Resources, workload and the media can make it a stressful job and the wolves will always circle if the results dry upPressure, the fighter pilot and champion cricketer Keith Miller once said, was a Messerschmitt up your arse. It’s a quote often wheeled out by Mark Latham types bemoaning a world gone soft. It bobbed up a few times last week in regards to AFL coaches, who are apparently stressed, under-resourced and burnt out. Two of the most successful coaches of their generation stepped away from the game in recent weeks. “Coaches feel like the scum of the industry,” Caroline Wilson said. Even Craig McRae spoke of the enormous toll it takes on his wellbeing and his family life.Not everyone...
The outgoing Richmond coach took the Tigers from a laughing stock to a colossus but his impact has reverberated much further afield“Let’s be honest,” Brendan Gale told author and journalist Konrad Marshall. “He inherited a piece of shit.” Even by Richmond standards, 2009 was a rough year. Terry Wallace’s final weeks as coach were particularly unedifying. The Herald Sun ran with the headline “Death Row”. He departed mid-season and retreated to his bolt hole, barricading himself in his home theatre.His replacement was a Kevin Sheedy man. Damian Hardwick had the Sheedy cunning, the Sheedy mongrel. He’d narrowly missed out on four senior coaching roles. He was pipped for the Essendon job after his computer short circuited during the interview. Continue...
Against a backdrop of complex issues named for a man of multiple talents, Essendon and Richmond’s contrasting styles delivered sweet pandemoniumFootball is constantly lurching from the sublime to the farcical and the execrable. The Sir Doug Nicholls Round was no exception. Like the man it honoured - a boxer, footballer, professional sprinter, Minister, social worker, Governor and leader of his people – the round contained multitudes. From the riveting (Collingwood), to the rickety (Carlton) and wretched (West Coast), this round had the lot.You have to suspend disbelief as a football fan sometimes. An hour after a coach who denies an accusation of pressuring an Aboriginal couple to terminate a pregnancy stepped down, the league endorsed a Voice to Parliament. A...
With the narrative focused on the impact on Clarkson and Fagan, the stories of First Nations families appear all but erasedOn 4 July 2018, Norm Smith medallist and three-time All-Australian Cyril Rioli announced his retirement from football, effective immediately.Rioli was an adornment to the game. One of a few who possessed the skill and joie de vivre you would pay money to see. At the time, the reporting on the reason for his sudden retirement leant towards his difficult season the year prior, during which his father, Cyril Snr, died from a heart attack. Continue reading...
After another terrible loss, Carlton is a club in tatters with the coach, captain and CEO staring down the barrel of frustrated fans and angry “assassins”When Brian Cook was CEO of Geelong, he had a folder on his computer for all the vicious emails he received from fans, coterie groups, and board members. He labelled it “Assassins”.It’s easy to forget just how dire things were at the Cats when he took over. The coach and captain walked out. The team was useless and the club had no money. Garry Hocking was forced to change his name by deed poll to ‘Whiskas’ to rustle up 100 grand. “The organisation had no structures, no layers,” Cook told writer James Button. “It was...