I’ll reflect, just not yet

Today is a special day — but with the greatest of respect, it is not because of a coaching milestone.

I have a deep regard for history and due reverence for what Jock McHale contributed to our great game. But I can tell you, that while I’m still involved in the game, I only have a very small rear-vision mirror and I rarely look into it.

So before I reflect on what has so far been a fantastic 31-year tenure in the AFL coaching box, let me embrace something far more important.

Today is Anzac Day and I feel deeply privileged to be leading the Blues into a match, ironically against the first club I played for, St Kilda.

The fact that it is in New Zealand on the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing brings back to me a recent conversation which really hit home.

I was asked how often I thought of the New Zealanders when I thought of Anzac Day? I had to admit that I don’t and I had to apologise for that to the bloke I was talking to.

The truth is, we all know what the term Anzac stands for, but we never really reflect on its fullness. So today, I will reflect on what a magnificent association our two countries formed.

We’ve fought together and we’re still really going for it against each other in sports at the highest level such as rugby, netball and cricket — just like siblings do. It’s one of the true great bonds in the world and I hope people use today to give it the respect it deserves.

Even in the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam in 1966, it was the quick response of a New Zealand artillery battery which saved the Australian D Company from annihilation.

In relating these thoughts to Anzac Day football, one thing I do want to make clear is that we as coaches and players should not and do not for a minute think we represent what our soldiers faced at war.

None of us have been in full battle and it is so false to think we’re going to war because we’re not.

We’re going to play a game of sport for four points with a massive amount of pride and a massive amount of attention to detail. What we are is blessed and privileged to be the first two AFL sides to play an Anzac Day game in the centenary year.

We will stand side-by-side before the first bounce and acknowledge that monumental partnership of the Australian New Zealand Army Corp. And I hope, like I’ve noticed in recent years, the awareness around the Anzacs is continuing to grow and especially that kids continue to proudly wear the war medals that belong to their family members.

I find it amazing that people still shed a tear for the people who fought for us 100 years ago.

That’s real emotion and we’re all touched by it. But no one should think they have any rights to play on Anzac Day, it’s just the greatest privilege. In my football memories, Anzac Day games sit right up there with the best.

So to my coaching memories, as it stands one thing I do know is that I was only 56 days old when McHale passed away in 1953. But having coached at Collingwood, I understand how strong his legacy is there.

I rarely go to the record books and when I started coaching Footscray in 1984, I’m not sure the records had even been properly collated at that point. But I know McHale has stood as a mountain for such a long time.

If I think back now to when coaching started for me, one thing that stands out was my first conference meeting with the serving coaches of the time. It still remains the most enlightening conference I’ve ever been at.

I’d been appointed by the Bulldogs late, in mid-January, and I’ve got absolutely no idea what the content was. I can’t even tell you where it was, but I know there was a big table.

And around it were people such as Allan Jeans, Tom Hafey, Ron Barassi, David Parkin, John Devine, John Kennedy … I just sat there in absolute awe of these super-humans. It was unbelievable.

I went to sit at the back, but I remember Jeans saying, “Laddy, get in here”. So I did and my contribution was totally and utterly nil. I was taught at a very young age to listen, watch and absorb and that’s what I did.

My first 15 months as Footscray coach I also worked as a public servant in the motor accident section. At that stage, a long career in coaching was the furthest thing from my mind and failure was only ever just around the corner. I could hardly even spell coaching.

Although, it hadn’t been a bad start. We’d beaten Richmond, the side I’d still been playing for the previous year, and Simon Beasley booted 11 goals. Incidentally, I’m now still working in Carlton’s football department with the man who hired me back then, Shane O’Sullivan, a life-long friend.

It was only when Kevin Sheedy wrote a 2004 book titled “The 500 Club” that I became remotely aware of numbers in terms of games.

But I roughly also remember earlier after I’d coached somewhere near 250 games, someone joking to my wife Nanette that one day I might beat McHale. She immediately replied: “Over my dead body.”

It came as a big shock a few weeks ago when it seemed that her claim might very well have been true when Nanette had a serious health scare.

But we’re still fighting on and until such time that I can categorically sit in my armchair and reflect on what has happened to my life, I’m still looking forward to the positive things to come.

And that continues in New Zealand today. There will be a time to really reflect, but that time is not now.