THE DAYS of AFL players rocking up to primary schools across the country for loosely-arranged clinics will be a thing of the past under the new collective bargaining agreement.  

The League and AFL Players' Association are set to engage an outside expert to add structure and certainty to the way player appearances are conducted.  

The new deal promises: "AFLPA and AFL to work with external consultant to develop an improved appearances model and tool to better record activities."  

While at pains to point out players don't have a problem with doing public appearances, Essendon veteran James Kelly has shed light on issues with how the players were being put to use.  

"The thing that I have a gripe with … is when you actually go to an appearance and there's more players at the appearance than there are people," Kelly told this week's AFL Exchange podcast.    

"I feel like if you could find that there's more benefit from your actual time going there, I feel like they could structure that up better.  

"Sometimes you go to schools and they're like, 'Oh, we didn't actually know that you were coming, we heard that you might be, but we weren't sure'.  

"Or you go to do a school, no word of a lie, this has actually happened, you go to a school and a teacher hands you 60 kids and two footies and says, 'You're here for an hour and a half, all right, I'll come back then'.  

"There's obviously a lot of people that are involved from the club all the way to these schools."      

Kelly said players would welcome reform.  

"I think if I was the consultant I'd be making it a little bit more streamlined.  

"The teachers that use you as babysitters, I know a lot of players have issues with.  

"Absolutely no-one has a problem with actually going out and doing it, but we're not school teachers at the end of the day.  

"It's quite comical sometimes."