CHRIS Scott says the AFL and the players’ association must address work/life balance, fearing burnout and the shortening of players’ careers.

A discussion that started about the form of Joel Selwood over the first half of the season turned into one about the issue of players no longer enjoying the game as they once did.

At his press conference on Tuesday, the Geelong coach said there was an issue that must be discussed if enjoyment of the game was almost solely associated with when a team was going well.

“If it’s true what you hear that our gun players don’t really enjoy the game all that much, then something’s wrong and we’ve got to address it,” Scott said.

“If you canvassed all the players across the competition, even the coaches that played back in the day, and you asked them when did they enjoy their footy the most, it would be when they’re winning premierships and when they’re winning most weeks.

“The players’ association do surveys asking players about their levels of engagement and invariably the teams that are winning most weeks feel pretty good about themselves, but somehow we’ve got to find ways of not linking enjoyment and motivation for playing the game with success. It’s a challenge.

“A lot of hard-nosed people outside the AFL industry would be thinking, when they hear this conversation, ‘harden up a little bit, you get well-paid, yeah, it can be tough at times but you get well and truly rewarded for those difficulties’.

media_camera Joel Selwood is tackled at training.

“I think there is a level of the grass being greener on the other side and maybe when you’ve had a bit of a taste outside of it you realise some other professions aren’t that easy either, but I think it really hits home when you see the great players, who work really hard and are really solid citizens, suggesting that maybe the fun’s gone out of it a little bit.”

Asked whether he feared that Selwood would get burnt out by the way he plays the game, Scott said: “I do, but I feel that for all of our players and I think it’s quite a topical issue in the AFL at the moment.

“I know the AFL Players’ Association have been quite vocal in their desire for at least a conversation around work/life balance for players and just, if you remove that for a second, the physical toll on some of the great players,” he said.

“I think the whole footy industry’s united in the desire to have those guys play long careers, we’d love to see Joel Selwood play an extra couple of years than retire prematurely.

“It’s a good conversation to have. Right at the moment I haven’t got too many answers but I agree … that it should be a concern for us, we shouldn’t just stick our head in the sand and say ‘he’s a tough player and he’s a hard worker, he’ll be right, he’ll push his way through it’, I think that’s a little naive.”

Scott said Selwood had not performed to the same levels he had in previous years, but that they had been exceptionally high standards to maintain.

SCOTT FEELS SORRY FOR CROWS FANS

He said he did not believe a lack of other bigger bodies in Geelong’s midfield was to blame for the captain’s drop-off in 2015.

“I think it’s been happening for a little while, we haven’t had really experienced big midfielders for quite some time and I don’t think it impacted his form too much last year,” Scott said.

“Ideally we’d have five or six absolute gun midfielders who are all in the prime of their career as Joel is, a 26-27-year-old, we don’t at the moment but we don’t think we’re too far away from developing a pretty formidable midfield group.”