THE BRISBANE Lions hope to end several years of high-volume and high-impact player departures by creating the best support and welfare arrangement in the AFL.
 
That's the goal of new strategy and retention manager Craig Lambert, who has returned to the club after five years as the player welfare manager at Greater Western Sydney.
 
It was Lambert and his wife Melissa who were a key reason why the Giants were able to keep so many of their highly rated youngsters despite lucrative offers to return to their home states.
 
"This was a club that had every high draft pick in the world and in two or three years they were supposed to leave," he told SEN on Friday.
 
"But for some reason they stayed and hopefully because of that family environment we tried to create there. We will be doing exactly the same at the Lions."
 
Lambert said that it was a given that draftees will be homesick, but that the right environment can manage it.
 
"The No.1 thing we are concerned about is the environment we create. We don't draft a player, we draft a family and the when we meet a draftee we talk about getting the family up there as much as we can, the grandparents, the aunties and uncles.
 
"It's such an important component of the club. If we can create that family environment, it minimises the risk of losing players."
 
He added that the support has to be right on and off the field and that even the most minute details are important at football clubs.
 
"Welfare has become such an important component, particularly the interstate clubs and if you get that right then it minimises the go home factor."
 
Lambert a former Richmond and Lions player, headed up player welfare at the Lions all the way through that club’s successful era from 2002. He was headhunted by the Giants to take on a similar role at that club when it entered the AFL and started drafting players.
 
Elliott Yeo, Sam Docherty, James Aish, Billy Longer and Jared Polec are among some of the highly rated youngsters who have left the Lions in the last few years after just two seasons with the club.