As some of you guys would already know, last week I was privileged enough to attend the AFLPA's Induction Camp.

Lucky enough to rub shoulders with the best and brightest talent entering the league (And a fair number of former champs).

The day was broken up into 4 distinct sections- the first two consisting of 8 workshops, followed by a panel and keynote speaker, finally finishing in a bit of a workshop.

I'm not going to cover all 8 workshops in depth, as there was a lot of player specific 'you-just-got-into-the-AFLPA-here's-what-you-need-to-know' kind of stuff, but a couple were pretty damn interesting.

The most interesting for mine was Setbacks. Presented by Nathan Brown, it revolved a lot around that horrid leg break that he picked up in 2005, but went on to describe just how difficult and lonely it is to rehabilitate such a long term injury.

He then went on to discuss the various other types of Setbacks that an AFL footballer can expect to deal with. All in all, a good talk.

Tom Steinfort, reporter for channel 9 took a workshop to cover Social and Personal Responsibility.

To sum it up in a nutshell, it's super important to have an on-line presence to interact with us fan, but it's just as important to not be, or say, stupid things!

Common sense stuff really, but it's always fun to catch a few disaster stories. (*cough*Stephie Rice*cough*)

Toby Thurstans and Ed Lower shared a presentation on Off Field Development, essentially sharing their divergent stories where one took advantage of the training and access that the AFLPA provided, leading to a stepping stone int a career after football, which the other- obviously didn't.

I'll let you guess who as who.

Of course, one of the biggest underlying messages through the entire day was that playing football is a job. Not a career. That the average life span of an AFL footballer is just 4.8 years. And that is a massive part of what the AFL provides- the ability to continue with a career once your football is done.

After lunch, the keynote speaker was Ben Graham, who spoke to us on how they do it in the NFL.

Pretty ugly over there from all reports, and the NFL actually looks to the AFL to improve what they are doing- The AFL being the gold standard in player development off the field.

Did you know, that 78% of NFL players, 3 years after retirement are broke and can no longer afford their medical bills. I found that shocking!

The day ended with a drumming session from former Living End drummer, Travis Demsey- who regaled us with stories of the road, and of being threatened with a piece in the US - and how of course, they didn't have the support of an agency such as the AFLPA.

Of course, throughout the day I managed to sneak in a bunch of interviews which I'll post up over the next week (Or two, pending how much I split my time between development and writing).

I'd just like to say a big thank you to the AFLPA for letting us see a little of what goes on behind the curtain.