HAWTHORN Assistant Coach Cameron Bruce believes a trip to England and Ireland in the pre-season has helped him become a better mentor.

After finishing his distinguished 234-game career with Melbourne and Hawthorn in mid-2012, Bruce immediately made the transition to coaching and took on a development role with the Hawks that saw him nurture the Club’s young talent.

After 18 months and a taste for coaching, Bruce moved into an assistant role with the Hawks made vacant by the departure of Adam Simpson who won the senior role at West Coast.

From there, Bruce has thrived in his role as midfield coach and was given the opportunity to travel overseas to learn from different sporting codes.

He visited English Premier League Club Tottenham Hotspur and English soccer side Fulham, top professional Irish rugby club Leinster and English rugby club Saracens, where he had the privilege of gaining access to each aspect of their facility and talent.

“It’s so important we try and be innovative in the AFL and you never know, some ideas may pop up that we can implement that we aren’t already doing in the AFL,” Bruce told hawthornfc.com.au

“Getting a look at these elite clubs to get ideas on how they operate, there were certainly a few things they do that we can implement.

“I had the opportunity to speak to all areas of their club but especially coaches and fitness guys and also had the chance to watch training to really gain an understanding of how they work.”

After winning last year’s premiership, much was written about Alastair Clarkson and his desire to be innovative and implement overseas ideas at the Ricoh Centre to improve his side’s game.

One aspect of that was the introduction of a countdown clock at training to prepare and train for situations in which the Hawks find themselves in a close contest.

Even though the Hawks were successful in achieving the Club’s eleventh premiership, there was no off-switch for Clarkson or Hawthorn’s desire to continue to find ways to stay ahead of the pack.

“That’s the great thing about ‘Clarko’ and his coaching - he encourages that innovative aspect and we always want to keep getting better,” Bruce said.

“That’s all part of trying to be elite and we’ll continue to explore because all sports overseas are doing the same things.”

One of the biggest things Bruce noticed was that Hawthorn is “on the right track” when it comes to innovation but there are still ways to improve.

He said he learnt that there are different ways to provide feedback and information to players.

“It’s little things like the way they analyse talent, analyse new talent and the way they provide information to players – it’s just different to the way we do it,” he said.

“(But) there were also some nice training drills that are relevant to our sport.

“There were certainly things that I’ve brought back and used with my own coaching and suggested the ideas to our coaching group that we can use.

He has brought back different coaching techniques and implemented them already this season with success.

“You get a good response and reaction to it and the boys are open to it,” Bruce said of the players.

“They’re a very responsive and respectable group that take all ideas on board and action them.”

Hawthorn have won six games from eight starts and in a good position after nine rounds (including the bye), so it seems the desire to learn and innovate to stay ahead of the game is already reaping rewards for the Hawks in their chase for more success.

“It’s so competitive at AFL level that every club is always looking for the next best thing to keep you ahead of the pack,” Bruce said.

“If you think that you have the system and it’s bulletproof, you’ll quickly go backwards. You need to keep reinventing things and exploring ideas.”