-season contests amid considerable injury risk.

“If you take Brisbane, for example, they play in the last game of (last) year and then they’re starting the first game of this year,” Lewis began On the Couch on Monday night.

“They’ve had 27-28 main training sessions between that period of time, so we are trying to put out the best product possible, yet we are limiting the chances for these clubs to train to practice on a really big scale.

“It’s not too many times you get to go out there and play and train the way that you want to play during the season. I’m happy for injuries to come if it’s any competition that has an incentive.

“(In) the old days there was prize money, so the bottom clubs really had something to play for. There’s no incentive now. The clubs do intra-clubs and maybe play against another side under limited conditions.

“There’s no incentive, for me, to play a pre-season match these days.”

Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley responded with what he believes the ‘incentive’ for players is.

“The incentive is that you are preparing for the early rounds of the season as best you possibly can, because if you don’t graduate that load and the intensity, then you’re jumping right up into (the start of the season) and you’re more likely to get injured.

“You are going to lose players along the way at times, because you’ve got to load the players up enough to be able to prepare them for the early-season aspects.

“It’s a long season, though, and the conditioning coaches earn their wage 10-fold, I reckon, because they are so key on running a pre-season that gets enough work in but not too little that you’re not ready, and not too much that you get (injured).

“It is a fine line, and it is a big part of success.”