Speaker 1: It wasn't against the rules to do that particular action,
Speaker 1: and so I thought long and hard for him to
Speaker 1: be able to play in the Grand Final, and that
Speaker 1: was probably my demise was a tribute Barrel member as well.
Speaker 1: I'm John Ralph and I'm Glenn McFarlane.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Sacked, a podcast that explores what really happens
Speaker 2: when the ax falls in the AFL world. Will take
Speaker 2: you behind the scenes with some of the biggest names
Speaker 2: in football and find out how they found out their
Speaker 2: time was up and who pulled the trigger.
Speaker 1: Sacked AFL is.
Speaker 2: Made possible with the support of subscribers to The Herald Sun.
Speaker 2: To find out more, go to Heraldsun dot com, do
Speaker 2: au or download the Herald Sun app at your app store.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 3: Cotcher's Savior Part two of our chat with Nathan Burke.
Speaker 3: Nathan Burke's post playing career has been spent at the
Speaker 3: pointy end of some of the biggest news stories our
Speaker 3: game has produced over the past two decades. From his
Speaker 3: time on the Saints board to a run as the
Speaker 3: outspoken to the Western Bulldogs AFL W team, Burke has
Speaker 3: never found himself far from the action. It was a
Speaker 3: stint on the match Review Panel and his role in
Speaker 3: the grading of Trent Kotchin's bump on Dylan Shield in
Speaker 3: the twenty seventeen prelim that could go down as his
Speaker 3: most consequential hand in footy history for Tiger fans at least.
Speaker 2: So, how did you find yourself at a Chinese restaurant
Speaker 2: in the Gold Coast, China? Appeal to the great Malcolm
Speaker 2: Blyte densely sign a servier, Yes.
Speaker 1: The Great Malcolm Bite. I think there was might have
Speaker 1: been four or five is Pete Everett, Robert Harvey, Max
Speaker 1: Hodgton and myself flew out there in a room not
Speaker 1: much bigger than this little box we're in right here.
Speaker 1: A pacib podcast ye our ties on and it walks
Speaker 1: Malcolm and his manager and we have to stand up
Speaker 1: and give him an appause on the way because Malcolm,
Speaker 1: like the Kings, Malcolm and ego there rather both large,
Speaker 1: and we need to appeal to this guy's with every
Speaker 1: coach that I had in my career was the first
Speaker 1: time coach, and so we thought, hey, let's get someone
Speaker 1: who's done it before, been they'd done that, gone on
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain, come in and just really
Speaker 1: get us where we need to really really quickly, and
Speaker 1: we all had to go on the table and say
Speaker 1: why we wanted Malcolm the coach and what he was
Speaker 1: going to bring to the team. And Malcolm was pretty
Speaker 1: happy with that, and the red wines flowing, and it
Speaker 1: got to the point where Rod Butters was writing numbers
Speaker 1: on a napkin, sliding them across to Malcolm Light who
Speaker 1: sort of look at it, slide across to his manager,
Speaker 1: Ron Joseph Ron was there, Yeah, was his manager right,
Speaker 1: and look at it and sort of frown and slide
Speaker 1: it back to and the players are sitting at the
Speaker 1: other end of the table sort of watching this happened.
Speaker 1: I thought, I think this is time for us to leave.
Speaker 1: We need to get out of here. Anyway, it was
Speaker 1: good timing because Peter Everett had just gone to the
Speaker 1: toilet and it was a Chinese restaurant and he had
Speaker 1: sort of emancipated, I don't know what the word is,
Speaker 1: a lobster from the fish tank, and that was currently
Speaker 1: running around the all the Chinese was smuggling around, scuttling
Speaker 1: around the Chinese restaurant and to win to get across
Speaker 1: the side of the foreback. So that was a good
Speaker 1: time for us to get out of there and let
Speaker 1: them do their deal. And yeah, as it turned out
Speaker 1: that they eventually said led on a rather through seven
Speaker 1: figure some that got the great man down of the
Speaker 1: club with first million dollar coach. Yeah, lasted what fifteen rounds?
Speaker 2: So this starts you're thinking, this is the dawn of
Speaker 2: a new year or this is a complete clusterfuck.
Speaker 1: A bit of both. I was hoping for the former
Speaker 1: and turned out to be the ladder. It was a
Speaker 1: little bit concerned because when he'd gone to Adelaide, originally
Speaker 1: one of the first things he did was he got
Speaker 1: rid of a lot of senior play.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Successfully, Yeah, I worked out for him. So I sort
Speaker 1: of sat down with Malcolm and said, Melbourn, what's your
Speaker 1: I'm sort of hitting thirty, what's your what's your plan
Speaker 1: for us guys? And now he said, no, no, I
Speaker 1: need you for a couple of years. So was that
Speaker 1: was good? But yeah, it just for whatever reason, it
Speaker 1: just didn't work. And you know, I know Malcolm really
Speaker 1: rails at anyone who says he wasn't fully committed. But
Speaker 1: our pre season we didn't touch a ball from start
Speaker 1: a pre season to Christmas. We just ran ran and ran,
Speaker 1: and he was living in living in Queensland on the
Speaker 1: Gold Coast. He'd come down one or two nights a
Speaker 1: week at the most. And then after Christmas, if you
Speaker 1: got your time trial of time, you were allowed to
Speaker 1: touch football. And so we were extremely fit. And so
Speaker 1: when you check a whole bunch of senior fit players
Speaker 1: football and say don't go fast, though, go slow because
Speaker 1: your legs aren't used to it, it was almost like
Speaker 1: you could hear the ping ping ping really started to
Speaker 1: And then we started the year with a horrific run
Speaker 1: of injuries because everyone had Hamilton quiet and things like that,
Speaker 1: and it just sort of went from bad to worst
Speaker 1: from there. How did you lost the captaincy?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: What happened there? What was the situation? And it wasn't
Speaker 1: Malcolm that told you was It was someone else. So
Speaker 1: Grant Thomas was a football manager, and so I met
Speaker 1: Grant at the Dandy Deli in Brighton. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: just said that I think new coach, new change, we
Speaker 1: need a new captain. And I was fine with it,
Speaker 1: except Graham wanted to bring in his theory of rotating captains,
Speaker 1: bringing someone who's not quite ready to be captain with
Speaker 1: dreadlocks or formerly. I said, I'm going to make Pete
Speaker 1: EVERYTT captain and I said no, I said, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the right thing to do, because that would
Speaker 1: be giving some look. And Peter was one of those
Speaker 1: guys who was He had natural leadership abilities in that
Speaker 1: if if everyone was a part of me standing outside
Speaker 1: a room saying should we go in the room, he's
Speaker 1: a coach ready for us. Peter's the guy who go, oh,
Speaker 1: go check, Yeah, he's ready to come on, let's in,
Speaker 1: We'll go. He had that sort of leadership abilities. He
Speaker 1: also led a lot of players in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: And so we had a guy like Robert Harvey who
Speaker 1: did everything absolutely right. And so I remember sitting there
Speaker 1: with Brian Waldron and Grant Thomas and having the conversation
Speaker 1: for a good forty five minutes that if I'm going
Speaker 1: to step down, Halves has to be the one to
Speaker 1: take over. And luckily they did that because the guy
Speaker 1: deserved it. The guy deserved to be captain. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the way it turned out.
Speaker 2: We've had both Spider and we've had Granted in here
Speaker 2: as well, but it was never going to happen. So
Speaker 2: what was the good of Blightie. You know, were the
Speaker 2: things that are extraordinary or do you just know early
Speaker 2: on that this is just not going to work.
Speaker 1: Look, I did learn from blinding. He's very good at
Speaker 1: just dropping nuggets. Even and again he dropped nuggets. A
Speaker 1: lot of them were about himself. That's the aura of
Speaker 1: say things like, you know, when you're sixty meters out
Speaker 1: from goal, I want you to kick to this spot
Speaker 1: on the ground because no one can kick the ball
Speaker 1: from sixty meters out through the goals. Well, some can.
Speaker 1: I used to. And you tell a story about a
Speaker 1: guy who's playing cent half back and he used to
Speaker 1: get twenty five thirty touches a game playing cent half back,
Speaker 1: and was mainly because I wanted the ball. I mean,
Speaker 1: he wanted the ball. He dropped and they was sort
Speaker 1: of endearing to start with, and I was like, we're
Speaker 1: still doing it. But yeah, he dropped nuggets every now
Speaker 1: and again that you know that you'd pick up on.
Speaker 1: And you couldn't help being around a guy like that
Speaker 1: with his experience and knowledge without sort of picking up
Speaker 1: those sort of nuggets. But it was just the just
Speaker 1: the the bringing the group together. He probably thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm here, it's just going to happen. You're all going
Speaker 1: to fold into the way that I want things done,
Speaker 1: and didn't spend enough time on the team building relationship
Speaker 1: side of it. Just thought it was going to happen,
Speaker 1: and that didn't happen at all.
Speaker 2: So you've been on the board, you've burned, sacked as
Speaker 2: a coach. Was it the right decision to sack mark
Speaker 2: them black?
Speaker 1: It was?
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a bold decision and Rod Butters and his
Speaker 1: particular board at the time, later on down the track,
Speaker 1: I was to have some issues with the way that
Speaker 1: they were doing things. But to go out and get
Speaker 1: a high profile coach and get to the point of
Speaker 1: saying no, this is not working and then pull the
Speaker 1: trigger out, that's a bold move. You've got to give
Speaker 1: these guys credit for what they did. It would have
Speaker 1: been so easy to just go no, we're just going
Speaker 1: to let it run out and let it run out.
Speaker 1: But they said, no, line in the sand, we need
Speaker 1: to make a change. And I'll give him credit for
Speaker 1: actually doing that because it was a bold, big move.
Speaker 2: And would you have been able to achieve success with
Speaker 2: him there given what you knew about his fifteen games
Speaker 2: in charm.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think it was definitely the right move. You've got
Speaker 1: to be all in as a coach. And probably the
Speaker 1: final straw was we saw Malcolm after one game and
Speaker 1: then the following week we played in Brisbane. The next
Speaker 1: time we saw him from the game was when we
Speaker 1: walked into the Gabba and he was putting the magnets
Speaker 1: on the wall. Didn't see him in that whole time,
Speaker 1: seem in that period, and he went back to the
Speaker 1: Gold Coast during the week and Leader's assistant coaches Kenny
Speaker 1: Hickley and those guys run the ship. And that was
Speaker 1: the final straw from the bite.
Speaker 4: Was called humorraban and in a very public execution, removed
Speaker 4: from the post. Fifteen matches, three wins at a cost
Speaker 4: of one million dollars was the same table and so not.
Speaker 2: The lack of introspection from Bloody. But as you say,
Speaker 2: you know, he says, oh you know someone what I
Speaker 2: might and we love Blighty so much. But it's interesting
Speaker 2: that I'm trying to dance on eggshells here that he's
Speaker 2: not able to compute the fact. Okay, for all my greatness,
Speaker 2: I just didn't maybe contribute as much as I needed
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Think, yeah, I think he just thought it was going
Speaker 1: to happen, probably didn't pay enough respect to the mess
Speaker 1: that we were in. So the mess of ninety nine
Speaker 1: coming last year, the ladder and the mindset of the group,
Speaker 1: with the fracturedness of the group, the selfishness of the group.
Speaker 1: You can't suddenly go from being a really selfish team
Speaker 1: on the bottom of the ladder who was a mess
Speaker 1: to just go I'm here now, it's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: You've got to work on that mess to get it right.
Speaker 1: And that's the bit he missed out on Grant Thomas
Speaker 1: takes over.
Speaker 3: Do you think it was in Tomo's plan, the master
Speaker 3: plan to become a coach one day or do you
Speaker 3: think it just evolved into that.
Speaker 1: I don't think it did. I think it was. I
Speaker 1: think it was a case of I want what's the
Speaker 1: best for the Saint Kilda footy clumpy. I'm absolutely certain
Speaker 1: he genuinely wants what's best for the Saint Coula Fooday
Speaker 1: Club in any way, shape or form. It got to
Speaker 1: the point where he thought, well, you know what, I
Speaker 1: might be the best it wasn't. Absolutely he was four
Speaker 1: and five prelim finals. Again we fell to the trap
Speaker 1: of one year down and we need someone else to
Speaker 1: put the icing on the cake, and Tom are you going?
Speaker 1: So there's another another sort of scratch on the wall
Speaker 1: of us making that same mistake. But yeah, because Grant
Speaker 1: was a complete opposite tactically, I wasn't a genius. It
Speaker 1: was a very simple game plan, but he got that
Speaker 1: group wanting to be together, wanting to be unselfish, wanting
Speaker 1: to play together, wanting to be around each other, wanting
Speaker 1: to be at the club, the exact thing that Malcolm
Speaker 1: didn't do. Grant was the opposite. And you can tell
Speaker 1: by the results that that's what we needed.
Speaker 2: What would you have won a premiership boner Ground, Thomas
Speaker 2: if the club had stayed the course of course, your
Speaker 2: assistant coach tw thousand and four and five Again another
Speaker 2: misstep by club that's.
Speaker 1: Just come some close to a second premiership. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and then we dived off slightly. There was a lot
Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes in the coach and the
Speaker 1: president could be in the same room together.
Speaker 3: How tough is that you're living that, you'll live in
Speaker 3: that experience, How tough and were they're incident.
Speaker 1: You know moments that you thought this just this got
Speaker 1: us end. Now let's put them in a room together. No,
Speaker 1: that would have been worse because they would have both
Speaker 1: they would have boxed on both. Happy to be the
Speaker 1: smartest person in the room. Yeah, that's just their personality.
Speaker 1: They're very successful businessman, very successful of what they've ever done.
Speaker 1: But primarily they're happy to be the smartest person in
Speaker 1: the room. They don't need someone else to be smarter
Speaker 1: than them. Tom I genuinely generally wanted to be CEO
Speaker 1: and coach at the same time. He said he could
Speaker 1: do it. I had my doubts. Wanted to be literally wanted.
Speaker 1: He's doing every contract and everything was contracts. The marketing
Speaker 1: department would come and run things by him, the communications
Speaker 1: department would come and run things by him, so he
Speaker 1: had say over everything. He said, I'm doing that anyway.
Speaker 1: He wanted to make me the title, make the CEO,
Speaker 1: and I could do coach and as a coach, I'll
Speaker 1: delegate more to you guys and get you guys to
Speaker 1: run the ship a little bit more. But he saw
Speaker 1: himself more as that sort of English football manager. I'm
Speaker 1: the manager of the club and O the buckstops with me,
Speaker 1: but I've got my assists to do the role. And
Speaker 1: he wanted to reshape the way that coaching was and
Speaker 1: unfortunately Rod Butters and those guys were on a completely
Speaker 1: different page. And they're both forthright in their opinions and
Speaker 1: literally couldn't be in the same room where and I
Speaker 1: was immediated quite often. Don't go in there, don't say that,
Speaker 1: and come back out here. It's not going to end well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so interesting times off the field, and so.
Speaker 2: Through all this, you're playing great football, you're continuing your role,
Speaker 2: and then you get to the end of your career,
Speaker 2: past the game's record eventually of course pass passed by
Speaker 2: halves and real well, but a stunning career in so
Speaker 2: many ways.
Speaker 1: I got the most out of myself. Yeah, that's I
Speaker 1: can sort of sit back and say, and as I said,
Speaker 1: put my head on my pill at night, and I'm
Speaker 1: content that I managed to do that.
Speaker 2: So you go on to the board from two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight twenty fifteen, Ross Line's there, Rosslyn Leaves, just
Speaker 2: take us through that chapter. And there was a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about a contract that he had and did
Speaker 2: he have clauses or you know, was he looking for
Speaker 2: an earlier contract extension. We know he had financial problems.
Speaker 2: Did secure to stuff up the exit of Ross Line
Speaker 2: for the first time, but.
Speaker 5: First the coaching defection that's left the football world gob smacked.
Speaker 5: Rosslyn has been raided in Fremantle colors just twenty four
Speaker 5: hours after walking out on the Saints. Dale joined the
Speaker 5: Dots were joined now by ten senior football reporter of
Speaker 5: Borders and Rob Where do we begin.
Speaker 6: Well, Helen, it's been a stunning series of developments. Line
Speaker 6: that told his management to get a deal done at
Speaker 6: sin Kilda, then without their knowledge, struck his own at Fremantle.
Speaker 6: A deeply wounded Mark Harvey has been knife in the back.
Speaker 1: And the really Saints Yeah, there's certainly one group who
Speaker 1: think yes, we did, absolutely and the reason why we
Speaker 1: stuffed up was that we delayed it. It took too
Speaker 1: long to actually get to the point of yes, we're recontinuity.
Speaker 1: That's where Ross's team thought we should have got to. Internally,
Speaker 1: there was some issues. Ross is very hard me to
Speaker 1: work for. There was people leaving, good people leaving. There
Speaker 1: was a bit of a fractious relationship. You could almost
Speaker 1: see that the plays that we were playing were all
Speaker 1: the senior guys. The young guys coming through weren't really
Speaker 1: coming through. We were chucking everything at winning that Grand
Speaker 1: Final and sort of sitting back watching and going, yes,
Speaker 1: this is all or nothing at winning that if we
Speaker 1: don't win, that we're going to fall off a cliff.
Speaker 1: And you're that close to We were that close, so
Speaker 1: you know, winning was warpapering over all those cracks, and
Speaker 1: as a board we can still see the cracks, and
Speaker 1: so we were just sort of holding back a little bit.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't out of negligence. It was a calculator decision.
Speaker 1: Calculator decision because everything wasn't roasy. On the field, it
Speaker 1: was we were winning, but off the field it wasn't.
Speaker 1: So we just wanted to make sure that we could
Speaker 1: get that under control first, whereas Ross's team probably thought
Speaker 1: and hang on, we're winning, recontract me and give me
Speaker 1: more power. I still remember the board meeting that Michael Nettlefold,
Speaker 1: the CEO, came in and said, yeah, good news is
Speaker 1: we've agreed with Ross's manager management that were but these
Speaker 1: phone get ringing and it was like, oh, you better
Speaker 1: go and answer that. He said I've got some reporters
Speaker 1: ringing me. So he went out in ten minutes, come
Speaker 1: back in after ten minutes. He said, I think Ross's
Speaker 1: they're telling me he's gone to Fremantle. You're kidding me,
Speaker 1: famous that famous night. Well, where are your meeting at
Speaker 1: the club?
Speaker 3: You meeting at the club, and it's late in the evening,
Speaker 3: it's getting towards late in the evening and towards that.
Speaker 1: So we said, I will get get his manager, get
Speaker 1: Craig Kelly on the phone. So we've got Craig Kelly
Speaker 1: on the phone, who didn't know a thing. Let me
Speaker 1: call you back. And so he called back in fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes time. And I can't repeat the language that Craig
Speaker 1: was using. He's good at it, too good at it.
Speaker 3: When we're not aware of what's going on and we're
Speaker 3: not actually in the process of negotiating any arrangement, it's
Speaker 3: hard then to represent someone and say he represents something.
Speaker 1: The issue was that obviously Craig was also Mark Harvey's manager, correct,
Speaker 1: and so he can't get sort of roster frio by shafting.
Speaker 1: So everything was done around the back door.
Speaker 3: How tense is that you feel like you've been completely
Speaker 3: blindsided there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, to a large degree. So look, was that
Speaker 1: the right way to go about things? I probably think no.
Speaker 1: Did we force his hand to do that? They probably
Speaker 1: think yes? And so yeah, it's both camps and probably
Speaker 1: think they're they're right a wrong and there's probably an
Speaker 1: element of fault in both sides.
Speaker 3: If I had have said to you that night, one day,
Speaker 3: Ross Lyon's going to come back and coach this and
Speaker 3: Kurita Football Club, what.
Speaker 1: Would you have said a little bit like the old
Speaker 1: Kevin Bartlett, He's not going to go back to the
Speaker 1: club until everyone involved has gone. And that's pretty much
Speaker 1: what happened back when I came and Ross was loved
Speaker 1: by the senior playing Yeah, primarily because Ross had his
Speaker 1: bubble and we had a senior playing group of Nick
Speaker 1: Riewold and Aaron Hamill and Gary and Andy. They loved
Speaker 1: the bubble because it kept the rest of the club out,
Speaker 1: kept the marketing to a large degree, kept the supporters out,
Speaker 1: kept the media out and beautiful, this Blake is protecting us.
Speaker 1: We're getting protected here. So they loved that, and so
Speaker 1: there was a lot of goodwill to Ross from influential
Speaker 1: sections of Saint cul Football Club, and so I think
Speaker 1: that played a role in sort of the getting back.
Speaker 1: And as our history says, we need someone to put
Speaker 1: the icing on the cake. Put the icing on the cake.
Speaker 2: So why not.
Speaker 1: Bring back the guy who baked a pretty good cake
Speaker 1: last time but didn't quite get that. History hasn't really
Speaker 1: worked over the journey quite hasn't. No, it hasn't worked
Speaker 1: at all. No, it's farled every single time. Let's hope
Speaker 1: that history doesn't repeat itself.
Speaker 2: So was roch Ross within his rights to go out
Speaker 2: and explore the Fremantle offer?
Speaker 1: Was he did he backstab you? You know?
Speaker 2: Was your level of your reluctance to sign him indicated
Speaker 2: to him that look, I need to move on.
Speaker 1: Look, we weren't aware of his personal circumstances. Potentially, if
Speaker 1: we had a being could have given him more confidence
Speaker 1: that yes, we're probably going to get there, but you know,
Speaker 1: what's the hurry. You're playing in finals and you're doing
Speaker 1: really well. We'll get there at some stage. I wasn't
Speaker 1: party to those conversations. I wasn't party of the conversations
Speaker 1: with his manager. I was like a third party. Andrew
Speaker 1: Thompson and I were both football directors. This is how
Speaker 1: it is. Ross doesn't like interference from directors. And so
Speaker 1: because Andrew had a relationship with Ross as a player
Speaker 1: who played under him, any questions that I had, I
Speaker 1: had to go to Andrew first, who then go to
Speaker 1: Ross and then come back and then give us the answer.
Speaker 1: So I couldn't actually go and it's very secuitary. It
Speaker 1: is yeah, yeah, and that's the way that we operate.
Speaker 1: And so I sort of kept at arms length. I
Speaker 1: was doing some media at the time. Russ did not
Speaker 1: like me doing the media because buying sort of some degree,
Speaker 1: I was also talking for him and the team, and
Speaker 1: he didn't want that that had to be kept internal,
Speaker 1: and so we probably didn't have the greatest relationship, to
Speaker 1: be totally honest, and so that's why Andrew Thompson was
Speaker 1: the mediator in between the two of us. So I
Speaker 1: always kept arm's length of those sort of things. Not
Speaker 1: privy to exactly what we told his manager and what
Speaker 1: sort of confidence we gave him, but whatever it was,
Speaker 1: we didn't give him enough confidence to say that, yes,
Speaker 1: we are going to go to this path and sort
Speaker 1: of trumped us.
Speaker 3: And you're not a drinker, never really been a drinker
Speaker 3: at all. What happened at the end of that meeting.
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated to know. Do you open up the liquor
Speaker 3: cab that, like, all of a sudden, our coach has
Speaker 3: just left us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was just all about again getting clarity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think we might have reconvened the next day
Speaker 1: in the day after that as well, just to get
Speaker 1: our heads around what the hell's going on and what
Speaker 1: do we do we start the process from here about
Speaker 1: getting a new coach and also in the damage control
Speaker 1: about your coach walking out. It's have a good look
Speaker 1: for a club.
Speaker 2: Scott, he wants a mistake, so very quickly he realized
Speaker 2: that he had to move some senior players on.
Speaker 1: He wasn't as popular.
Speaker 2: Again, we've had him here and he's been so eloquent
Speaker 2: about his highs and lows.
Speaker 1: But was that a mistake In hindsight, Yes, it didn't
Speaker 1: work out. Did I think he was the best candidate
Speaker 1: that we interviewed at the time, Yes, he was. Does
Speaker 1: that mean our process of selecting the new coach was flawed? Possibly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it probably was. But in terms of the criteria that
Speaker 1: we wanted, we had a shocking relationship with the media.
Speaker 1: The media hated us because we kept him in our
Speaker 1: arm's length, and we thought Scott he worked in the
Speaker 1: media over in WA, he had good relationship, he presented
Speaker 1: really well. We can sort of repair that to some degree.
Speaker 1: Plus he had a good grounding as the coach, coached
Speaker 1: his own team in his own right over there over
Speaker 1: in w A. So he ticked a lot of boxes.
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, you know, when he arrived,
Speaker 1: it didn't work as simple as that just didn't work.
Speaker 1: So you moved on.
Speaker 2: Eventually you become a member of the match review panel.
Speaker 2: They're big decisions that you have to make.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy it? Was it? I think three or
Speaker 1: four people at that stage on the match review channel. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of my desires has been to see football from
Speaker 1: every angle and so sort as a player, sort as
Speaker 1: an assistant coach, sort as a board member, now as
Speaker 1: an administrator almost how can I sort of still be
Speaker 1: involved in shape the game and love the game from
Speaker 1: that particular point. It was just when they bought in
Speaker 1: the points system. And yeah, and McKay, the Carlton Champion,
Speaker 1: was the the guy running it. We had an next
Speaker 1: umpire for his name. I don't advise it. Lippy sort
Speaker 1: of a fellow. He's a good guy, a good guy anyway.
Speaker 1: But we had an UMBI, myself and Andy, and the
Speaker 1: three of us would sit there every Monday. So we
Speaker 1: just go in every Monday and work for all and
Speaker 1: give out. And then I went off the match review
Speaker 1: and then came back on a little bit later on
Speaker 1: when it was sort of under Michael Christian, Well wasn't
Speaker 1: under Michael Christian. We were all equal at that, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a chairman. And yeah, that was probably the
Speaker 1: reason why Michael Christian's doing it now and I'm not
Speaker 1: is because he was much more in tune with the
Speaker 1: AFL's way of thinking than I was. And I was
Speaker 1: probably the dissenter on quite a few occasions. A good
Speaker 1: example of that is there one that probably one that
Speaker 1: I got my own way was the Trent Cochin prelim
Speaker 1: fight final.
Speaker 5: Rory lobbe effective get out to Scully trying to.
Speaker 1: Find Shoe's got the home on their shield and he's
Speaker 1: sure he's really sore grabbing that show. There's a big
Speaker 1: moment in the game doing shield. They're going to let
Speaker 1: it go on. There was a potch and that was
Speaker 1: a fierce contest.
Speaker 5: Let's have a look at this, so both players going
Speaker 5: for the foot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he dived into the football the first collect Dylan shield.
Speaker 1: There was a bit of a groundswell to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I did that carelessly, knocked the guy out, so you
Speaker 1: shouldn't play in the Grand Final. I was able to
Speaker 1: pull up two or three other examples of him doing
Speaker 1: exactly the same. It became a bit of a technique
Speaker 1: of his. Somebody's got the foot in front of him,
Speaker 1: he would dive in, put himself in between the ball
Speaker 1: and the player, and he did it often, and it
Speaker 1: was a technique and at the time slightly different rules
Speaker 1: on they are different rules on what they are now going. Well,
Speaker 1: if if we're saying that's a legitimate football action, is
Speaker 1: it overly careless because we're not we're giving a free
Speaker 1: kick against him for doing that action. Is it overly
Speaker 1: careless for him to do that action again and get
Speaker 1: a bad result? Nowadays the rules say yes, But then
Speaker 1: the rules say no, it wasn't against the rules to
Speaker 1: do that particular action. And so I fought long and
Speaker 1: hard for him to be able to play in the
Speaker 1: Grand Final. And that was probably my demise is a.
Speaker 3: So the AFL you thought we're looking for a suspension,
Speaker 3: there's no doubt in your mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were all not a long way down the path.
Speaker 1: They were heading down the path of accidental head contact
Speaker 1: is reportable. Accidental bump. You can keep your feet on
Speaker 1: the ground, elbow tucked in, but if the result is
Speaker 1: head contact, you're liable. And they were heading down that path,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of resisting that path to a degree.
Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing? I'm still thinking what he was doing.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether he should have been suspended, but
Speaker 2: he knew he could lead and clean out, which now
Speaker 2: is something that's reportable as well. So and then of
Speaker 2: course that amazing Grand Final victory and he dances around
Speaker 2: and kicks the not the winning goal, but one of
Speaker 2: those iconic goals. You're little, You've been a part of
Speaker 2: so many, you know, amazing moments in history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just another sort of sort of avenue or
Speaker 1: little aspect of the game that, as I said, I
Speaker 1: still love the game. That's why I still am involved
Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form. I'm not one of
Speaker 1: these senior ex players who sit back and say I
Speaker 1: don't go to the food you. I don't watch it,
Speaker 1: can't watch it anymore. Are there some things that we
Speaker 1: need to get right as an AFL, Absolutely, I'll give
Speaker 1: you a whole list, but still still fundamentally.
Speaker 2: Where were you when I assume you got a phone
Speaker 2: call that said Danny Frawley's passed away?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually a good friend of mine, d d
Speaker 1: don't great same supporter. She was working at three W
Speaker 1: at the time, and she was I think it was
Speaker 1: sort of filtering through the newsroom and DEDI rang me
Speaker 1: at the time and sort of said she was put
Speaker 1: in two and two together, knowing where Danny comes from
Speaker 1: and where he lives, and just sort of pulled over
Speaker 1: to the side of the road and we sort of
Speaker 1: had that conversation, is it I hope it's not. Hope
Speaker 1: it's not, please not be. But then deep down we
Speaker 1: probably knew that it was likely to be and potentially yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: It's just it was just sort of like I just
Speaker 1: I remember sitting on the side of I got no
Speaker 1: idea how long trying to sort of contemplate that, and
Speaker 1: then I sort of rang another couple of players, some
Speaker 1: had heard, some hadn't heard, and was starting to filter
Speaker 1: through by then and it was just like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the guy who we talked about some people being
Speaker 1: larger than life. He was the man who was larger
Speaker 1: than life. There was no function, no get together with that.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the center of attention, larger than life, and
Speaker 1: we relied on him. He was my captain for nine
Speaker 1: years and we didn't have vice captains of leadership groups.
Speaker 1: We just let Spud do it all. You're in control, mate,
Speaker 1: We'll just do whatever we say. We didn't lead leadership
Speaker 1: groups and vice captains because he was the man and
Speaker 1: for that man to be fallible, it was just something
Speaker 1: that we probably couldn't conceive.
Speaker 2: So you talk about first time coaches of Sint Kilda,
Speaker 2: you were to become the AFLW assistant coach of the Bulldog.
Speaker 1: So how the hell did you become the senior coach
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was.
Speaker 1: Asked to coach the VIC Metro under Ada and girls,
Speaker 1: and it was just that was just a magnificent, wonderful experience.
Speaker 1: And it just happened that Chris Grant's daughter was in
Speaker 1: that particular team. Is he a wonderful Isy Grant? And
Speaker 1: so from maybe Grant sort of Chris saw a little
Speaker 1: bit what I did there. Meet Bayan's who was a
Speaker 1: CEO when I was on the board or COO at
Speaker 1: the time when I was on the board at Saint Kiros.
Speaker 1: I knew a meet through that, and I just sort
Speaker 1: of when their coach sort of voluntarily moved on, I
Speaker 1: just sent a meet a message and said, hey, mate,
Speaker 1: any chance we could just have a chat, and sort
Speaker 1: of went from there and went from there. But I
Speaker 1: just I coached the men for two years and then
Speaker 1: got out of it because it was just it was
Speaker 1: too serious to life and death. I got to the
Speaker 1: stage where football is just a game, and when I
Speaker 1: was playing, it was life and death. But I couldn't
Speaker 1: be grumpy for the whole week because we lost the game.
Speaker 1: It's because it requires you to be because Thomas had
Speaker 1: come down and he'd schedule that when we were grumpy
Speaker 1: and we were happy, and he'd have it scheduled on
Speaker 1: the calendar. It's not this sweet burkey. We've got to
Speaker 1: be real hard on him. And that was doing my
Speaker 1: head in and so I got out of it and
Speaker 1: thought I'll experience the rest of life. But in female
Speaker 1: football that doesn't work. You've got to be genuine, you've
Speaker 1: got to be yourself. You've got to be upbeat nine
Speaker 1: percent of the time. They don't handle you being crumpy
Speaker 1: for the week. And so I thought, I thought, how
Speaker 1: I've I found my niche This this philosophy of coaching
Speaker 1: fits in with what these players need. And it was
Speaker 1: just sort of coming together of things happen for a
Speaker 1: reason and how much seasons, Yeah, enjoy journey. Yeah, well look,
Speaker 1: it's the best job I ever had, really, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: There's there's sleepless lights. I didn't sleep light. The girls
Speaker 1: would get text on me at three o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning and continually, and I didn't sleep a lot during
Speaker 1: the week, and a lot of things get running through
Speaker 1: your head, stressful and all that sort of stuff. But
Speaker 1: the positives of thirty young women, you get to help
Speaker 1: them realize their dream in football and away from football,
Speaker 1: you've got to be that mentor, you've got to be
Speaker 1: that farther figure. You've got to be all that play
Speaker 1: that role as well. I loved that of it. It
Speaker 1: was just great. Yeah. How different is that challenge there
Speaker 1: where you can't really be negative?
Speaker 2: I think you talked about one of the preseasons that
Speaker 2: it wasn't as acceptable as it might be, and that
Speaker 2: was shocking to people because you were calling as it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was probably the beginning of my demise,
Speaker 1: just that little bit of honesty there. And I did
Speaker 1: have some to be honest, eighty percent of my players
Speaker 1: they don't watch press conferences anyway, they do it, and
Speaker 1: some did and I did. I made some comments about
Speaker 1: the standards that we had that they need to get better.
Speaker 1: I said them publicly, and that didn't go down very
Speaker 1: very well at all. I apologized. Nine percent of them
Speaker 1: moved on. I didn't have Potentially, if I regret something,
Speaker 1: it's that I would have loved somebody then to sort
Speaker 1: of grab the players and go, He's not the first
Speaker 1: coach to make that mistake. He's apologized last, he's not
Speaker 1: going to be the last. He might even say something again,
Speaker 1: that's done deal, let's move on. But there was no
Speaker 1: one in the sort of background that was willing or
Speaker 1: able to They were able, they weren't. We were willing
Speaker 1: to have that conversation, and things probably fested from there,
Speaker 1: which probably didn't help the last forty percent of our
Speaker 1: season after that was made. So, yeah, that's that's a
Speaker 1: mistake that I'll steal my hand up and own, and
Speaker 1: if I ever get in that position again, I'll be
Speaker 1: very very careful not to do that. And how did
Speaker 1: it end in that sense? Was there? You've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of coaches go that way? How did it end
Speaker 1: for you? Hard because when I'm talking about Stan and
Speaker 1: those guys, I'm able to sort of say this, didn't
Speaker 1: do this, you do this? Well, that was one thing
Speaker 1: I put up my hand, shouldn't have done, did that wrong.
Speaker 1: But then it's hard to sort of quantify what else
Speaker 1: we had. We had a one and nine season, that's
Speaker 1: not great. I can sit here and give you a
Speaker 1: whole list of reasons of injuries, and we had ten
Speaker 1: girls in stress fractures and lost el Bennetts Round one
Speaker 1: with an acl and kat Lynch only plaid four games
Speaker 1: and with achilles and slain Mood only played four games.
Speaker 1: Go through all of that, it doesn't really make any difference.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they saw fit that,
Speaker 1: you know what, for this particular team, we need a
Speaker 1: new gym of football, we need a new coach, we
Speaker 1: need new this and the new list manager. And they're
Speaker 1: pretty much since I fail. There's a decent cleanout, and
Speaker 1: that's their properative. They are able to do that. Do
Speaker 1: I degree agree with all of those people going now,
Speaker 1: the people that let go got a lot of afi
Speaker 1: W I P and they're really really good people, good
Speaker 1: at their jobs. So I hope, I just hope to
Speaker 1: goodness at every place and with people of equal quality.
Speaker 1: There's a footing club always that a scapegoat. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't really thought. Am I the scapegoat for that season?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I'm part of that season. I'm a big part of
Speaker 1: that season. So I can't divorce myself and that's it
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with me. It's not scapegoats sort
Speaker 1: of say that was nothing to do with me. I
Speaker 1: was the head coach. I was a huge part of
Speaker 1: what happened in that last season. So I don't I
Speaker 1: don't see myself as a scapegoat.
Speaker 2: And so what happens when you get the phone call
Speaker 2: from a meet or whoever the head of football is there?
Speaker 1: What's that? What's the specifics of it? Yeah, So they
Speaker 1: waited until I did all the exit interviews with the players,
Speaker 1: and I had I had sort of messaged a meet
Speaker 1: around about four rounds to go and said, hey, mate,
Speaker 1: can we just catch up for a chat, And there's
Speaker 1: some issues going on here around support, around the program
Speaker 1: that I want to address with you. And I got
Speaker 1: the message back saying, listener, just get through the last
Speaker 1: month of footy and we'll sit down at the end
Speaker 1: and we'll discuss all that. At the time, so I
Speaker 1: had my list of things that I think we can
Speaker 1: improve on and roles that we need to fill, and
Speaker 1: a bit more leadership and support in particular areas. But
Speaker 1: that was that was the meeting that I always told them, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is untenable, mate, we need to move you on.
Speaker 1: So I never actually got the chance to do that.
Speaker 1: And look, we told us that no one sort of
Speaker 1: knows this. We didn't really have a gem of football.
Speaker 1: We had a head of football. I actually presented to
Speaker 1: the club that I stepped into that role, and I
Speaker 1: had an assistant coach named Kate McCarthy, who I think
Speaker 1: is you will be an outstanding coach, She'll be sensational.
Speaker 1: I said, what about if I step into that role
Speaker 1: because I know everything else that's sort of wrong in
Speaker 1: that area. And Kate comes on as coach and like
Speaker 1: a mentor mentor her closely as a coach, but that
Speaker 1: didn't get through the first step. Would it have worked?
Speaker 1: I think so. I think so because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: invested in taking that place as best as it can be.
Speaker 1: There were some relationship issues there, some leadership issues at
Speaker 1: the sort of the top end that needed to be addressed,
Speaker 1: and Kate in a one year there an assistant coach,
Speaker 1: had great relationships with the group. I think it would
Speaker 1: have worked, and she's smart enough to be able to
Speaker 1: run with it from that level of But no, they
Speaker 1: had grander plans in place.
Speaker 7: And again that's the biggest news of the week is
Speaker 7: that the Western Bulldogs are looking for a new afl
Speaker 7: W coach after the news on Wednesday that Nathan Burke
Speaker 7: has been sacked after a one win season. Sarah, I
Speaker 7: don't think any of us were surprised given some of
Speaker 7: his comments during the season. It seems like he just
Speaker 7: lost the.
Speaker 2: Challenging is the FLW scene for these girls and some
Speaker 2: of them are such great social advocates. That was talking
Speaker 2: about how the moment a silence at one stage and
Speaker 2: the girls were fighting for that. That's such a mind
Speaker 2: field there, and we love the fact that they're so progressive,
Speaker 2: but it is a lot of distraction.
Speaker 1: It is something you need to work with as as
Speaker 1: a coach. Oh. Absolutely, Look I'm dealing with now. I
Speaker 1: lost players, very very good players to other clubs due
Speaker 1: to relationships between the Yeah, and that's to my knowledge.
Speaker 1: It's never happened in the men's program, where you know,
Speaker 1: players have close physical relationships and then they've got to
Speaker 1: leave and go to other clubs. And so I was
Speaker 1: dealing with that pretty much every year on the way through.
Speaker 1: That's that's unusual. It's life now. But it's a complication. Yeah,
Speaker 1: adds a complication is just rolling in and here's my
Speaker 1: team and they're happy to be there. There's that they
Speaker 1: are there. There's there's a group there who want this
Speaker 1: to be go. I want to be full time football.
Speaker 1: I want to be let's let's get on Marvel, let's
Speaker 1: get on the m c G. And then there's another
Speaker 1: group that go, you know, I like playing footing, but
Speaker 1: I love working at the local cafe, I love going
Speaker 1: to UNI. You know, there's a ceiling on what I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to put into this. So you've got that
Speaker 1: sort of dichotomy of of players within your group, and
Speaker 1: some say why can't we train every day? And other
Speaker 1: others are going hang on, if I will say I
Speaker 1: can only be a twenty hours a week, don't ask
Speaker 1: me to be your twenty one because I'm going to
Speaker 1: complain at the end of it. Yeah, so you've got that,
Speaker 1: you're juggling all of that, and if you've got a
Speaker 1: really militant sort of AFLPA person, well you've got to
Speaker 1: stick to it. And then you look down the road
Speaker 1: who don't have that person? And if you're allowed to
Speaker 1: train twenty hours a week, there in twenty five And
Speaker 1: so the AFL Coaches Association and the AFL they've got
Speaker 1: to come up with an answer to that because if
Speaker 1: the players are wanting more, more and more, I want
Speaker 1: to be taught, I want to be I want to
Speaker 1: do this, and you haven't got the people to do
Speaker 1: it or someth's going to give it. Is the AFL
Speaker 1: fair income about the nfl W. I'll give them credit
Speaker 1: to getting it to this point. That's that's that's good.
Speaker 1: But I have a feeling that a lot of AFL
Speaker 1: W is to extend the AFL footprint through to December.
Speaker 1: No one cares about footy in December anyway, So we'll
Speaker 1: extend it through to December. Keeps us on the front page,
Speaker 1: keeps us on television, keeps us sponsors rolling in, and
Speaker 1: we're happy with that. Keeps us minimizing rugby coverage in
Speaker 1: horse racing coverage. Yeah, exactly. So it keeps us on
Speaker 1: the front page. And so it's fulfilling that role more
Speaker 1: so than we are genuine about striking up a genuine, legitimate,
Speaker 1: elite pathway sport for females to play in this country.
Speaker 1: That is where I want to go young girls coming up.
Speaker 1: How can I be a professional sports person in this
Speaker 1: country with elead sport or lead facilities everything else. Or
Speaker 1: AFL has got that, that's where I wanted to go.
Speaker 1: AFL saying, yeah, you know what, we're just happy from
Speaker 1: end of September to December that we've got a footprint.
Speaker 1: Would you do it again, Berkie, if the right job
Speaker 1: was there, I would. I haven't jumped back in. This
Speaker 1: isn't because I wanted to step away for a year
Speaker 1: and go Have I got the energy and the passion
Speaker 1: to do it. Because I did go through a bit
Speaker 1: of a i'll call it a lonely period. That's probably
Speaker 1: the last six months of probably the loneliest working environ
Speaker 1: that I've worked in. And that hit me in funny ways.
Speaker 1: I can tell the story. It'sfe I were take the
Speaker 1: family the Queensland, just up here, call and gat them.
Speaker 1: And so driving up, I've got a way to Sydney,
Speaker 1: going through the tunnel under the Sydney Harbor, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just feeling a bit weird here. I need to
Speaker 1: concentrate a little bit to not drive off into the walls.
Speaker 1: And then sort of out the other side of Sydney
Speaker 1: there's a lot of big bridges and that you go over,
Speaker 1: and I was feeling a bit weird going over the
Speaker 1: bridges and a little bit anxious and anxiety and all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. It got to the point, it's
Speaker 1: the outside Coss Harbor. There's a bridge on the horizon,
Speaker 1: and I pulled over the side and I said, I
Speaker 1: can't drive. I can't drive across this bridge. I don't
Speaker 1: trust myself to be able to get across the bridge.
Speaker 1: And so she ended up driving the rest of the
Speaker 1: way and so I contacted the AFLPA for help when
Speaker 1: I was there, and I thought, you know what, while
Speaker 1: I'm there. I'll do myself help. I'll look after my
Speaker 1: fitness and my health and my mind and see if
Speaker 1: I can drive home. I couldn't. So my wife and Alice,
Speaker 1: they drove all the way home for Queensland and we
Speaker 1: sitting in the back. I just couldn't drive across a bridge,
Speaker 1: getting across the bridge or you might do something on
Speaker 1: the bridge. Yeah, yeah, I just I didn't trust myself
Speaker 1: to be able to stay in the lane and all
Speaker 1: these sort of fatalistic thoughts of going over the edge
Speaker 1: and everything else. I found a psychologist who actually specialized.
Speaker 1: It's an actual thing. It's like fear of flying bridges.
Speaker 1: Had a couple of sessions and I'm pretty good. I'm
Speaker 1: going down Geelong on the weekend and over the West Gate.
Speaker 1: I never had it before because I drove over the
Speaker 1: West Gate every day when I lived to the Western Bulldogs.
Speaker 1: And you know, we sort of worked out that it
Speaker 1: was a big change of life. It was a sort
Speaker 1: of traumatic thing. My mum was cook at the time,
Speaker 1: and yeah, so it sort of working. So the anxiety
Speaker 1: of that, the anxiety was manifesting itself in a really
Speaker 1: weird way. It's not being hard to drive across a
Speaker 1: bridge and so yeah, so there's been some really good
Speaker 1: learnings out of the side of it. But one of
Speaker 1: the learnings is that I enjoy working with a group
Speaker 1: of people, and that's what you've done all your life, really,
Speaker 1: isn't it being around people every day and helping them
Speaker 1: grow and achieve that? And when that sort of fell
Speaker 1: off a cliff, it affected me in certain ways. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of looking for how can I prevent that
Speaker 1: absolutely get out there and work with some more people.
Speaker 2: And if it can happen to you after throughout in
Speaker 2: twenty three games and all you've achieved, what about the
Speaker 2: the drafter who has his it's called twenty four months
Speaker 2: and then he just gets shne by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's one of the reasons I don't mind
Speaker 1: sharing the store because again, I went through the whole
Speaker 1: of playing football and the pressures and absolutround and everything,
Speaker 1: and it never happened. I was fine. I never had
Speaker 1: those issues, but they do pop up at strange times.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to SACKED.
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