Ordinarily Speaking, I wouldn't be giving such an in depth chat about myself and my story, but hopefully some of the challenges of face will help other people.
To Hello and welcome to Ordinarily Speaking, a podcast that celebrates resilience in sport. I'm Narrowly Meadows and my guest today is former AFL coach and player John Warsfold, or Usher as he's known. Usher has taken on some of the most challenging coaching jobs in footy. He enjoyed testing times at West Coast, took on a role at Adelaide following the death of their coach and his mate Phil Walsh, and he put his hand up for the job of guiding Essendon out of the most tumultuous period in the
club's history, the aftermath of the supplement scandal. The Premiership player and coach's meticulous dedication to the job has at times been tough on his wife and kids. In the more recent years of his coaching career, he lived in a different state to his family altogether. In this episode of Ordinarily Speaking, the man known as Wusher speaks candidly about the true toll of a nineteen year coaching career in the AFL we met at his house in Perth.
The only footy photo in view a pick of he and his premiership teammate Chris Mainwaring, who died suddenly in two thousand and seven. As always, please remember if this chat is triggering for you, there is help out there. Beyond Blue and Lifeline are just a couple of places you can go. I hope you enjoyed this chat with a man who generally prefers silence fashion well, thanks very much for joining me. I've spoken to a few of your mates and a few of the players that you've
coached in the build up to this. I've got to say each and every one of them were surprised that you've agreed to do it, which begs the question why have you agreed to come on?
I don't know. I mean when you asked me and you explained to me what it's about, I thought, why not. Now I'm not hiding anything. I get the feeling that it's about helping people. It's not about me telling my story. It's about hopefully people taking something out that helps them, so that would be the reason I'm doing it. I mean, if it was just about tell us about your life
and how good you are. I probably wouldn't have but to talk about working through some of the pretty intense situations I've been through, and I feel like I've come out of them still pretty sane and cope pretty well. If I can share some of those strategies, then that'd be great.
From mates two players you've coached, the one thing that kept coming up is that you can sustain a silence better than anyone. That you are a steel trap, a king of the awkward silence, are the best person ever to force you to talk by not saying anything at all. Is that a fair assessment?
Probably?
Yeah, Yeah, I suppose My nature is an introvert.
I like to listen.
Obviously, while I'm listening, I'm thinking, and I will not really give a response unless I'm absolutely comfortable in terms of the trust I have with that person. And you know, that's been a good thing for me, but it's probably also been a tough thing to deal with at times as well.
Your wife, Georgina here, she's absolutely the opposite of that and a real people person and super bubbly.
Yes, yeah, she's the one when we go to a football function and it's really like I'm at work. I suppose I'm trying to get out the door and say, look, we've done our bit, time to go, and there's at least thirty minutes of goodbyes. So yeah, Georgiana is very much comfortable mixing with people. She actually is now a lifeline counselor, so she volunteers to do some of that work, which she really enjoys. So she listens and has got that great nature.
Tell me about your wife. What made you fall in love with her?
Well, I don't know. It was just an attraction of It's hard to say. I mean I met her at a nightclub, so it wasn't like the greatest how we both feel in here, but I just felt something like as in I met her and then didn't see her again for a couple of months. I think, like the next day we were heading off on a players trip somewhere. Yeah, I didn't really follow up at all. So was it your dance moves or it wouldn't have been that. No, there's no doubt about that. But maybe I look really sad.
I've got a feeling we just lost the ninety one Grand Final, so yeah, maybe I was opening around, but yeah, anyway, I just followed up it would have been a couple of months later, and I think something happened where sort of offered to take her out for a meal and then she couldn't do it, And then I waited another couple of months before I fight up again. Anyway, then we managed to actually meet and have a chat and hit it off.
And all these years on. What do you love about her now?
Well, she's such a people person. She's always looking out for people. It's probably one of the things she has to be careful of that she doesn't burn herself out looking out for everyone else. But she's worked out that she believes she can help people through her ability to listen to them and get them to open up. And so she took that on herself to do the Lifeline counseling course, which is a pretty big commitment just to be a volunteer for them. And you know, for me,
that would be something that I couldn't do. But that's a natural thing for her and she feels like she's making a strong contribution to the community. You know, I think that's a really strong trait.
Has she been that for you the sounding board?
Yeah, you know, she's probably one person who can get me to talk a little bit.
But even then I'm.
Still fairly guarded. But yeah, I certainly go to her for advice on different things and for someone to see something totally different than me. I asked Georgina House she would see things or perceive things, and yeah, that's been awesome.
How does she perceive your public persona and your press conferences? What does she make of them?
I think she knows. I'm just towing the line, the club line, like supporting the club, supporting the players, never throw anyone under the bus, even if it was in the case of defend yourself first and don't support everyone else. It's like, no, I'm going to support everyone first. And that, I would say, would be something that frustrates her at times, where she says, you should have stood up for yourself in that situation, and I would say, I'd gain nothing
from trying to defend myself. My actions will always stand the test of time, not a once off criticism that someone wants to try and spark a reaction.
It must be hard for a family, though, to sit back and watch it all unfold.
Yeah, I would say that's the most stressful thing. I don't get stressed by the public or the media reaction. I would get stressed by how it's affected my family. So when I come home, if Georgina or the kids look out, they're just saying that person shouldn't have said that, or that was wrong. What they wrote there that affects you more than what was actually written, because I would say to them, it's just opinions. That just the industry.
Everyone's going to do that. Don't take it personally. But they're more protective of me that I am of myself, I think, so I would say to look, what stresses me the most is what's happening.
In my world.
It's my work world, it's what's happening in my personal world, and if you guys are affected by it, then that makes me up tight and stressed, not what was actually written.
Have you felt misunderstood over the years.
I don't really feel like I've been misunderstood, but I don't think too many people have made an effort to understand me personally and then therefore.
How I work and how I operate. But that doesn't fade me.
I've made a decision when I started coaching that I will do it on my own. I'm not going to form alliances with any media people. I told my first statement to all my friends that i'd created or built up in the media through my playing career. You know, anything on the record from then on, even off the record, has.
To go through the football club.
You have to let them know that you want to get a statement from me or talk to me. You can't just approach me direct, which they had done in the past. Some took that really well. Some were a bit well, they made out they were offended by it. I just think they saw it was like, I thought I had a really good in here. I've been working with you or alongside you closely for a number of years.
Now you have seen your coach beautiful. That's going to help my job.
But when I said to them, no, it's not, I think they felt like, well, that makes it a bit tougher. But I stuck through that through my whole twenty years. Times I've seen other articles written some coaches. You get the feeling that they've had a journalist in the corner. When someone attacks them, another journalist will write a really balanced piece for them. But I've chosen not to have
that relationship and just do it on my own. So that's part of maybe being misunderstood is that I've been a bit more of a closed book.
The moment that I worked out or decided that I'd really like to interview you in some sort of capacity. I was hosting the Coaches Awards in twenty nineteen and you got up at the end and kind of made an impromptu speech. You were just there to give an award out and you decide to make a speech. Do you remember that speech and the realization you kind of had that night?
I do remember, yeah, exactly what you're saying. I wasn't meant to give a sp each was basically just present the award, but Chris Fagan spoke, and a couple of the other people who had spoken. I was sitting there thinking, wow, it was just a realization for me, and I think, well, what I spoke about was, you know that football can just totally encompass all your thoughts to the point where when I thought of, you know, twenty years on from ninety ninety four, that was a twenty year reunion of
our premiership, West Coast Premiership. Not that was my twenty year wedding anniversary, and when that football stuff overrides the family personal stuff, it was a bit of a bit of a wake up call for me. Luckily, I still did remember that it was my wedding anniversary. Yea, but yeah, thinking about oh, it's a big year this year, it's twenty years since we won the flag. Not it's twenty
years since I got married. So, and there's various examples of that through my career where you just immerse yourself so much into your role you have to be like living and breathing it. You can miss some really important things that are happening with your family in particular, definitely with friends. I'm sure I've let a lot of friends down over the years. But there was another example which was only last year. So I'm trying to remember the years because this COVID year is throw everything.
Out, but it's ten years one year.
Yeah.
Last year my son was in year twelve having his Year twelve ball, so a big night for him. And it was a Tuesday night in late in the season, and I wasn't going to be able to get there. I think we've played on the weekend. We're planning again on either Friday or Saturday. We've got main training. I can't get there. We've got match committee and right up until so three four weeks out it's like I've resigned myself.
I can't get over there to just time to have a good night and be there as he gets ready. And then Georgia asked me a couple of weeks out, you're sure you can't get over it, and I was like, well, you know, I've looked at the fixtures, look at our training schedule, and it's just impossible to get over there. And Georgina asked me, I think two days prior you sure you can't get here.
And.
Something clipped and I just said, of course I can, and jumped on a plane landed in Perth at about I don't know, say two o'clock on Tuesday. Charlie got home from school at three point thirty. Georgina said to him, I've got a surprise for you in the bedroom.
He thought it was going to be like his little flower or what.
Have you given it me, don't do that. And you know I was here for him to get ready. He had some mates over and then we sent him off at seven o'clock and at ten o'clock I was on a plane back to Melbourne. So I was here for maybe six or seven hours. But yeah, you know you can miss those things and there's small things, but he remembers it.
He knows I was here, and he knows you I went to.
And I nearly missed it. I was so close to not doing that because I.
Was busy, And that was another moment that you went off. You know, I've got my priorities wrong? Or how did you know? How did you word it?
It was just that realization that I love footy as a hobby. It's not my life as much as I would say it's. It's been my vocation's been my job. It's been my passion footy sport since I was a kid. But you know, just being there for your kids, your wife at those important moments is more than anything. So somehow you need to have ideally yourself, but someone in your life that may be strange.
You up at times and have you got your priorities right?
You tear up reflecting on it. You must be extremely grateful that you got there in the end.
Yeah, absolutely, you know to see his Charlie's face and how proud he was that I was there, that's like you don't think your kids are proud of you? And you know we have our bantwer and we muck around. But that was a moment that he couldn't hide. You know, he just he'd resigned himself. That's not going to be he can't get over. So he was just wrapped. So when his mates came over, a lot of them I hadn't met, so he had the pre's, the pre cordials.
He just took me around, introduced me to all his mates, and you know, that's I could see that he was just proud to do that, that his dad was here because their dads had brought them over to drop them off, and it was so special.
That is special. You've missed a lot of that stuff. I imagine in telling that story, you're sort of accepting of the fact that you missed a lot of stuff, and you almost got to the point where you forgot what you were missing.
In a way you can do, yeah, you can just roll on.
I spent my last three years at Essendon in Melbourne while my family had relocated to Perth.
Again.
That was just that's fine. I've got a job to do. I'm doing my work. I'm at the footy club. Get up, love going there every day, get home to an empty, empty apartment. But it was just like, have your meal, get to bed.
Get ready to go tomorrow.
And when I came home for Christmas at the end of those those years, I came and had a suitcase open in my bedroom in my family home. Because I was going to be here for three or four weeks. I didn't really feel like I had a home while I was here. I was living out of a seatcase. When I was in Melbourne, I was just a place to sleep in between work. But I never once sat there thinking why am I doing this? I'm not happy.
It was just enough. I've got a commitment that I've got to make and I'm going to see this through. But yeah, within a few weeks of being back in Perth, maybe after I got through my quarantine, I felt like I was home.
I felt like.
I'm back, and really i'd left home in the middle of twenty fifteen when I went to Adelaide, you know, that was pack a suit case and within two days, you know, from when Phil Welsh passed away on the Friday, by Sunday evening, I was in Adelaide and there for three months, and then there was a short period where I came back here while I was flying to Melbourne for interviews with Essendon and then within a few weeks I was based in Melbourne. Yeah, it's you do realize
what home means. And even then, for three years I tried to and this year everyone was away from home. It was really interesting dynamic for me listening to everyone saying we can't go to a hub for two months and I'm thinking, welcome, welcome to by last three years guys or two years. But even then the hub for me was different because I conditioned myself to just go
into an empty apartment and just focusing on work. All of a sudden, I was around people from work, your workmates all day every day, so it was probably more of a challenge. They may have been lonely. I was like overwhelmed.
Away from me. So yeah, again it's on.
Reflection that he realized how much you are just sort of surviving.
And that's that's what it's hard.
Because my last year at Esenon was solely around preparing Ben Rutten to coach, giving him every opportunity to learn what he was going to be in for, learn about some systems he'll have in place to deal with the extra time, workload, the extra commitments he'll have when I when I signed with the Bombers and the family move back, really open discussion with Xavier Campbell around I don't know how long I can do this, so let's just recommit every August. If it changes for either of us, we'll
just finish it. There'll we know obligation either way if it doesn't feel right, and we had a really open agreement with that, and so the last one was really I think I can go one more year, but it was more about to help Ben grow in his development to become a long term senior coach. But again it was really just a survival year. I've just got to do that really well and then when the season finishes, I'll be able to go home and be a family, husband, father again.
You talk about the empty apartment the first night that they weren't there, did you have any sort of moment of shit, they've gone.
Not really, because my whole footy career has been staying in hotel rooms for two or three nights going on footy camp, so it wasn't initially like any different. I'm used to being in a room on my own for various reasons. But really what we did spend time on
was once the fixtures were released, usually mid October. Georgiana and I would map out the next twelve months in terms of possibilities of them either all of them coming to Melbourne or kids at different times, or when time would allow me to get back to Perth, either through fixtures or through a nightgame where I could get home just for the weekend. And tried to not have any periods longer than three maybe four weeks where we were stuck with no contact at all, So we would do that.
Then I would just have that locked away in my calendar, and I always knew the next either trip for me or the next excuse me. The next time my family were going to be in Melbourne was only ever two or three weeks away. Once I started to think that's a bit lonely, it'd been nice to see them. So again, it was just putting in a system in place, and.
No coaches putting in systems.
Yeah, absolutely, this is going to work. This is how we're going to do it.
We'd agreed to it, Georgia and I'd obviously discussed it. We discussed it a bit with the kids, and then try to make it work the best we possibly could.
Have Your kids over the years ever had moments where they've, you know, said you've let me down, Dad, or you weren't there for this.
They haven't.
There may be moments where things were tough on them and I wasn't wasn't there with it. Certainly in the last couple of years there may have been those times. But hopefully I've always been available to them. When I am home, I'm around them. I don't play golf and I don't go fishing. My spare time is whatever they want to do. If they've got their junior sport or if they want to go down the beach. It says, yep, let's go, and I sort of commit to that. I
don't have my own personal escape. That is them, and that gives me the most joy.
I always marvel coaches and the amount of dedication that it takes, because you're kind of damned if you do your damned if you don't a little bit in delegation and things like that. It must be bloody testing for a marriage.
I'm sure to hear you. Well, that's all I've ever known, so it's hard for me. I was Captain of West Coast when we got married nineteen ninety four. We just want a premiership end of September, got married in December.
In October or early November, junele Up Shopping Center open, and I'd invested in a pharmacy in the new shopping center with two other guys, and so during our grand final celebrations, I was often in the Junior Lup shopping center pre opening while the carpet layers were putting carpet down in my pharmacy or stocking shelves. Hungover and having to catch a train home from Junior Lup because I may have had too much to drink that.
Night before responsible, so I wouldn't drive up there.
I would get a lift up there and then be forced to catch the train home as punishment. So it was a busy year premiership, pharmacy, new business opening, captain of the club, and we got married, so that everything's been a bree since then.
Now, your coaching career has been inextricably linked with your family life as well. I was told a story that when you interviewed for the West Coast job, that you'd basically only had a couple of hours sleep the day before. Can you tell me a little bit about that twenty four hours of your life.
Oh, yeah, that my life seems to go like that. In two thousand and one, applied for both the Fremantle and the West Coast jobs. I was living in Melbourne, working with Carlton, and my son had just been born. He was born on the second of October. All this
is happening over through October. So I was trying to help Georgina, either getting out of hospital, getting settled in Melbourne where we didn't have a lot of family, no family, flying to Perth for job interviews, trying to hope that they would align so I wouldn't have to come over and do West Coast and then go back and come back again.
So it was pretty full on time.
Yeah, trying to prepare for a job interviews for two clubs, what with a newborn at home. Well, Sophie, our eldest was four four and a half. Some of that say, yeah, it was pretty full on, but again you just survival mode, just do what you've got to do, try and do the best you can. But I was pretty run down and tied.
I don't know that.
I can't remember one of the interviews. I had the worst headache and felt as crooked. Was anything but trying not to let on and thinking I've got a plane to catch, so hopefully this doesn't go over time. I've got to get home. And it eased off a little bit. As you know, the job interviews were a bit more space to part. We got a bit more settled, but it was a tough time.
Do you know how you went in the interview? I mean, obviously you got the West Coast gig. Yeah, did anyone ever give you any feedback of you were awful with that one?
Yeah? No, I think the feedback was we'll get you back again.
So the punishment was, yeah, you didn't seem like you were on top of your game, so maybe we'll talk to you again. It was either nice that some of the people in the interview either knew me well enough to say he didn't see himself and let's give him another opportunity. But yeah, either way, whether whether I got that job or not, you know, that was all just just I saw it as a great opportunity to throw myself out there.
When I was looking through and searching for this interview, it struck me that you were only thirty three years old when you got that gig. You probably at the time didn't feel like that was young. But now when I say that back to you, do you go cheap as that's young to take on one of the biggest coaching jobs in the land at West Coast.
Yeah, it does.
I mean I'd been an assistant coach for a couple of years, so I'd retired as a player just before I turned thirty, had the one year where I did a bit of media and work in the pharmacy, and then two years at Carlton, So it wasn't as though I just retired.
Thirty three is just young as I'm still young.
Isn't it, Especially like young family and all that sort of thing. It is a tough thing. I mean, I look at Ben Rutten and his boys are a little bit older, maybe eight and ten something like that, and I think it's still You're going to miss a lot of time with him with your new role. I like the model of David Noble and Chris Fagan that their kids had grown up. Say in terms of of the time commitment to have to be available for your family, is it drops away a fair bit? But yeah, look,
I was young. I hadn't ever really thought about going into coaching while I was playing, and it was only when I really retired, and I've missed just being at a football club so much in that first year out that I got the opportunity to be an assistant coach. I thought, that'll get me back in the game and we'll see how we go. So yeah, I didn't join Carlton with a view of becoming a senior coach. I joined Carlton with a view of being involved in football for as long as I possibly could.
Well, by the time you were thirty eight, you're a premiership coach, so you went.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
The danger of starting your coaching career young as you finish young, you know, and unfortunately we've seen that a little bit.
You know.
It's great to see Brett Ratton back in the game, and hopefully i'd love to see Michael Voss coaching again at some point because he'll be a bit there. They'll all be better coaches as they are in the game for longer. I've finished seventeen years, I think it is as a senior coach, and I'm younger than David Noble, who's just starting his career as a senior coach. I'd like to think with the wealth of experience I've had to.
Whether I'm better prepared now than ever to lead a club, whether I have the passion to do that, who knows, And then whether the opportunity of arises You don't know. But yeah, just sometimes I think we put some super talented and smart, qualified young men into those roles in probably the most stressful period of their lives, and.
It makes it tough.
So would you go again?
There's no reason why I wouldn't for all the reasons I've just spoke about. In two or three years time, my kids will be a lot more independent, living their own lives. They won't be suning Dad come to the beach, They'll be off with girlfriends and boyfriends. That side of my personal life will have me in a better space. You don't learn all the knowledge you have. So yeah, if the opportunity was there, I would no doubt I
would consider it. Yeah, I think I can add a lot of value if the time and the opportunity was right.
Like I said, you were so young, and upon reflection it turned out to be a really there's a lot of stuff going on at West Coast at the time. How do you reflect on that time from an off field point of view, and how you coped with it within yourself.
Yeah, there were times, and it was it felt like there's no way whatever we do is not going to be right. Any move we make will be criticized and seen as the wrong move. I personally got criticized a couple of times for just that my only focus is on winning games, not on players' health, and that that hurt me. And again I didn't come out and defend myself because I knew it wasn't true, and I knew if people dug into it eventually a throwaway line wasn't
going to rattle me. With everything I did. The time I spent trying to support players in their decision making and get their lives on track, let alone their footy careers was genuine and always above them being available to play footy.
That was always if.
You need time away from playing, you'll have our support. So those personal conversations were always happening. So it was dealing with a very very complex period people's personal lives that there was you know, there was no proof. It
was all word of mouth rumor stuff. Can you hang someone because someone else rings a footy club which happens all the time, and says I saw this player with this person, and you think, okay, there's warning signs and there's concerns, but are they doing anything illegal or wrong? So it was it was a real balancing act between supporting them getting them to try and commit to what
the whole team we're committing to. You know, there were some players that wouldn't buy into that, and they were challenged heavily that if you don't, we'll support you if you want to, but if you don't accept that you need to act this way, then you can't start at the football club. And that happened over a period of two or three years. Players were let go because they weren't going to buy into what we were trying to do.
If you knew then what you know now, would you have done things differently.
I've got no doubt that if you had information, you always act on the information you've got. So if there was more information happening, we would have made different decisions that they may not have been big public things that people would have seen, but it may have been a different course of action, whether it be setting a player to a counselor whatever it may have been. If you had different information. Definitely, I've got no doubt that drives
your decision making. But we were pretty heavily in the dark with a lot of stuff that was going on that came out later, So it was hard to say that we should have acted differently when we were acting on information we had.
How was it for you as a man, just yourself within yourself, going home each night and having an idea that people that you genuinely cared about I imagine were gone through some stuff.
Yeah, it's like I still if I could, I would catch up with Ben Cousins now to support him in any way I could with. Obviously a lot of people have tried to support him, and none of us have had any great success in terms of getting Ben to where we want him to be. That may mean that Ben's where he wants to be, and we should then accept that if that's where he wants to be, stop trying to force him to live the life we want
him to live. But we all have the assumption that Ben's not happy living that life and he should change. But if Ben wanted to change, I would support him. You know, he's a great young man who is so young, still so much life ahead of him, young kids. Now, I still feel for the position he's in, Like I wouldn't want to be in that position, And I don't know if Ben wants to or doesn't want to be in that business.
That's been the hard thing to try and ascertain.
But all those boys, any of them that have been in any strife or struggled with transitioning away from the game, you feel for them and you want to support them because we were working so hard together, the West Coast Boys that I played with, the West Coast Boys that I coached, the Adelaide Boys. I was only there for a short period, but I love reading about the times are going well. I hate seeing Eddie Betts go through some of the dramas of racism, knowing how strong a
family unit he is. That hurts me every time for that three months that I spent there and the Yestham Boys, and I went there because I saw too many times through twenty fourteen and fifteen a group of footballers led by Joe Watson fronting a press conference looking like what is this game done to me? Like I'm flat sad, and I'm thinking I haven't had a sad moment really, I Mean, we've had challenging moments, but I've loved my footy life and those guys should love it and they
don't love it. And that's what sort of drove me to go to Essen and think if I can help those boys get back to saying AFL footy is awesome, that was going to be a win for me.
You deeply care, don't you?
I do?
Yeah, absolutely I do. I care for that more than winning games too much. We think winning games and winning the premierships make ring us happiness. Twenty ten at West Coast we won the Wooden Spoon. I'm pretty sure it's
the club's only ever wooden spoon. But what we achieved that year people have no idea of how strong that club, but what it learnt in that year from the hurt of our pride and an ego to say we could finish last, but to stick to a plan, to say we're committed to where this group's going to go and win another flag.
As quickly as possible.
It was huge, how tight everyone had to work essenon in two thousand and sixteen when the suspension has happened, to have players finishing that year saying that's one of the most enjoyable years of footy I've had is a massive thing. Otherwise they would have left the club. Too many players would have left, and I don't think any players left at the end of twenty sixteen.
And you took over that job not knowing about those suspensions that hadn't happened years. So you thought you were going to have all those or potentially have all of those players available. Yeah, and your first gig is really I mean, nobody thought you were going to win a game that year.
No, No, And that's always a likelihood when you have twelve twelve senior players unavailable every week. Taking the job at essence was like you coming in no association. It's going to be a fresh start, all clear air going forward. And we had six weeks of clear air before the appeal was upheld and the suspensions happened, and yeah, we had to start again, refocus.
How are we going to get through this? What are we going to do?
And the idea for me was we can still grow and improve by working, committing to each other, raising our standards. Even if we don't win a game. We can learn and grow this year and have fun doing it. And that was pretty much became what the you was all about.
Do you remember how you felt when that suspension, that decision came down.
I hadn't spent really any time understanding what the appeal was over.
Obviously hadn't been aware of how much time.
And effort lawyers were putting into some of the scene you people at the footy club were having to put into it. I just started, had mapped out the preseason program and we'd built that and was ready to go in January. So when the suspensions happened, it was like, right, A, that's we know what we've got to do. We know where we stand now. First thing, support the guys that have been suspended. Second thing, how do we top up our list?
Do you have even a moment though, before you go into coach I mean this is a genuine question. Do you go straight into coach mode or do you even have a moment that you go, well, bugger. I feel really sorry for those blokes. Do you know what I mean? Do you have a human reaction before you have the coach reaction?
Absolutely, you have the human reaction in terms of looking I'm just trying to remember. I don't know if Xavier Campbell came in and told us all at the club, because I'm pretty sure he was with the players.
They were at a hotel in the city.
I think it could have been Justin Rodski something like that, who who came in and broke the news, and it was Yeah, honestly, it was just about the biggest shock you could have, other than maybe someone close in the club passing away. It was just everyone was shell shocked, but no one expected it. No one certainly didn't expect the twelve month ban. Yeah, for me, it was what does it mean for me? It doesn't affect me personally in terms of I'm not involved. I wasn't involved in that.
All it means for me is I don't have players available, So that's the coach stuff. For me, it was these people have been living this. I just try and support them. It was very similar to the time when I went to Adelaide. It's like I'm coming I was friends with Phil Walsh, but I'm coming from outside looking at these people who were talking to him the day before.
And now he's not there.
So yeah, that essen and stuff was just don't judge any reaction from anyone. Some players wanted to get out of there straight away. Some needed to be around each other, so it was just letting them know there is going to be support for you in these roles. Do what he's right for you. Don't feel any obligation above getting yourself like in a good positive mind as positive mind frame as you can be.
You're listening to Ordinarily, speaking with John wasfold. October two thousand and seven must have been one of the most challenging months of your life. I'd imagine many who Chris main Wearing who I worked with it Channel seven at the time, so he's a made of mine at the time as well. Incredibly tough time for everyone to go through. You'd spent twenty years with him. Do you remember that day?
Yeah, I certainly remember the phone call and yeah, being in total shock, and my reaction initially was what can I do to help anyone? So we put a call out to all the past players that had played with many at West Coast and just say invite them here, if you want to come around, come around, And we just had a few beers through the afternoon together.
Just come around if you want to come around.
Because I was my guest was all feeling like I was just like, what, I don't know what to do. I'm just going to sit here and sort of mourn, and I don't know, it felt empty, say come around, at least we can do it all together. So we spent the afternoon doing that.
But it's just tough. Yeah, there's no.
Other words to describe. But Phil Wels's phone call so similar. I'd only work with Walshi for four or five years, but you know, I've been doing some stuff with him at Adelaide and helping him a little bit with that. So to hear the tragic events there.
It's just.
Rocksh you so much. But you know, for me, it's always been about Okay, there's stuff we've got to do. Let's just get moving on that. We can't just stop everything. And you can steal morn and grieve while you're working and going forward, and the footy industry tends to force you to do that a little bit.
How do you grieve if for all the time you're just getting.
On with it.
Maybe get out and run for twenty k's and Tom physically and mentally exhausted, and then I know I'll sleep well. And while I run, I can think and just let random thoughts come and go. So that's probably it for me because I, yeah, I don't just talk to people. For me, it would be internal. Yeah, so that's generally what I've done.
I mean, maybe he was such a larger than life like he was. He was brilliant to work with and he was so generous with his time. As may I was a twenty one year old just coming up through the ranks and a female in the sporting world, and he was so supportive and so lovely. What do you remember him as?
Just NonStop, you know, so much energy, so bubbly, but on the footy field quiet, just hardly said a word, just worked his backside off, and I'm sure it was because he was exhausted, he ran so hard. We were so different as personalities, but we were really close.
Yeah, so mainy.
I know, he looked up to me as his captain, and he also looked up to me as which is a pretty straight guy, you know, and he respected that. So he never put he never went we should come out with.
Us or whatever. He went, that's that's you, that's fine.
And there were times in his press conference, probably in his early ones, where he was in the press pack and he would see me afterwards.
Go sorry, sorry, I asked that question, Maye, do your job mate?
Just I see you as you just set They're doing your job. I'm not looking and going, why is Maney picking on me?
All?
But he was apologetic, and I hated the fact that he felt like that. I was trying to say to him, It's exactly what I was saying you before. My relationship was media coach, and I can put that aside and see many an hour later as an ex teammate mate. Yeah, so, yeah, Many was. I had a good relationship with him on the field because so many times he was on the wing.
I was half back, so on the same side of the ground, just talking to him NonStop and asking him to dig deep and run harder, and he would just always look around like he'd look at me exhausted and just nod, yeah, no, I wish keep running. But that was our sort of relationship, and maybe he didn't.
He was so quiet.
Look, if someone picked on him, he would just say, I'll just get up and keep going, and I would go and try and stand up for him. And I know he appreciated that as well, because his personality wasn't a fight.
It was just to play footy and have fun.
Losing someone like that, I imagine, and given he's got kids. It has an impact on your whole family because, as you said, you played your coach at the same club. I mean Georgina would have been so invested in a person like him as well.
Yeah. Absolutely, Like with Rannie and Zach and Maddie, we all follow what they're up to. We try to keep in touch.
On the tenth anniversary of Mayne's passing, a lot of those pass players we met at Subi Oval. That coincided with Subi going to be finished as a playing venue. We were having a Premiership reunion, so we got Rannie to come along.
We started it.
We met sub at ten thirty in the morning. It was going to be a long day. Craig Turley had organized Maney's favorite shots, so we had to have a shot for Maney at ten thirty am on sub Oval with Rannie in a big circle.
Yeah, that was so special.
It was so We've got a group photo of all of us but Rannie standing in for Maney. Yeah, that was a nice moment because it was where we stood on the ground, was right in front of the Chris Main wearing wing So it just had so much meaning to us all because there was never another game of foot he played there and the Chris Main wearing wing wasn't going to exist anymore. So that was a great memory. When we catch up every time we basically reflect on Maney not being there.
Yeah, that's life. Throws some tough ones at you all the while.
When that was going on, you had the Bend Cousins situation going on. I've been told that you were on a family holiday when you had to make that call to him. Tell me what that was like.
Yeah, it was obviously tough.
Ben was still denying or in denial that there was any major issue that he couldn't keep going. You know, he was angry when we took the captaincy off him at the end of two.
Thousand and five.
Because he felt he was still the hardest worker, the leader for the boys, the way trained and and he just was struggling to see that his other actions were detrimental to what we were trying to do. So then to say to him, no, that's all done. Yeah, it was tough. I mean, his dad rang me while I was away and was quite upset about it, which again that did rock me a little bit. I felt like I couldn't have I don't think I could have done
any more personally to help. So it hurt me a bit because that was a big club decision.
Wasn't just my decision.
But I also understood that, you know, my perspective of it as coach compared to a father of Ben is way different how Brian was going to perceive what that meant for him and Ben. And so you know, I wasn't hurt by it, but it rocked me a bit. It was like, emotionally, really, I really thought you would have seen the personal help I was trying to trying to give you all the way that the support I gave Brian and Ben. But yeah, that's it's tough in those situations.
Did he feel like you'd abandoned his son? Yeah?
I don't know.
I mean, you'd have to ask on but I'm sure there was some feeling of that. It's like, you know, if Ben doesn't end up at another club, hasn't got afl footye, is there anything that's going to hold him back? This might be the worst possible thing for Ben. He's yeah, he's going to have no reason to get.
Sober or whatever whatever it meant.
I don't know, but yeah, for Ben's family, it must have been so tough, not just that moment, but so many moments prior to that.
How does once again that impact on you as a human because you make the tough calls, but that doesn't mean that you stop caring. How hard was that for you to let go of human make that call?
Yeah, it is hard.
I was at the club when Ben came as a young boy, and I was captain.
I think the year been arrived.
I had a knee reconstruction, so I wasn't playing, so I could be around there a bit. Yes, so you become big brothers to them, there's no doubt about that, try and support them, and admired him so much for how hard he worked and how good a footballer he was.
But really, whether that's Ben or whether it's a player who's been at the club for two years and you're making a decision that they're probably not up to it, and you're delisting a twenty year old and seeing their face come to the realization that my dream is not going to come true, that's just as hard. You're emotionally invested to all of them. You draft them, you see how excited they are, you speak to them, you meet their parents. They're all that excited and from that moment
you want to help them become great AFL footballers. It's tough. So whether it's a Ben Cousins who's a star and you spend a long time with them, they.
All take a lot out of it. You walk away feeling pretty broken.
Was there any one phone call that you got through that West Coast time of the stuff that was going on that you'd late at night and you've gotten a phone call and you've gone not again, or you know, there.
Were a few.
I mean there was that period where my phone was on not on silent every night and it was just yeah, is it going to ring? And it may have only happened I don't know. Maybe it happened half a dozen times in three years. It's not a lot, but certainly in the off season it would have been I hope we're not going to get any.
Bad phone calls.
Yeah, that was a tough period to be coaching, knowing that there was that stuff lingering that could arise at any time and you didn't know what it was going to be or what it was going to entail. I mean that there was a nightclub shooting at Metro Nightclub. I think you hear about that, and you think, well, we won't have anyone involved in that. Then you hear
that there wasn't anyone involved, but there was. I can't even remember what the story was, but either Ben or Michael Gardner had had a phone call to someone who was a person of interest in that really close to that time, and then you go like, what is going on there? You never really hear and find out the full details unless you wanted to go and sit and listen to the whole court case that they weren't involved in,
but their names may have been mentioned in. You just sit there in the dark to some of degree.
Jeez.
It was a bizarre time really when you turn stories like that, isn't it.
Yeah? Obviously the Ben swimming across the river stuff, you know, you just go on, Okay, that's not just a drink driving incident. That's a drink potential drink driving where he's evaded the police and then probably put his life at risk trying to swim across the Swan River at a pretty wide point. Thank god, at all, he was okay,
he got himself out of the river. But yeah, you just think I'm just here, I'm probably in bed by nine thirty that night, and then those things are happening and you just think I'm living in a different world.
To some people, that's not what you signed up for.
No, well, you sign up to be in a high performance environment and it's high stress. You got massive personalities, So yeah, there's risk. There's always going to be risk. You know, you read about well any sport with it. I always used to think you should we take any solid in the fact that it's a rugby league player who's in strife this time. Sure enough, within a week there'll be an AFL player somewhere in strife for something. Yeah,
they all go in. It's a risky environment for a lot of reasons, for the mental anguish and stress, the high physical toll it takes. As a coach, you've got to understand there's going to be some massive challenges there.
You talk about the off season. I think the first ever doorstop I had to do is a journal was Chad Fletcher when he arrived back from from Vegas. I mean that must have been one of those phone calls that you're sitting there on what is going on?
Yeah? Absolutely, and again just thank god he was all right. Yeah, you know, the young Port Adelaide boy that Yeah, John had the accident. Yeah, didn't come home. So yeah, that stuff around Chad At the time, it was like, look, how serious is this is, because you know, things can get blown up. If you wanted to be a story, you can say he was seconds away from there for or whatever. We're trying to say someone from let us know exactly what happened. But there was quite a few
people involved. But yeah, it was very scary for the people that were over there. They were extremely concerned for Chad's health. But it worked out all right. You know, he was okay, and he's living a life in Bali and surfing doing what he loves and he seems like he's found his feet what He's in a place where he's really happy.
And I love seeing that.
I heard that when you're at the Bombers, you stood up in front of the group after a few years at a bowling Alliot Crown casino and shared your own vulnerabilities in a hope that it would encourage others to and make the group closer. Do you remember that moment and what drove you to do that.
Yeah, look, that was something we'd committed to. It was called a circle of trust, which I had implemented, and I wasn't the first one to do it. So it was just at some point people were invited to share their story, so we felt like I should partake in that since I think it's a really important part. There were some wonderful stories and sharings that took place through all that period where we got to know each other on a lot better level, talking about your family and your upbringing.
So yeah, I did that. I opened up more than I ever had, but I was still very guarded. You know.
I didn't really share exactly my vulnerabilities, a story about my upbringing and my family and how close I was and all that.
It was really just a story.
Some of the stuff that that was a bit deeper I didn't share with them, which on one hand, I think I should have, but then I also feel like that's something that I don't do, and yeah, I wasn't.
Ready to do that.
So it was about your dad, It was about it a lot of things. Yeah, but my family have.
Just shaped obviously.
They so much an important part of your life growing up. Mom and Dad worked unbelievably hard to just for their kids, you know, they pretty much everything they did was to make sure we had what we needed. From trying to make sure we had good sporting equipment to my dad taken my sister. My sister was a really good athlete, so Dad had to take time off work so many times to be able to get her to her training sessions. She was never going to miss a training session because
we couldn't do that. He was going to find a way. He worked two jobs, Mum worked two jobs just so that we could do what we wanted.
You know.
We never went on overseas holidays or anything like that. It was down to Dunsborough for a week, but that's all we needed. It was more about get to the school. Get to a good.
School, mind you. I went to South Front of High.
School, which was a good school, but it wasn't up at the eye owner level that my sister went to.
But it wasn't college senior high school.
Which is.
Yeah, they're good schools. They're good school anyway. Yeah, my family were great role models. Obviously, Mom and Dad were awesome. And Mum's got a great story in her own right. She left her family in England when she was eighteen to come to Australia, where she knew one. She had one auntie living here in Perth. My mum's mom had passed away when she was about fifteen and things didn't go well after that with a step mom, new stepmom that came into their So mum just at eighteen just
walked out, didn't say goodbye. She had a little sister left and didn't talk to her dad or a sister again for twenty years. Came to Australia and set up a life here. So tough lady. They taught us so much.
Your dad passed a couple of years ago.
Yeah, how did that impact you? Yeah, that was I don't know.
He'd had Alzheimer's, so we'd seen him deteriorat and that was sad to see such a respect self respecting gentlemen. He wanted everything that always had to be right to be starting to struggle with that, and you could see in the early days of frustration he had. In a way, it was fairly wrap it on set. So from him going really really sort of bad to passing away was a fairly short time frame. So I think it was horrible to lose him, but you know, it wasn't. It
wasn't our dad. Towards the end there, so I would have hated to see him sort of just sit around for another couple of years not being himself.
So yeah, it was tough.
But it's tough to watch somebody you love it and I guess, is your role model go through something like our.
Side it is and then they're just not there.
So even when they're ill, you can still go and see them, touch them, and then all of a sudden, they're not there. So that's that's that empty feeling. But yeah, it's the way I feel as though everything that I learned from my dad is still with me. You know, I say, I don't even feel like I'm missing him because it impacts me so much every day. Yeah, Mom misses him because obviously she was there with him every day for fifty years, so I know how tough it
is for Mom for the physical presence. But yeah, for me, yeah, I sort of have great memories and that sense that everything that that's happened to me is being sort of guided by Mom and Dad.
Have you ever struggled with your mental health? He's saying, bloody resilient.
Yeah, I'm not going to tell you that I'm that's I've got no doubt I've had moments, but I've and I don't know really what self sort of self serving mechanism I have, but I've managed to find a way to just keep work, keep going.
You say, do you ever worry that it will catch up to you.
I've probably had a couple of moments in the last five or ten years that that it's caught up with me, and it's knocked me where physically I've just haven't been able.
Get out of bed. I've had a day where I've.
Slept and struggled, and then the next day I'm up and up and about. That would be the only times that I think I would have thought this doesn't feel right. You know that that would And again, it would only be two or three times where I've been soldiering on and then just hit a wall and just needed to
sort of shut myself away and sleep. And it might have slept for eighteen hours in a day or something like that, and you know, you think, I've slept all day, I'm not going to sleep tonight, And then you sleep well that night and you wake up the next day and ready to go. So I think I don't think I've too much up that at one point it's going to really nail me. I think I've been able to put everything into perspective and understand that. Yeah, I've had
a blessed life. I've had way less tragedy than so many people in other lives. Doesn't make each individual event any easier, But I've been very lucky. You mean, my dad was healthy up until he was seventy eight or seventy nine years of age. I don't think you'd ever really been ill. Yeah, I've been lucky. You have wonderful parents, great family, brothers, sister, good career. Yeah, it's been pretty nice to reflect on.
But yeah, a good sleep, A good sleep will get me through.
My mum always says, if you slept that long, you probably needed it.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Those couple of times that it did happen, were they moments where you were exhausted or do you they just came out of the blue. Yeah.
I think they were probably a culmination of of intense periods and then neither something happened that just like I need to get away or I'm going to say or do something silly here, get myself out of that environment and work through it.
So I think it wasn't just a one event that I went, I'm going to go and now sleep it off.
It was like, this has been a tough period of maybe six months and then an event that you just think, right, buy your tongue, go and get yourself, get clear, and then reassess it you.
Ever snapped and gone. I wish I didn't do that.
I don't think so when I retired or resigned from coaching West Coast, I don't think Georgiana, even though I knew I was going to do that, I.
Was about to.
I think I was about to either re sign another extension, but it just came to realization that that wasn't the right thing to do. So I went and saw Trevni Isbert and just blurted it out.
That's it, right, yep.
And then I think I rang Georgia or I came home and told her I just resigned. And it was one of those things that I didn't talk to people, no I knew. It was just me thinking what do you need? What do you need to have to commit to keep doing this job? And the number one thing is the passionate energy. And there were things that were challenging my love of the game where I was and there were things that had happened every year that I'd coach you through, all the different dramas. These things were
now making me think that's really annoying. Or it might have been a coach leaving you go to another club or something like that, and I think that's now let me down.
Ris.
In the past it was like, good on your great career move, go for it. This time was now I have to replace you. I thought, if that's how I'm feeling, I haven't got the energy. I'm not seeing this right. So yeah, it just came to me. Next morning, I
went in told Nizzy, Yeah, that was it. So that's probably the time where and so that's not your question, was how I have a snap and don't think No, that was just a sudden decision where I didn't say I was going to go and sneaking in my cave for twenty four hours to sleep this one off and maybe I'll be right tomorrow. I think I might have tried that, done that and couldn't shake this one off.
Needed forty eight to seventy.
Yeah, yeah, but you know, from the moment I'd told News, it felt like that was the right thing to do for the playing group in particular, they needed a coach that was one hundred percent ready to go, especially with the hard work we put in from two thousand and seven, eight, nine, ten to get them into a position where are ready to launch. You know, we played in the Premium in twenty eleven. I think we finished fifth and twelve. It
was like, you got it's all there now. I don't want to be the one that messes it up because I'm tired. So get a young, fresh per new coaching and have a crack.
Couple of fun ones on just how bloody tough you are that I I've heard, Yeah, is it true that you used to or that you still did actually test players one on one as fitness tests if they were under a bit of an injury cloud, and you would say, right, one on one me and you let's go, which put them in the position of either they beat you and potentially hurt you, which would be bad hurting the coach, or they lose to you, which is worse.
If people were looking around and saying, we really need this guy to test his shoulder out with a bump or something like that, and say right, they all come on, run at me, because you could see others were.
Going, no, I don't want to. I don't want that guy running into me. Yeah.
I felt like I could still cope with that at times. My first year at CARLT, when I was thirty and Craig Bradley was thirty seven or something like that, thirty eight, still playing it. He'd hurt his shoulder and who's out injured and he was coming back and he said to me after training, I just want to test my shoulder out wusher And I thought, better take it easy on
the old boy. It's only little Craig Bradley. And he came in and he either I can't remember, don't argue or something and nearly cave my chest in and I thought, wrong, right now it's on. I'm going to test your shoulder. Not as drastic as it sounds, but I didn't mind putting myself out there.
That one came from nicknat He said that.
I hope it wasn't trying to do a fitnessess on him.
Maybe when he was when he just joined the club, he was about twenty five kilos lighter.
He also says that you guys shared bunk beds in a Cambodia trip, that you would organize, smile on your face. And he was so scared of the giant rats. But he couldn't tell you because he was a teenager and the coach should think he was weak as piercing him out scared he.
Was on a pig farm.
Yeah, we were at an orphanage that had a pig farm out the back. And oh yeah, that was bringing you back to earth for sure.
Good fun. All of us in the same little dormitory.
And the other one was coaching at Essendon. That one day you got shoulder surgery on your day off and you fronted up the next day with no sling, didn't tell anyone and everyone only found out months later or something like that that you actually had had a shoulder surgery? Is that true?
Who found that out? I didn't think anyone that ever found that out?
This is how good my sources.
I yeah, we had.
I can't maybe it was our mid season by or something like that. So we had a couple of days off. I booked my shoulder surgery and then yeah, the surgeon said, just where the sling, make sure you don't get it knocked. So my issue was, you know the sling? I can I can carry my arm without it, and I don't reckon, anyone will notice as long as they don't kick a footy up at me, and as long as no player then wants to do a fitness test on me.
Anyway, I got through.
Yeah, that was It was an interesting time and I sort of talk it as a little bit of a challenge. I'll see if I can get through this with no one knowing, only that only the doc knew and he had that confidentiality agreement he wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Yeah, we got through only once I reckon, someone came past and just clipped me, and I just got it out of the way in time.
But because they said that it shows how tough you were. But also they were like, we wish that he could have felt like he could have shared that and been vulnerable about it.
Yeah. Fun in that. Yeah.
Yeah, I do remember going home because Georgia and the kids were still in Melbourne at the time, and I'd be at home eating dinner like this arm and I couldn't sleep, and then I'd get up and leave the sling and go to work work work with AFL football is there. I was like, I'm going to see if I can do this. But it was also it's also a test of keeping your mouth shut. See if Georgina, don't tell anyone, Doc, don't tell anyone.
Yeah I am, I am.
Anyway, there was a couple of little stories like that at the Bombers where try to keep things quiet. I don't know if you remember when I had the big black eye when I was coaching. I think that was in twenty eighteen maybe. Anyway, I turned up to work with the biggest black eye and just everyone know what happened, and no one found out, no one found out who did it, how it happened.
I had to tell Zavier Campbell. I didn't tell him how it happened.
I just said, there's nothing untoward. This is not me at a pub drunk getting hit or whatever. This is just the mates accidentally clipped me and it's just bled. But I think the day after, I wake up in the morning and it is not purple. And we had
a meeting with Cricket Australia. We were going to share our stories about our players being reintroduced from suspensions with them as they were gearing up for Bancroft and Warner and Smith and I had to ring him beforehand and said I'll be there, just I just want to warn it. I've got a black eye. It was so embarrassing, and they're all like, what happened? And I just had to try to go with the same story every time. Just a mate accidentally clipped me.
And so what did happen?
I'm telling you, you can't give that field up and then tell the.
True story well without giving names away. Had a meal with a few mates and we were getting in a taxi. I was in the middle of the back seat of the taxi and as the third mate got in, he just threw an elbow basically, and I remember sitting there going, you clipped me, then you got me.
And he got in and he's like, did n you want me to do it again?
And I said, don't do it again, because you got me, I'm telling you. And anyway, off we went and we finished the night, and the next day I rocked up and I've got this black one. He's the same guy's going what happened to you? And I'm going, don't you remember? And he's like, I told him what happened, and he went, I didn't get you like that? You got me, mate, Like seriously, I was this close to whacking about thinking
you did it deliberately. But yeah, so I had to do press conferences postgame, and the media like they got no doubt, they would have been ringing everywhere, digging, trying to work out, and I was sitting back giggling because I knew there was no story. Someone try to say Aaron Francis had had a blue and whack me or something like that, and I'm thinking serious, like it was going to be funny to see what they try to come up with. But anyway, that's a little one.
I have heard of a straight elbow. So my final question is when you reflect on all of it, what are you most proud of as the man that you are as opposed to the coach.
Yeah, I just think overall that I've lived an authentic life.
I would like to just say that that I've been true to my own values and beliefs. I haven't bent because someone else wanted you to be a certain way. I think that's probably the lesson I've tried to push to coaches i've worked with is just do it your way, be yourself. You learn all the time, and you adapt and change, but don't ever do something that doesn't feel right for you, for your personality. Don't try to be something that you're not. And I think I've done that
throughout my whole career. And yeah, so when people say stand up for yourself, I say, look, it doesn't phaze me. It's water off a ducks back. When I've said it in the moody before, it's true. It's just like I'm just doing my job and they're doing their job. I don't have any personal grudges with anyone.
Wisha, thank you so much for giving me so much of your time, and I really hope you just enjoy the time with your family now and whatever the future holds, it holds. But yeah, I really appreciate that you shared your story.
Thank you, Narrowie.
Hopefully it's a story for everyone in terms of hopefully helping people. But that's the most I've ever talked about myself, So you've done well.
Thanks Bush.
On time.
Thanks for listening to Ordinarily Speaking. I hope you enjoyed the chat. If you want to get in touch, follow at Ordinarily Underscore Speaking on Instagram and at Narrowly Underscore Meadows on Twitter. A new episode will land on Wednesday.
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