AXED Carlton AFLW coach Daniel Harford has spoken for the first time since he was let go by the club, saying the Blues had had taken their "eye off the ball a little bit with the women’s program”.

Harford was let go with one year remaining on his contract following the findings of a wide-ranging external review into the Blues' AFLW program, commissioned by the club in December after the team slumped to 14th on the ladder.

Carlton was the second-lowest Victorian side in season seven, and the worst of the eight inaugural AFLW teams.

In a wide-ranging interview on his breakfast show on RSN, Harford covered a range of topics around his departure from the club and the results of the review, as well as suggesting there was an opportunity for the competition as a whole to review where it is at.

BLUES BOMBSHELL Carlton parts ways with Harford after historic review

Part-time and full-time coaches 

Harford said the competition had evolved to a point where the teams required full-time coaches.

"The expectation is now that the coach of an AFLW program is full-time. I can't do that. I can't service that need for the program, and the players and the program deserves a full-time coach," he said.

"When I started four years ago, part-time was a good opportunity, and it was about right for where the competition was. But because of the expansion and the size and the speed of the expansion, and that's not just with teams, but the players' access to facilities and time and salary, the time is right for the Carlton footy club to look for a senior coach to be a full-time employee to be there to service the needs of the players.

"You look around the competition, and I was trying to work this out last night, and I don't officially know, but I reckon there'd be two, three max, part-time AFLW coaches. The rest would be full-time employees of the club (some are on full-time contracts for a specific period of time, others work across both programs).

"Now I'm really fortunate, I have other employment opportunities, and this is a great thing for me to do, to talk on RSN and talk sport for a living, and I was so lucky and grateful to have this as a bit of a side-hustle, a passion project. But the time is now for the footy club to get serious about the program, but also catch up with the speed of growth of the competition and the players' expectations."

Carlton's heavy focus on the men's program

Harford said the club’s focus on improving its men’s program had perhaps caused attention to slip away from the women’s program.

"There was such a focus on the men's program and their reviews, Michael Voss coming in and Luke Sayers coming in as president, with a really aggressive mandate to get the place back on track really quickly, that I think there was an eye taken off the AFLW program," he said.

"And they give themselves a bit of a clip in the review as well, the footy club, where the say the review found a clear vision for the AFLW program was required, containing a definitive direction and goal for the program across the immediate short, medium and long term.

"So I think they admitted they took their eye off the ball a little bit with the AFLW program, and left us to run our own sort of race a bit, without the support we perhaps needed."

The AFLW competition

Harford said the issues raised in the Blues’ review presented an opportunity for the League to re-evaluate its vision for AFLW.

"I think the competition can have a bit of a review of itself and what this competition is too,” he said.

"If they're serious about making it about what they seem to want to make it, then there's an opportunity for them to reflect on what they do with the competition, how it's managed and run, how it's operated week to week, the ground facilities, all that sort of stuff. It's an opportunity for them to reflect a bit on this as well."

High performance in a part-time program

Harford said high performance looked different in the part-time context of the women’s competition, and should not be compared to that of the men’s game. 

"I’m still not 100 per cent convinced of what high performance in a part-time program actually is. If you're measuring high performance in the women's program against high performance in the men's program, then you're in the wrong room, as far as I'm concerned," he said.

"If you've got part-time people (fitness staff) who are getting there at 4-5pm, three or four nights a week depending on the training week, trying to develop and initiate this program, after working their other jobs – and this isn't me, this is the other departments in the program – that's a real challenge.

"So the club needs to invest, and the game and the competition needs to have a situation where in management roles of different silos, whether it's high performance, strength and conditioning, development, coaching and whatever else there is, they almost all need to be full-time members of the footy club, and get the program to where it needs to be at."

What's next?

Harford said there will be no more coaching in his immediate future, after 30 years in the game.

"I'm going to have weekends in the footy season for the first time in 30 years. And I do want to thank my wife, in all of this. She put a very cheeky post on Facebook last night saying when I retired from playing, that was in 2004 at the tender age of 27, and it was to spend some time with my young daughter, and to play in the playground without hobbling, and she said the daughter has now graduated and I still haven't seen her," he said.

"So that's 17 years later. I'm going to enjoy some time with Bec, and (son) Will, as (daughter) Abbey goes off to the navy.

"But I've been very blessed and lucky to have been part of this club and this competition, it has truly been a life-changing competition for me and my experience in footy and life.

"I'm thankful for all the people I've worked with, and I have no ill-will to the Carlton footy club, and I'll be a champion for the AFL women's competition for as long as I need to be, because I think it's fantastic."