AFL player John McCarthy's untimely death reverberated across Australia and so will his funeral, as thousands gather in two states to mourn him.

Demonstrating the extent to which the 22-year-old's death in Las Vegas last week affected the AFL community, every club will be represented at the funeral mass, at St Mary's Star of the Sea Catholic Church in the Victoria town of Sorrento.

The two AFL clubs the 22-year-old played for, Port Adelaide and Collingwood, will be represented by all of their players, along with coaching staff and officials.

AFL heavyweights including chief executive Andrew Demetriou and football operations manager Adrian Anderson will also attend, as will AFL players' association officials Matthew Finnis and Ian Prendergast.

A video feed will enable the service to be viewed by mourners in an overflow area outside the church.

It will also be relayed to Port Adelaide's training base Alberton Oval and to Collingwood's headquarters, the Westpac Centre.

The Power will hold their own public memorial service at Alberton before screening the live video feed.

After the mass, mourners will form a guard of honour for the hearse as it leaves for a private family burial.

The Magpies will then take buses straight to Melbourne Airport for their flight to Sydney to play in Friday night's AFL preliminary final against the Swans at ANZ Stadium.

Collingwood football and coaching strategist Rodney Eade said everyone had their own way of grieving and the club would take a flexible approach to dealing with emotions brought up by the funeral.

"What the club's done really well is encourage the players to express their feelings and have a talk to people and there's enough support around," Eade said.

"(Coach Nathan Buckley's) been very good about it as well and he's got a good relationship with the players individually and collectively.

"He's talking to the players.

"So there might be something on the bus on the way back, but that will just depend on how the mood is and what the players feel like."