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