Following our exes...................

[divvydan]

Also, with the rule changes that allow for a mid-season draft, there's always the chance to get picked up if you're fit and playing well in a role that an AFL team might need.

[Axe Man]

AKERMANIS: “I DON’T KNOW WHERE I WENT WRONG”

Brisbane Lions great Jason Akermanis admits he cannot work out why he hasn't been able to crack the coaching caper at AFL level.

The Brownlow Medallist and three-time premiership player has a coaching degree and many years of coaching experience to his name but has been unable to land a job in the industry.

After being knocked back by Essendon in 2015, the 41-year-old is now following his dream of becoming a professional golfer having seen his efforts of breaking into the coaching world slowly fade away.

However, Akermanis has not completely given up hope of one day landing a coaching gig even though those pursuits are on the back burner for now.

“I can’t say I’ve totally given up because someone might actually ring me and say, ‘Jason, I think we know with your experience and what you’ve done that you’d actually suit our group’,” Akermanis told KB & The Doc.

“There’s no doubt there’s lots of groups I could easily do (that with).

“I don’t know where I went wrong, I think I was doing it the right way. I see blokes who have never coached come straight out of the game and get nice jobs in the AFL.

“I know it’s not always as it seems. They’re not long lives as coaches sometimes but I just had to take the hint I think. It just wouldn’t happen.

“I think I’m great at what I did and I’ve got a lot to offer, because I did everything wrong (as a player), so I knew what to do right and wrong as far as coaching and mentoring.

“It just wasn’t to be and I don’t know what I need to do to get back in, but I’ve coached golfers, I’ve coached athletes, I’ve coached many different fields.

“What do you do? You’ve just go to roll with it.”

Asked if a general perception of his character was a major reason he has found it hard to land a coaching gig at AFL level, Akermanis was quick to provide a fairly clear-cut answer.

“Yes, definitely,” he added.

“I talked to Adam Simpson a couple of years ago and he just said to me off the cuff, ‘look we don’t have any jobs at the moment, but mate, all I’ll say to you is you’ve got to be a team player’.

“And that’s nothing against Adam, because he’s a premiership coach, he’s done a great job. But I’ve worked in teams for a long time and I’ve coached teams.

“I know about teams and I know about team work, and I certainly know how to do the wrong thing, so my experience all of a sudden goes from being pretty valuable to worth nothing just because some bloke thinks, ‘well, he’s not a team player’.

“Because I looked individual, and I certainly was outspoken, so maybe that’s a misconception and I’m happy to wear that, but that was eight years ago since I retired.

“Blokes have got to move on, because I certainly have.”

[GVGjr]

Despite our uneasy relationship with Akermanis at the end of his career I still think he could be a great one for the development of younger players at the AFL level.

Perhaps it's a perception issue which is all of his doing but it's a shame he isn't part of the footy community.

[divvydan]

He did manage 25 I's in that interview and a handful of uses of I've as well. Given the perception issue he has, his manner of speaking in this interview certainly doesn't help him overcome it.

[Go_Dogs]

He stamped his own ticket unfortunately.

Agree he probably has a lot to offer and would be perhaps a good person to work with younger players and relate some of his history where with hindsight he lacked the maturity. How it’s impacted his ability to progress a career post playing is interesting when you see many others who have found a way and probably done “worse” things than Aker ever did.

[jeemak]

Akermanis - I don't know where I went wrong...……

Also Akermainis - I did everything wrong as a player...……

With a little more analysis you might stumble on the answer, you dullard.

[Twodogs]

One of the things Aker got wrong toward the end of his career was constantly talking out of school and going on national TV and telling everyone things that teammates had told him in confidence. Blurting out some private advice the reigning premiership coach gave you probably doesn't go very far to proving that you've learned much about you're sudden end as an afl player or promote much confidence tgatvyou have learned much about teamwork.

[ledge]

It was definitely a strange interview where he contradicted himself and everyone else was to blame except him even though he says he did things wrong he wouldn’t say what it was.
He even criticised people who got jobs above him just because they werent as good a footballer as him and had less experienced.
In the end it comes down to people skills, sadly in a group he would upset more than less with his blame everyone else personality.
Great footballer but that alone doesn’t get you a job nowadays.

[Rocket Science]

The self-absorbed twit once pilloried the efforts of openly gay footballer Jason Ball's efforts to counter homophobic attitudes in the game with "who cares?"

Hey Aker, I've got a rhetorical question for ya ...

[Mofra]

Aker really isn't a bad guy, he's just an absolute in the moment people-pleaser so whoever he is with at the time gets his effort and attention to the exclusion of what he's said/done in the past with other people.

I doubt many will agree but I have some sympathy for him. I couldn't see him coaching at the Bulldogs though given he and Gia don't see eye to eye.
It's worth noting he said he wanted the Bulldogs to win a flag for Morris, still holds him in as high regard as anybody he played with.

[Twodogs]

Aker really isn't a bad guy, he's just an absolute in the moment people-pleaser so whoever he is with at the time gets his effort and attention to the exclusion of what he's said/done in the past with other people.

I doubt many will agree but I have some sympathy for him. I couldn't see him coaching at the Bulldogs though given he and Gia don't see eye to eye.
It's worth noting he said he wanted the Bulldogs to win a flag for Morris, still holds him in as high regard as anybody he played with.

I remember Aker saying that. It's one of the reasons that I still have some regard for him.

[bornadog]

I remember Aker saying that. It's one of the reasons that I still have some regard for him.

Morris mentioned earlier this year they are still friends

[Sedat]

Akermanis thought all these media doors would open up post footy career. They did, but only on that short lived radio station disaster whose name everyone has already forgotten - the one with Sam Newman, Steve Price and other assorted dickheads. The ratings were so low I think there was an asterisk in some surveys instead of an actual number like 0.1.

Then he tries his hand at coaching and realised that nobody wants anything to do with him - he even lambasted Adam Simpson for not taking a chance on him, the same Adam Simpson who is reigning premiership coach. He’s a slow learner old Aker.

And how he is trying his hand at professional golf and taking whatever calls he can to save his complete and utter lack of profile. Good luck to him, one of the best footballers I’ve seen in the last 30 years, but he is a deluded fool for thinking his post footy career was going to turn out any other way than it has.

[Axe Man]

Seems like Mitch hasn't attracted any interest from AFL clubs. Good luck to him.

EFL: Mitch Honeychurch returns to Vermont in the Eastern Football League

Delisted Bulldog Mitch Honeychurch will return to his junior club Vermont as a one-point player in 2019 in another recruiting boon for the defending Eastern Football League premier.

Honeychurch was last month cut by the Western Bulldogs, where he played 35 AFL games across five seasons after being taken with pick No.60 in the 2013 draft.

The 23-year-old also played in two VFL premierships with Footscray during his time at Whitten Oval.

Honeychurch returns to Terrara Rd as a one-point player under the player points system.

Vermont coach Harmit Singh said Honeychurch’s ties to the club, where he played his junior football, led him back to the EFL powerhouse.

“He’s very close to the playing group, his family has been around the football club for a long time from his junior days and it’s great to have him back playing with his mates,” Singh said.

“We’ll be stoked to have Mitch join our midfield and forward group. He’s a very quality player and played some fantastic footy over the last few years as well.

“The pull of playing football with your mates, just living locally and the connection he had to the place probably won out.”

[bulldogtragic]

Good for him.