Some of the stories about Barras are the best stories of all time because he had no he had this no bullshit field that was just incredibly raw. So he would rather He'd rather have an argument than tell a lie. And he gets to Mark Bayze, now the most loved player in the team, the La Chronics and a half back. He said, bays Base, if this team was any good, you wouldn't be getting a game.
I'm John Ralph and I'm Glenn McFarlane.
Welcome to Sacked, a podcast that explores what really happens when the ax falls in the AFL world. Will take you behind the scenes with some of the biggest names in football and find out how they found out their time was up and who pulled the trigger. Sacked AFL is made possible with the support of subscribers to The Herald Sun. To find out more, go to Herald Sun dot com, dot are you or download the Herald Sun app at.
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Coaching with Barras The Who Couldn't Lie the first part of our chat with Damien Drum. Damien Drum was a late bloomer when he was plucked out of Bush Footy by Geelong at the age of twenty and spent eight frustrating seasons battling to sixty three games, and yet it was only another injury sustained in the nineteen eighty nine preliminary Final that denied him the notorious role on Dermot Breton eventually performed by Mark Yates in the opening moments
of that famous nineteen eighty nine Grand Final. Drum would eventually become famous as the last one to know he'd been sacked as Freemantle coach. But that journey got its start at the Sydney Swans as the right hand of the man who couldn't lie, Ron BARRASSI.
What kind of play was Damien Drumm.
Well, mainly probably an inside contested player. Now I talk in today's language, you know, I played sixty odd games, largely off the bench, just in the team most of the time about one hundreckns. So you know, as a players probably always felt it was a bit too good for the seconds and not quite good enough to be a genuine player in the seniors. But you know, some
years you'd play three or four or five games. Other other times you'd play one, played twenty two and your one year played all of them.
Yeah, and John Devine and Devin's first year.
Yeah, and then Malcolm turned up and blind turned up at the end of my career towards the end, and he picked me two or three times through the year, and I kept breaking down because I had.
So many injuries. That's the thing. You would just get a start and then you'd suffer it. Tell us about them and what held you back? Was it a because you trained hard? Speaking to a few people about it as well, but I.
Think everybody trained hard in those days, and training was also quite physical, so it was there was no it wasn't out of the ordinary to do fully contested training where the coach just kicked the ball away and two guys would chase each other try and bring it back, so I think. But I had a lot of soft tissue injuries, so I again always felt like I was
pushing myself. Yeah, so you do an occasional calf, or you do an occasional hammy, you strain something that you just knew was a groin would just you know, slow you down. So you just had to put your hand up and say I can't play knees. And the occasional you know, the occasional fracture here and fracture there, but mainly it was a soft tissue stuff.
So in February eleven I found a story Februy eleven, nineteen eighty one. You get an invite it's from Geelong sent I think your mum actually had part of it. And you get asked to take part in a practice match. You get a hotel room in Gelong. You must be thinking you're pretty good here, and you get a thirty five dollars traveling allowance.
Not bad there. You must think I'm going to make this now.
Well, the very first invitation I got was inviting me to come down and train with the end of nineties, right, yeah, So I'm thinking Gelong really haven't done their homework here because I'm already twenty. So I rang them up and said, listen, I'm not able to play train with them an because I'm already twenty and said, oh, we've just come down
and train with the seconds or the seniors. So but yeah, when it finally came about, I was still doing an apprenticeship for that first when Geelong were interested, and I went down and trained over Christmas while I was having my holidays, which all builders back in those days would always take January off. So I was training with Geel Long.
So your carpenter Joiner, Yeah, and I'm in my last year, so we make an agreement that well, you can play the practice matches and then we'll see how we go from there.
So, as it turned out, I would travel down on the weekends for the first half of the year and just played in the seconds. And then I finished my apprenticeship halfway through the year and the club said, right now you can move down. So but for the first half of the year I was completing my apprenticeship in Sheperdon and then would travel down on a Friday night and stayinge along and then jump on the bus or go to Coney Park wherever we were playing.
See your taboo in ninett eighty two against Cartner Princess Park. What a rude initiation and nine games in your first year. What's your memories of that first contest?
Very first contest, I reckon. I tackled Bruce dool and it's one of those ones where I could have just made the tackle standing up and the umpire was just ready to blow. The whistler was at our buggert and dumped him as.
Hard as I could.
And he's got legit. As the wind goes out of his out of his lungs and he rolls over A good tackle son.
Probably the only words he said. He didn't say it really.
Was going to hit me, and he said, good tackle son. So I had a new respect for brucetool, not that it needed to, not that it was ever any different.
So Gary a Butt, the Great Gary Ablet as he would become, arrives in eighty four. Take us through your your greatest Gary Ablet stories, your recollections. You probably didn't know your name, didn't know the name of too many others. What was it like playing under the Great Gary Senior?
Well, he was possibly the most explosive, most dynamic player ever. He what he could do the average punter couldn't do, the average player couldn't do. It was quite phenomenal. It wasn't as consistent as he should have been. You know, had some issues off field that were that was sort of you know, only a superstar could ever get away with some of those, and in an era where he
probably got away with a bit too so. But oh, there were just some of those games where that he you know that he's more or less one of his own boot and he was quite a phenomenal player. And you know, there's a there is a real there's a real case to be made that I made him the player that he was. Like this, So if you think about the Geelong teams of the day, you know, Bestow would run around the back of the pack calling for
a handball. He'd get the handball, he'd look up from the forward line, take two or three bounce as Ablett would lead. Best would put the ball beautifully out in front of him. Ablett would come out and take the mark, go back and kick a goal. It's okay, Cauchy, you know the best. He would always head off on his right and then he woul shooting back on his left,
always leaving the opposition for dead. As soon as he went back onto his left, Ablet would lead catcher, would wait the ball perfectly out in front of him, so that when Ablett took the ball out of the air, it was just there was no no effort nowhere, just beautifully weighted kicks from Paul Couch. Ablett would there take
this easy mark, go back and kick a goal. Gary howk in the four time Best and Ferres, he would just he would go into a pack, head down, pick up the ball, shrug the opposition off him, charge forward. Ablett would lead straight out him, but it would drill it down his throat. Ablett again would come out.
And take an average.
He's a good player. He's a good Player's kicking a few goals. But when I got the opportunity to go forward, Ablet would lead. I get the ball twenty meters over his head fifty meters to the right, had to stop on a six month to go back into the fly to play jump at the oncoming pack, sometimes taking mark of the year. If a ball spilled the ground, he would pounce on it like a like a cougar, picking the ball up with two or three blokes hanging off
his jumper, snapping over his shoulder for goal of the year. Now, all these incredible things of Gary Ablett, we're at the behest of my shit skills, and you know, I get no credit for it. Whereas he picks up cars and he picks up holidays around the world, and the people that really make it all happen just say along the listed.
As Bert leaves the ground, applet prod and take the mark. Oh he's a light Gary ablet look at this.
There is the moticil at work. He shoots towards goal. What more can you say?
And he didn't look after you in that sense. You didn't get any free trips off with him as well.
We are talking about Gary apl.
Correct exactly what would he be like in the morning are because I think about Clayton Oliver and he's had his issues and so there's lots of players with issues in the modern era. But would Gary have been more consistent because he'd have better support around you, or would he have left forty because he didn't want the constrainits of modern day professionalism.
It's a really good question, and you would imagine that Gary in today's era would have been picked up as a stunning fifteen year old and a lot of the issues I'm sure with our young guys coming through sort of out well a long time before they ever get drafted. You know, Gary more or less was plucked out of the drune area, taken to Hawthorne, didn't sort of work.
Then he has that year at Murderford. You know, luckily the murder Food Football Club banned together and kept him on a straight and narrow and then he gets his second opportunity of Geelong, and whilst he didn't do anything wrong Geelong, he was just he was just slack in relation to you know, when you turn up. He was just a bit slack and could just he could simply rely on his absolute brilliance to people would sort of you turn a blind.
I was to say, they certainly did turn to buy blind eye to a lot of stuff in that time because he was that good, wasn't he was?
He was more than that, Yeah, he was. He was just stunningly good. And you know, his body shape was just full of six foot one but just could jump over any pack. He could kick the ball a mile, He was incredibly skillful. He didn't fumble, so it's really you know, his what he could do on the field was very very special.
Yeah, sure was.
And obviously Tommy Hafees there for a period of time. Did you get on well with tom and.
He was there for yeah, so I got on really well with all my coaches. So Billy Gogan was just so hard and tough, a fierce and some of the dressing downs we got after a game were you know, tear skin off you didn't wear. So Billy Gogan, by the way he goes preliminary final, preliminary.
Final, close games too.
Yeah, and then he might have finished sixth when the final five was the five finals and then sacked.
It's cruel, isn't it.
Well, in today's age, it is just ridiculous. So then incomes Tommy Hafey, and Tommy was again all about one hundred percent effort. But he also liked the runners, and you know, we were competitive under Tommy. We probably just didn't have didn't have the cattle to support him. And but you know, he was just he had these first thing that Tommy would do when he went to any club was ensure that the players were with him. So
he had the players all the time. And some of the older boys might have rebeled against Tommy, but the vast, vast majority of the team were just full devotees and when he asked you for effort, you were prepared to give it.
Did he evolve in he's cotching obviously the tigers down the guts, you know, as straight as quick as you can bombit long. Was there an evolution at all or still a Tommy?
I don't think so. I think generally speaking, it was one on one, you know, we're going to be a little bit stronger and tougher and hard at it. And the contest is always about the contest. And you get hit, you get up, knock you down again, you get up again, and you know, I just keep running hard and chasing and kicking and all those all those he just dropped the g off everything tackling, kicking.
And that stood up in a lot of finals for a lot of teams.
And yeah, and I just say he could easily have had seven or eight Premierships in his name if it had a little bit like a Collingwood anyway, he I think he just had a fantastic way with people and was able to was able to embed himself in the players, and you know, didn't drink, so he sort of it wasn't as though he did it over the over the bar players. You know, he just had that way of he could sit in the spa and he talked to the shirt off and talk pretty ripped. He's talking about
your family, he'd be talking about your girlfriends. He'd be talking all this stuff, and all that stuff was just building relationship. So he was a beauty.
The hot gospeler Johnny Devine, Well, you played some good foot under Johnny. You had that year of when you had the twenty two games and he was a beauty.
Again, we weren't good enough to carry it out and john was back. He was probably back to the fire and brimstone. Yeah, so there was a lot of you know, told us, possibly his first meeting with us, we are not going to lose a game at Cadennia Park. I'm telling you now, we're going to make this a fortress.
Early because it did happen.
It did.
Yeah, but we I think we lost the first four games. Yea, three of them are at home.
It's hard to go back after that, isn't it?
That he was again he was one that just appreciated effort and again the whole coaching caper back through the eighties, there wasn't a lot of nous and in fact, you know, we get to the next one. Malcolm Blyth I think was the very first of the teaching of the teaching type of coaches. So another great mate of ours, a guy called David Whedon who came and he got his he got his opportunity in AFL football or VFL football
with Tommy Hagen. So Tommy appoints David Weed as our reserves coach and for the first time I've got someone who played a handful of games at Collingwood but predominantly wasn't a great footballer now making his way as a coach. And David Wheden would go on to coach at four or five club, six ge probably and he's currently still coaching.
He was stills practitioner and the art of the drop part.
And so whilst you learn a lot from all these great coaches with big names, David Whedon probably taught me more about coaching anyway.
It's incredible.
Yeah, And you know a guy called Bernie Shay who I had one year with at Werribee. Again just teach you so much about footy. The these guys that have been in the coach in Caper all their lives just might have great AFL careers to stand by.
But so Malcolm Blyde arrives and is this a new dawn? Like immediately you think to yourself, this is something different.
Totally totally different, you know. And one of David Whedon's great sayings is coaches can now through that nineties started to teach you how to win, whereas it always teach you why you should win and so we hate these bastards.
Yeah we owe them.
We'll stick it up and you know, and they'll give you all these reasons why you've got to win on the weekend. Whereas Malcolm Blyde, I think was one of the first coaches that said, listen, this blokes a cent a half back. He's always a left hander. He will always punch from the left. The balls always going to go to the right. As you're coming in, expect the ball to be there. The bloke you're playing on as a left footer and he cannot kick on his right,
so box him in. So they're all these little all the little tweaks to our game where blind he was actually teaching us how we can be a little bit and I think it was the first time and it wasn't just our club. I think every club was going through that transformation that in the nineties and it's now got to the stage where the coaching is they're all teachers. They're pretty fantastic.
He was also a motivator as well as a technician and a tactical freak. What were some of the motivations or some of the crazy bloody stories, And there's been a lot of them over the years, but some that you experienced.
He was uncompromising and so he would on one particular start to the year he said, listen, Gary hasn't turned up again, as you would all know, and this is our third or fourth training session in January. If he's not here on Friday, he's not playing this year, this.
Year, the whole year.
He's going to get rid of him.
Wow.
So here's Malcolm Blair telling all the players that turn up for pre season. Is that important that it's the best player the club doesn't turn up on the weekend or doesn't up on Friday, that's it for him. So, you know, and quietly Malcolm would say, don't ever make close statements.
You know, you know, but he did.
He made his unbelievably closed statement. Obviously Gary turned up on Friday and the threat was never had to be followed through, but it is. He was an incredible He was fierce, you know, he was he was very fierce. But he had he had this real way of being able to communicate with the players, and again, to a
little bit of luck, the time was right. So all of a sudden, you know, Barry Stoneham is becoming a sensational player, Gary how a sensational player Paul Couches come through now and ends up winning a Brown Low in that year. So mar Besto comes to the club a couple of years earlier, so he's finally actually which nothing to do with Malcolm Blake.
The group's sort of come together and the.
Maturity of the group was right to go. And Malcolm Blight was just at the right place in the right time. But he was also the most stunning coach, you know, so he was very, very good.
So Hawthorne's surging that the powerhouse team gelongs getting better. Geelong's got a star studded team. Where the hell is Damien drum for the entire home and away series?
You're yeah, well again. Malcolm put me in the team about three times throughout the course of the year. And there were twice that I simply was carrying a either a bad corky or a knock on the knee, or I was carrying something. I thought i'd come through on a Thursday, but I just knew I had to put my hand up because I just wasn't coming up. And then there was a third time that he says you're in. I said, you beauty, I'm right to go. And I actually tweaked a hamstring on Thursday night, so that was
the third time throughout the course of the year. And then I came back from that hammy and played two games in the reserves and played quite well, and he picked me for my first game in the first final.
In the qualifying final against Essendon, which is a selection shock in that sense.
Were you surprised or you knew that he had.
He factored you in into that sort of bracket a bit of both.
I sort of knew that if I was right in contention, and he'd been talking to me, he said, if you're going to be you know, the two games you played show that you. So anyway, I get the opportunity. And it was an amazing that the game. I think, I'm pretty sure that's the game that No, it wasn't, because Essenon beat.
Us Speature in the first one and then you smash them in a few weeks time. You get to play those three finals. You lose the first week, you play reasonably well and you keep your spot the following week against Melbourne and then beat Essendon in the preliminary final. But in that first quarter something went wrong.
Yeah again, just tweaked a thigh this time, so just tore a thighs. I'm kicking the ball in the ford line again, letting Gary Tablet work his magic, and all of a sudden, I just felt this thing go. And it was one of those ones. I've never had one of them before, quite basically quite And I jog around for five or ten minutes until three quarter time, until quarter time and I just told him, I said, I've torn a thigh. So that was pretty horrendous sitting there
watching the club. In the end, we just power away that with that win. Yeah, points that you know that you're not going to make it.
Yeah, that's got to be given how hard you'd work to get that position. How do you deal with the You trained. I don't know whether you ever fought you were a chance to play the next week, but you trained on the on the Thursday night, and Malcolm White said after it that that he's finished for the year.
Yeah, that's it. So they thought they could strap it up and just see how I went. Because I didn't really hurt until I stretched out, And as soon as you stretch out, you feel it. I feel it restricting you. So it only took five ten minutes after the warm up to test it out. But that's pretty.
Tough, toughest moment in your career.
Yeah it is, but it is, but horrible at the time, But what a great opportunity in the same breath, you know. So, yeah, you'd love to have had the opportunity to go out and take them on, you know, and Hawthorne were a ripping team. Just you just always think, you know, as you get older in your footy career, the actual confidence, the natural confidence comes to you. It happens. It doesn't
happen in any one moment. But you know, if I was twenty two or twenty three and they're giving me that opportunity, I would have been so lacking in confidence. I don't know whether I would have been able to handle it, you know. But at twenty eight, twenty nine, I was twenty nine at the time, I knew I was right to go. I was ready to take these blokes on. And you get the opportunity and you can't do it anyway. So that happens.
Tell us about that Grand Final and who you sat with, what difficult must have been one of the hardest days of your life and comes in one of the changes as well as one of the changes, and it's the most one of the most extraordinary Grand Finals you would ever see.
Well, Malcolm had Malcolm had myself penciled in to do the to do a certain job on Dermott until that didn't work out and then actually probably did it.
Wow.
But it was always based around you got to keep an eye on you know, like it's been said about this, and I know Dermott and Mark a great mates, so there's no doubt. Yeah, coach Dermot in Sydney as well, so he's he's totally over this. But yeah, he just said keep the eye on Breton and if he goes for Couch, you've got to be there that you have to the center of the ground from everywhere fifty minutes complaint prom them down start.
I'm not sure Jurney's going down. There was some certainly controversy simply that's what he got.
So came straight off the line and went straight for Couch and I didn't see yg coming and and it worked. You know, it was in the day, in the day of a legitimate bump square.
Yeah, he's got to be unaware, didn't.
He Today they would have taken him out to the wing and shot him that.
But certainly Blindy had spoken to you previously about potentially no.
He because it was something that but it was this is after.
The event, after the event he told you that white chat.
Yeah, he said you would have been the block the guy.
So but anyway, that's that's those things happen.
And listen.
It was a great Grand Final. Yeah, to see applicick nine to one. The one the one point he kicked, if you have a look on the video was a snap over his shoulder from and you can see the fifty meter arc in the in the in the shot as he snaps the ball over his shoulder and it hit the goalpost on the full, about two feet up from the from the ground. That's my memory. So it could easily have been ten ten straight. We would have lost by a point had that kick gone through. But
he gets rightfully, he gets norm Smith. But the way we were a bit careless early gave away a medium free kicks. Early Hawthorne looked very good, just just very very good. And then we come steaming home and we've probably got we've probably got him on the ropes. Looks like we're wo always looks like we're going to run out of time, but we just kept scoring some goals.
That's the thing. It just kept rolling and rolling them seemed to roll and roll.
Yeah, And it was one of the so rightfully so it's been put down as one of those great ground finals. It was fierce, the amount of Hawthorne boys it were injured, Gelong boys were injured. Everyone sort of put their neck on the line for the game. And at the end of the day we we miss out and Hawthorn for the first time I think go back to back.
Yeah, absolutely, So with that, like if it had been a draw, it was a six point margin in the end, would you have been any chance to play the next week?
Do you think no chance? No chance, no chance?
A full blowing torn as four or.
Six weeks there, so you're gone.
You remember the I mean we're talking about the game, and of course you know the drama of it and Hawthorn players in the hospital and what was the the atmosphere in the rooms, Like after the game, would you have gone down? Because I mean you think of the missed opportunity now and you think hot day.
Lay.
You just think about the chances that you had and you know, and then for a long time, of course, too long, can't get back to where they love to be.
Yeah, we were down there in the rooms and so forth. You know, Johnny Platten was sort of knocked out so he was sitting on the bench. But we had a lot of our boys who were injured as well, like you know, just quietly they were. They were injured. So we I reckon there would have been five or six. I think there was a statistic out there that maybe six or seven of the players that played that day spent the night in hospital. Yeah, and there's a whole
range of different reasons why. But it was a fierce, fierce game, and you know, I think in the day, I don't think anyone maybe maybe Johnny Plattin's might have been Buddha might have got Johnny plattin a bit high free kick maybe, But yeah, it wasn't it wasn't dirty playing anywhere, but it was just so just so fiercely contested. Blokes got hurt.
So Geelong would get more chances.
Of course didn't win those chances, but you didn't play another AFL game football.
We came back the next year.
I probably should have look always thought, in hindsight, I probably should have called it quits there and except that the last month of playing in those finals with Blighty, the team was on the rise. I did have the chat with him. He said, no, no, if you want to stay, make sure you stay. So I stayed, but just the body was just a bit gone at that stage, and I was working incredibly hard in my job. I had a business where I was building sheds and it was an incredibly physical job.
And I'm reading I read you the quote. Damien Dramm is a footballer and a workerholic. He runs his own business in Whereby building sheds and garages, which means he's often the last or near laster training and invariably running late. His lifestyle would leave sorry, would see most footballing orchards wilt in a month.
I love this.
Up at six am working around Whereby until three point thirty to four on training nights, home to north Shore to work on quotes after training and then maybe some welding. Midnight finishes are not uncommon. Incredible You're able to do that while maintain a footy career.
Yeah, well it was sort of the first couple of years of the business and great so it was you know, when we did the monthly, did the monthly accounting finances. Realized, well, we're going to do something a bit different. So start you start off working harder, and then you know, you get some some professional help and start doing things a little bit differently. But yeah, it was more or less you do what you have to do to make it work. And eventually that became a fantastic business and I was
able to I sold it to football. He made of mine called Craig Olders Ice. So Craig played thirty or forty games for the Cats, originally from the Kahuna area, couldn't rook kahunaokah. And he was just a lovely bloke who was working for me, and he bought the business off as I went to Sydney to do the assistant coaching. So but I often think about now how hard that physical work was, dig digging holes, digging stump holes in the ground, like they've got to be seven of the few.
And shortcuts.
And the dirt around Werribee is largely rock. And because you're digging these sheds in someone's backyard, you can't get a digging machine in there. You just got to go in there with the shovel and a crowbar and go for it and anyway. So it was physically very tough. And as we got on a bit into that and that last year, I just remembered work wasn't actually helping foot you with it, you're making a bit.
No regrets from her footy career.
No none at all. I mean to get the opportunity. As I said, I'm so lucky to get the opportunity. One of my great mates from the Golden Valley, Ashley Bignell, who we played in the Grand Final together, we played in the Grand File together when we're eighteen. He wins the Best in Fairest for the club that year. I'd played a game in the seconds because I wasn't going that well. I played anywhere within two years I went Geelong and Ashley's the star player at shepard and United.
And he just said to the other day, said I couldn't believe it. I always had you covered. All of a sudden, I get this opportunity and I was lucky, you know. When that first summer I was probably the last name read out on a list of forty six, right, but I get the opportunity to show that and that I'm that I'm committed and passionate, and I train as hard as I possibly can and play as hard as I can. And I had a coach ring me up
when he dropped me in the first year. In the seconds, I got dropped one week, so I rang the coach. I said what's going on? And he said, well, are you sitting down?
Okay?
Yeah, he said, you're as weak as piss, mate.
I said you serious.
He goes, yeah, you are as weak as piss. And you make you have these things that just hit you in the mouth, you know, these see statements. And I go, right, okay, no one's ever going to say that to me. No one's ever going to say that to me. Well it might have been true, because you know I've come out of the bush where I could dodge around people. Well, I've come out of the bush where I could take
three or four bounces. I've come out of the bush where I was a little bit better than the other players, and maybe thought I could do that. And here are you saying to me, mate, your weakest bizz. So you realize, okay, I've got a tough nut.
Yeah.
It was coaching.
When you leave Gelong was coaching on the radarter year you went and played Wereby for a period of time, played the Grand final there. Then you went to coach Port Melbourne in ninety three. Was that always something that you wanted to do?
I reckon, about three or four years out from the end, I realized that I was just always looking at the coaches, see how they're going, what they're doing, sort of having my own opinions on whether that sounds right or whether it doesn't. Sitting down with the reserves coach, sitting down with some of the assistant coaches and having chats over a few years the next day. So always I was heading that way from the time I was about twenty six or twenty seven about I reckon, you guys are
doing an amazing here. I'm not quite sure what you're doing about this, so and you start to sort of build your own build your own philosophies and so forth. Yes, I was always heading that way. And the main role about going to Werribee with Leon Harris and Bernie Shay was, you know, I needed to get into the coaching group.
So Bernie Shay very selflessly just stepped back from being the assistant coach to allow me to take that role, you know, and then I end up learning as much from Bernie Shay had to learn from Leon Harris and Neil Danaher was also at the club in that year. So again Neil and I were in the same pack of guys at Assumption College, but I had left and then Neil turns up. So when I go back to Assumption and see my old footy mate on my old schoolmates, that introduced me to this new kid from Hungary. And
I said, right in the end, we both go. He goes a bit earlier than I do. But we became great mates while we're playing against each other because we had this connection at Assumption College and then at the end of our careers we have this year together at Wearrib and then we more or less then start competing for assistant.
Senior coaching jobs.
Yeah.
Absolutely in Melbourne later on.
Yeah, so I think it's amazing. Yeah, And so Neil and I always been great mates, and to the extent where when Melbourne would play Freeman, he'd come over and you stay over. And when Neil was coaching the Allies, you know, he grabbed me out of senior to come and help. You know, I was the club. I was the lead, the runner for the Allies the year before I coached the coach them. Yeah, but that was all through the connection with Neil and so anyway it was.
It's amazing how many people you meet that can help you with your coach in philosophy other than just a senior coach.
Tell us about a year at Port Melbourne in nineteen ninety three, so runners up as premiers, David King had arrived at another assumption.
Boy in the Grand Final is a huge ball spectators on the field.
King, he might have even got whacked something different something you about catching Port Melbourne.
Yeah, well it is. It's an amazing place I've been involved. If I just talk about my footy career, you know, ten years growing up as a kid at kinguvernor ten years at Geelong, two years at Werribee and one year at Port Melbourne, five years at Sydney's assistant coach, three years at Frio and one year back at Bendigo with the Benio Diggers. I've got more gags about my one and they're all true. I've got more gags about my one year at Port Melbourne than all the others put together.
And seriously will be here at seven o'clock tonight if we start talking about the funny things that happened at Port. But you know, David King was a stunning plant, a bit of a late developer. I couldn't believe the talent that was sitting out there on the wing. You know, he was faster than most of the others. He was a solidly built guy, but he could take a strong mark. But his strength was he could kick the ball if I have seventy meters and they couldn't catch him. So
we had this phenomenal player and the wing. And I got recruited to Sydney that year and I was telling our boys there is a guy at Paul Melbourne. But because you haven't quite got that confidence about how good everyone else is. Yeah, you know I was a bit mine was mindful of holding my piece. You know, I've got this. I've got a high opinion about this guy I coached. As it turns out, I should have been a bit more outspoken.
Yeah, As it turns out he has a seminal moment in the ninety six Grand Final against.
Him in the next week and turns a grand file.
Absolutely so it does. And what about that Grand Final. There's famous vision still on YouTube now about that Grand Final, what happened, It's hard to work out what actually happened.
Well, unfortunately we're probably three goals down now, But ultimately what's happened is wherever you have kicked a guy to effectively clinch the game, and what sounded like a siren went, but it was somebody that had our own little horn on a wing on the other wing that just tweeted this horn. So three or four hundred people have all from where a you've gone outs on the ground and at the same time, the players realized that the game is still going, so they're having a bit of a
push and shove. It's turned into a punching match, and then all of a sudden, the supporters have got involved. So there's probably two hundred and three hundred supporters on the ground and there's three or four spotfires going on. Some of the spotfires have got supporters involved, so it was pretty messy. But anyway, they were able to clear the ground. Took them probably good five or eight minutes to clear the ground, and we played the last three minutes and then they rang the.
Siren, so King got wackwise to ram spectator.
Basically, I don't know about that. But there were guys getting hit all day, all over the ground, and it was an ear where that was. We knew that sort of thing was going to happen because it was one step removed from the VFL back then the VFA, and you know, this was a little bit more allowed towards the.
Latter part of that final term.
I guess the one fellow that would feel terrible about the whole.
Thing is Damien drum Knowing Damien, he would.
Be absolutely appalled by the incidents, and he.
Was not asking and he said, ask Drumming about the cat never happened, and the golf balls he tried to buy ring a bell again.
We'll be here.
I get started. But along the lines of along the lines of as I go into training, I look over and I look over to see some boys got some stuff in the boot of the cars. What do you boys sell them? Said Drummer. You like golf, don't you?
Said?
Yeah, I'm addicted to golf. I said, right, we've got some golf balls. I said, right, how many of you got? I said, I don't worry about how many I got. How many you want? I said, thinking to myself, right, golf balls? I said, oh, yeah, I reckon, I lost four on the weekend. I yeah, listen, I put him in the woods, I put him in the water. How many you got, because I'm thinking about taking a lot, and they said, don't worry about how many were got, just how many do you want? Right, I'll take them all.
So quite exasperated, they turned me around and I said, Drummond, we've got a container load. It used to be easier for them to nick a whole container at the wharf and put that container in someone's backyard than it was for them to open the container to take a couple of paletts. I had to explain where the palettes had gone. But whereas if I should palette if the whole container just fell off the ship and then it's just gone missing. So that was one of the funny aspects of yeap
of Port Melbourne. And but anyway, as I say that, it was a different era and there were a whole range of whole range of stories that would go around and feed and feed on the you know a lot of the connections of the wharf, and you know, you could walk in after a game or after a Thursday night where a few guys are lined up at the bar and you'd see a parish priest sitting next to sit next to a cop, and see next to a criminal and you sort of say that works.
It still does as well, doesn't.
Well everybody comes from all these difference, but they've got Port Melbourne as they're only think in common. Absolutely just it brings people together. It just is an amazing club. And I went back last year for one of their events and it was just brilliant and the amount of people that are involved at Port, it's a it's a great clubs, as I'm sure Williamstown is a great club.
But my involvement was with Werriby who I had amazing time, and then with Port and just so lucky to be involved in those two great clubs.
How did you come to work with Ronald Dale Barrassi in Sydney?
So brass brass? So I think it happens when Kenny gannon Lee's the Geelong Football Club and starts working for the AFL. The AFL put barrass up there after round four or five. He goes up there to become the senior coach and they realize that he needs someone a bit younger to help him out, and Ken Gannon puts my name up as one who might keep an eye on, and again, very lucky for me, I've walked into a
Port Melbourne team that is ready to go. You know, we put four or five additional recruits into that team, but ultimately, you know, the previous coaches in the previous staff had put together a pretty good list, including a twenty year old David King. But they were seriously good players all through that team. And so I said most of the year on top of the ladder as their coach, and a bit like Malcolm Blight did for Geelong, he
was able to come in. You're able to be a new coach with a very positive message because your team keeps winning. It's totally different, I'm going to learn a few years down the track. It's a totally different message when your team keeps losing losing, But you're able to maintain this positive fresh you know, and you can and you can be a bit out there, you can be
a bit different. And of course, if you keep your team keeps winning, a lot of these differences, a lot of these quirks are seen to be very very positive and influential.
But so.
I've had probably two or three different interviews with Ron Bressi, and ultimately about a month out from the finals, they they say, yeah, we're going to make it work and I get the So I had to keep that quiet right through the finals and just announced it. I told I told the football club grand final night when we lost. So but I knew for about a month prior that we were heading up to Sydney, you know, probably back in the time, possibly the first full time assistant coach. Yeah,
because it just wasn't that wasn't that need. There were only a couple of interstate clubs going on anyway, and so it was a lot of the other clubs coming from you know, coming from football states. They were able to put people on after work, still part times, but to have and I got the opportunity to work with Dennis Carroll, Rod Carter, George Stone, all these guys were
just wonderful football people. Craig Holden are up there at a time when the club was no good and they were all played this incredible hand in making the Sydney the transformation in those few years under Roun incredible, just incredible and brass. If you go back, and an interesting way is the year before so in Ron Barrassi's last year,
I reckon we finished tenth. We played a game against Brisbane with about five or six games to go, and we lose by four points I think, and someone had a shot for goal on the boundary forty fifty meters out and it's a point. If that one goes through, we win that one by our point or two. It turns our eight wins into nine wins. It takes one away from Brisbane, and you look at the percentage would
have put the Swans into the finals. One kick would have put the Swans into the finals on nine wins, like totally unheard of, and it would have been Brassis like it took over in his first year his Swan song Yeah bang, And so it's an interesting one. And then of course Rodney he turns up and just again breath of fresh air, smart as all get out, a brilliant coach in his own right. We're going to work out just how brilliant Rodney heat is in the next
few years. And he just did an amation job as well.
So Kevin Sheedy.
Twenty years later he became the figurehead JWS coach and expansion side. But Mark Williams is ostensibly coaching them for some of those Barassi years. And I think you've said he was saving the game. Huge responsibility at Sydney. Were you ostensibly the coach in or butit no mainly.
Well, he allowed me to take training. Well, he wanted me to take training. So that took a while for him to you know, when I say a while, it probably took a month for him to be confident enough that he could back away and just sort of so barrass would address the players in between drills and then more or less just hand than rode o drumming what
are we doing now? And that was an incredible opportunity for a thirty four year old who was more or less just trying to work through Okay, these are the things we need to work on, and so to be given that opportunity to more or less take set training up, take training and I would sit down with Barras and sort of say these are the drills we're doing tonight. He goes, fantastic, can we deal a bit of this and we'll do that and deal with that other one.
Yep.
So it was always worked out with Brass what we were doing. And but he was just because he was so comfortable within himself. He didn't have to worry about. There was no ego that he had to sort of that he had to sort of protect or there's no ego that he had to sort of stick up for. He was just such a right you know when he signed, when he signed his name seventeen for ten amazing look at that and you think when it just after a while you realize what that means. Seventeen Grand finals for
ten premierships. And so he's his own man, you know. Some of his some of the stories about Barras are the best stories of all time because he had no he had this no bullshit field that was just incredibly raw. So he would rather have a he'd rather have an
argument than tell a lie. And sometimes it happened that way. Yeah, you know, and so gives an example, Oh well there were there was one game where we're getting ready to getting ready to run out, and he's going through the players give him his fine little g up and and he gets to you know, you know, Plugger, you got to keep moving around a bit more. Paul Kelly, I know you work hard. You got to work even harder. Darren Krazwell, you've got to push deep into defense. You know,
you've got to be tied on your opponent today. Da da, And he gets to Mark Bayes, now the most loved player in the team, little conics and a half back. He said, bays base, if this team was any good, you wouldn't be getting the game. And I'm thinking, oh no, not before they run out. So anyway, the team goes out, the team runs out. I grab Ron's arm as he's leaving this little little room. I said, mate, we need
to have a chat. And he goes what I said, Bays the most loved player in the team, and you just told the whole team they're no good before they run out. Well they're not. I said, yeah, but there's times, and there's times maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow morning, when we're going through the game. You know, maybe you can tell them then that they're no good. They got all wet to get over it, he said, I'm not going to lie to them.
He said, okay.
Anyway, The argument then turns south. Right, you think that was a tough argument. No, The argument then gets personal him and.
I is that what he's saying?
No, well more or less, say I said to you, if an idiot, you what would you know. You think you've done this, but you've done nothing. You you passed it. So we get into this horrendous argument. In the end he says we're going to stop this, we need to go upstairs. But again he just wouldn't tell a lie.
So anyway, we're walking up the stairs and I've coached, I'm coaching the second at this stage, and I leave them at three quarters time to go in and help with the senior preparation and I get I get hit on the on the stairs on the way up by the uncle of one of my young players. He says to me, Damian Drum, you are ruining little Billy's career. And I said, yeah, I know, that's I know, Russell, I know, I know, and he goes, no, I'm serious. You are the worst thing ever.
You're having a good day.
Next thing, Ron Brassy steps in front of me says, listen, Russell. If whatever little Billy's problem is, and ain't his problem now, this this bloke is the best thing your boys got going. As with all the other Seconds players, he's doing this, and he's doing this and he'll be doing this for as long as he wants because he's good at what he does. You've got a problem, you come and see me next week.
Right.
I just walked off.
I walked off because I knew Brassy had just made me out. Brassy had made me feel to myself like a total failure. Because I knew that if the things were opposite, I would have let I would have let Brass fight for himself. Like for me to have just had that argument with this bloke and we were fierce, what we were it wasn't nice. And then two minutes later here he is coming to my.
Defense apologizing, No, it wasn't.
I wasn't, he said. So the next day I say to Bras, I need to talk to you about what happened. What happened for the game, and he goes, listen, we shouldn't have got it. We shouldn't have got so upset in the room. We shouldn't have done that. And I said, no, I'm talking about that. I'm talking about what you did on the stairs on the way out. He said, He said, what I said. You stood in front of that aggressive
uncle and you defended me. He said, well, why wouldn't I He said, yes, but I just spent five minutes calling you everything I could think of and he goes, yeah, but that had nothing to do with that. It was just the most he could compartmentalize these things. And it was the biggest lesson I've ever learned. He said, don't get one don't let one thing get influenced something else, something else, has nothing to do with it. So you said, we're good, are we good?
He said?
I said, of course we're good. I said, but you are too good. I said, I want to see some faults in you. You know, And how did play bas is good? Bays was good and you know, and he was very, very harsh, but because he was laconic Mark, Mark would drift across the back line someone with flicking a handball and seventy five meters down the ground it would be and be lace out.
But you know, a bloody good player.
He was a fantastic player. And again as well, and much love and much love by his team.
Anyway, did you did you want the job?
When, of course Brass moved on and Rodney got it.
So I I went and saw the club when Brass retired and I said, well, I want to be considered. They sort of said, yeah, right, okay, So I hear that there's a big going on and be going on with different names coming through in my My time comes for the interview, and the first interview is simply going to be with the CEO, Kelvin tem Calvin. And anyway, I'm ushered into a waiting room next door to Kelvin's office and I can hear him on the phone, and
he's a bit anxious. He wants to get off the phone, wants to get my interview into that, and in I can hear him. I can hear him clearly, and he just said, listen, I'll call you back. I've just got to get rid of drums interview. Tuble, I've just got to get rid of Drumm's interview, okay. And so I'm having the interview and I'm as flat as attacked, and I'm sort of saying, this is Kelvin. I don't think
you know. I'm probably three quarters way through it, and I said, Kelvin, I think you've already made up your mind at the club, and he goes, what do you say that? I heard what you said before you got into the meeting. He said, right, sorry about that, but that was cool in a sense. Better to know there than to go through a whole process, get your hopes
up and then get him smashed. And as it turned out, Rodney id gets the job and you know, starts off his brilliant coaching career, but unlucky not to have had more success in his career. But sharp, smart understanding. Again, Modern Rocketeed was the first coach I heard it. Says, I, reckon, I'm going to send I'm going to send somebody off the field, off the training track. Why he's just training terrible? Okay, so you're not going to get up him? He said, no,
it's he's having a bad night. He's just not into it. I'm going to get rid of him, Just take it, send him home. Said right, and he said, Eddie says to me, lady, he says, you know you can't always train at your top level. And I said, yes, you can, you can at least you can at least you can at least budget.
You know.
And he said, oh, sometimes blokes have a night off. So he again he had this deep understanding. You know, you can still be a great player. You don't have to get everything right. And again teaches you an awful lot about him.
Thanks for listening to Sacked.
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