Develop the coach. Grow the game.
Practical knowledge and tools for community AFL coaches — to help you plan, teach, lead and review, inside the week you’ve actually got.
Why the coach
Community football runs on volunteer coaches. What they do shapes whether a 13-year-old comes back next season, whether a senior side is somewhere people want to be, and whether anyone gets better along the way.
They bring real experience from work, family and sport. But the parts of the job that decide how it goes — reading behaviour, leading a group, planning a season, having the hard conversation — are assumed rather than taught.
So we changed what we do
First Use began as ruck and stoppage coaching, taught to athletes. It worked — the players who did it got better at a hard, specific part of the game. But coach an athlete and you improve one player. Help a coach and you improve every player that coach works with, this season and every season after.
We moved from developing athletes to developing the people who develop them.