At the end of the 1986 footy season in Brisbane my Coorparoo team mate Andy and I were invited to train with Collingwood FC. For Andy, a cousin of the Shaw dynasty it was almost a homecoming but for me,  I was well and truly out of my depth.

I trained with the main group for three months but given the competitive nature at that level, I was barely spoken to. The coach Leigh Matthews spoke to me twice.

The first time was to berate me for kicking the ball in the wrong direction during a drill and the next time was over a post-training breakfast in February, when he suggested that the VFA might be the best thing for me.

Who was I to argue with a man whose body was as wide as it was tall?  He was right as always and that was where I would play the next seven years.

One time I came home from training and my girlfriend at the time, Robyn asked me how it went.

“Yeah really good thanks. Peter Daicos spoke to me today.”

“Oh Yeah. What did he have to say?”

“He put his hand on my shoulder and asked me to move as I was in front of his locker.”

“That’s nice dear. Cup of tea?”

Nonetheless, I was grateful for the experience at Victoria Park, now almost a museum piece although it’s still used for AFLW and VFL games.

We have been going there a lot lately with the dog we are minding. The surface is impeccable and it has become a haven for dogs to run amok and assimilate.

Today, we had to get off the ground a bit early as the West Coast AFLW team were in town and were booked to train.

As a footy lover and former player and coach I’m always interested to see how team’s approach training. As far as I’m concerned, everything you want to achieve in the game comes down to training habits, so I was curious to see how an AFLW team approaches theirs.

First of all, what is this trend of playing music from a giant beatbox during training? If you can’t train without artificial stimulation you shouldn’t be out there.

“Oh you’re so old and antiquated”. No I’m not. It’s an insult to the game. The girls could barely hear the coaches and what benefit are they deriving from it? The rubbish that was coming from that speaker didn’t even contain bass, drums and guitar. I don’t know what it was but it sure as hell wasn’t motivating, just distracting. Rant over.

The other thing that was evident was that there were seven coaches and a conditioner, all male. There was a support crew of maybe six, with one female being a trainer and one videoing training. This poses a couple of questions.

Why are they videoing training, and why aren’t women coaching?

Ok, the answer to the first question and this goes for the VFL and leagues just below that level. Remove the need for technology. GPS’s and video analysis has become common place and it’s overkill at these levels.

Players spend way too much time watching videos of themselves when they could be on the track utilising the time to hone their skills.

On the second question, I’m not clear on where the development of female coaches is, but I was shocked to see experienced St Kilda’s AFLW Coach Peta Searle get replaced by Nick Dal Santo. We could be reversing this trend and having women replacing men.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions we have in AFLW footy is comparing expectations to the AFL mens standard. Furthermore, some within the AFLW ranks suggest that “if the men have this, then the women should.”

If you want to talk ‘apples with apples’, then compare the AFLW to the VFL/WAFL/SANFL. These were once retirement homes for ex-VFL/AFL players but are now colleges for player development.

The young men playing in these competitions either work or study and sacrifice a lot to perform at that level. That’s where the AFLW could be referenced, not the AFL.

The girls receive many of the same benefits as AFL players around gear, match payments and even flights and accommodation, something rarely offered in the equivalent male competitions. Thanks to the exposure on TV, they also play in front of bigger crowds and have national profiles in many cases, which provides commercial opportunities.

Despite all this, talk of going full time professional seems ludicrous to me. Of course we all want the AFLW to flourish but the standard, although improving, in my opinion is barely comparable to a men’s Division 1 suburban level.

What the AFLW has done for young girls around the country can’t be denied. My own daughters who in previous years I’ve had to drag screaming to a Saints game, actually show some interest in the girls. You can now see girls kicking footys wherever you go which you rarely ever saw ten years ago.

So, I’m not knocking the women’s game, I’m just trying to look at it objectively. Slow down a bit, remove the commentator’s overuse of the term ‘elite’ and lets not rush into emotional, rash decision making.

The AFLW and all the coaches and support staff are being bank rolled by the AFL. The AFL need to reassess where the money is going and develop more female coaches.

The AFL’s reputation for nepotism precedes them and the cynical in me says the AFLW is another opportunity for ‘jobs for the boys’ and their respective career paths in the game.

I watched the West Coast girls warm up for 30 minutes. Is that really necessary? Then they put them through an AFL warm up on match day. No wonder many of them are fatigued by three quarter time.

Back in the days of the VFA, we didn’t have a pre-game warm up on the ground because of the reserves game. We did what we could in the confines of the tiny changerooms then a five minute kick before the first bounce. No sport science required.

One of the many great things about the women playing footy is that they are incredibly coachable. Go out to a huddle at any quarter time break and watch how intently the players listen. Puts the men to shame.

Could they benefit from less sport science and more basics? I think the men have gone down the other side of the technology bell curve so I’d hate to see the women do the same so quickly now that they have access. Spending more time coaching game sense and skills and less on a laptop could be beneficial.

So what’s your point old man? Well firstly, I’m a great believer that you don’t need a massive budget, a cast of thousands especially coaches and technology to produce a good footy team. Keeping it simple and drawing on history is something I’m sure the AFLW girls would love. Get the basics right first and not mirroring the AFL mens will help manage expectations.

Secondly, whenever I was playing and getting paid, I always considered it a bonus and a privilege. If, for a split second I thought I was getting hard done by, my mind crossed to Olympic athletes.

Most of our Olympians rely on a small sponsorship from their family and local IGA to survive and compete internationally. They are truly elite and make enormous sacrifices to achieve their goals.

The AFLW just needs to crawl before it can walk. Consolidate on the tremendous growth, be grateful for what you have, get more women coaches in and remember there are men’s competitions like theirs that understand your plight and you can take learnings from.

Oh, and if your serious about playing this great game, never, ever bring a beatbox to training again.