Under the Clarkson blueprint, which he also outlined in a frank presentation to the AFL Commission in Sydney on Monday, Hird would not have been allowed to coach the Bombers without AFL accreditation and at least two years' coaching experience. Clarkson told Fairfax Media: ''We need to ensure (the Essendon supplements scandal) never happens in our game again. What have we learned? What have coaches learned about their obligations and responsibilities to young men? What have clubs learned? What have junior coaches learned? ''It's too easy to sweep it under the carpet and hope it's never going to happen again. Next time it could be illicit drugs or young girls in night clubs. It comes down to having the right systems and protocols in place. ''Hirdy (James Hird) needs accreditation to coach under nines but not an AFL footy team. It really concerns me that the game doesn't protect itself in the way, say, the teaching industry does.'' Clarkson, who has just returned from two weeks at Harvard Business School, said he had chosen to speak in some depth about his concerns because he believed senior coaches had more to offer than simply self-interest in the governing of the game.

''I know there will be a view which says: 'Button your lip Clarkson. This doesn't involve you, concentrate on Hawthorn and don't worry about other clubs,''' he said. ''For too long, coaches have had that attitude or felt they should. For too long, we've said nothing. We need to speak up about this. ''We're only temporary custodians. We're just here to protect the game and pass the baton on to the next generation and ensure it is in a good state. ''We've just got to make sure that things like what happened last year must never be allowed to ambush the game again, to tarnish what is a great game.'' Clarkson said it was the role of the AFL to put regulations in place, although he has already outlined details of his recommendations to the AFL Coaches Association. He said that coaches' licences should be mandatory and that by 2020 every senior coach appointed should have coached his own team for a minimum two years.

His comments came after not only the unprecedented suspension of Hird in 2013 but Brisbane's sacking of its three-time premiership captain Michael Voss, who also took over as coach with no previous experience. ''The game doesn't protect itself from over-zealous board members,'' Clarkson added, ''who become fixated on the idea of a club legend or a star player becoming their coach with no experience.'' Clarkson said he had been disappointed that reports of AFL Coaches' Association bosses visiting and working with Hird had given ''half a suggestion that the coaches' association sympathised with Hirdy and understood and felt he'd been harshly done by. That was not my view, not many of the other coaches' view. ''I'd like to (talk with James Hird) at some stage, but now is probably not the time. ''The time we could have had an influence was half-way through the year, but unfortunately that didn't happen.'' Asked whether he had sympathised with AFL chief Andrew Demetriou, who came under fire for his handling of the drugs scandal, Clarkson replied: ''Hell yes.

''I really felt for Andrew (Demetriou). He was trying to do the right thing by the game. He and Mike (Fitzpatrick) were trying to protect the game, the code and all of us in the game, and he was treading a pathway through a minefield. There were landmines all over the place. ''It affected all of us and it forced us to look at ourselves and what we could learn from it at Hawthorn. Coaches are pretty resilient, but it was more to do with the wider damage to the game. We have a great game and it was ambushed and it could have been avoided.'' Loading A former teacher, long-time assistant coach also boasting experience at VFL and SANFL level, Clarkson is entering his 10th season at Hawthorn and was summoned by the commission to present his views after a session the previous season with 2012 premiership coach John Longmire. After coaching Hawthorn to a second premiership under his tutelage, Clarkson said he had also been influenced late last year by a visit to St George's Park in the UK, the English Football Association's national football centre for coaching and development, a centre he believed that the AFL could use as a model.