How Adam Cooney Managed Family And Being A Professional Sportsman

So I was a little bit unprofessional, a little bit overweight. Couple that with working so hard, you're tired all the time. All you want to do is go to sleep, and then you miss your family, you miss your friends.

I did. I was in tears a few times in the first couple of months.

I think I racked my dad at one stage and said that I was going to quit before the Christmas break.

At the end of my first pre season.

Hello and welcome to separate bathrooms.

We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eur nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to the elders, both past and present. I'm Ali Dado, and far far away.

Is my husband, Cameron. Cameron, Cameron, daddy.

I'm good. Nice to see your face.

Well, I can't see you at the moment because you're not on the telly where I'm looking at you through my tin.

Yeah, that's I know. Well, you can hear my boys, That's why I can hear.

Your voice, and that always sounds like a lovely tickle. Oh good, Yeah, it's beautiful hearing your voice. We're in different countries.

Yeah, work has taken Cam away and I've been working here so but we've come together to talk to a really beautiful couple. We actually have our first AFL player and his wife with us.

Adam Cooney.

Yeah, was drafted in the AFL's two thousand and three national Draft as the number one pick. There's a lot of expectations that go.

With that, as you know, Hun, Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, the Bulldogs got him and he didn't disappoint the fans, growing in confidence each year, and in the space of four seasons, he rose to the top by winning the AFL's highest individual award, the brown Low Medal.

And then he would play at the top level of AFL until twenty sixteen. That's a good career, isn't it. When he retired after a couple of seasons with someone's favorite team.

Might come on the mighty.

Don de Sash. He finished, He finished high and mighty.

There you go.

And in the middle of his career, Adam married his gorgeous partner, Hailey McCann. They have three kids, careers, and some great stories to share.

Let's get to know the Coonies Adam and Hailey. Hey, welcome Adam and Haley to the bathroom.

How are you guys.

So excited to be here.

It's a pleasure. Where are you, guys talking to us from?

We're in our daughter's bedroom, actually, in the daughters Joe.

Yeah, we're trying to find the quietest place at the Cooney House and unfortunately there's not many, so Evie's room. So we're in baitsvide Sauted, Geelong, in Ebe's bedroom down Geelong Way. Yeah, yes, great spot it is. It is.

We have family down and down that way.

Nice you have to visit here.

Yeah, my folks are in Queenscliff.

Oh perfect, that's beautiful, beautiful, it's really nice.

Well, listen, let's dive in. Let's go, let's just get to know you a bit. So how did you guys meet and maybe what were your first impressions of each other.

Well, there's a bit of conjecture actually as to the first time we actually met each other.

Yeah, our stories to certainly match up.

I'm claiming that we first met at Haley's house. She had a house party when I was sixteen, and I wasn't invited to the party, but me and my brother crashed and we came storming through the front door, and then Haley dragged me out the front and then said who are you?

And then we locked eyes and it was love at first sight.

It must be someone else, you must have another. I do not remember any of these. I actually remember meeting Adam for the first time at a friend of us who passed away tragically, which was really sad.

But he's great.

That's when I first remember. So, yeah, it's a bit of a confusing story actually, so really interesting.

How old would you have put yourselves then, Hayley that you reckon you met Adam?

Well, I was nineteen and Adam was sixteen.

Okay, yeah, okay, gotcha, gotcha? Wow? Okay, Well, who knows who's right?

I know I'm right.

I did my research on the great wonderful Wikipedia. Yes, and it tells me that Adam, you used a burger ring as a wedding ring.

Well, why didn't you use a cheesel.

It's an infamous story now. That one actually came out on Brownlow night when I was doing my speech.

Somehow, I think it was Stephen Quatermain who was hosting the Brownlow. He must have got wind that I had asked for Haley's hand with a burgering. So I was only young. I was young, and I was very immature at that stage. I think I was twenty one, twenty one. It was twenty one when we got engaged, and we were sitting on the bed, and we've been talking.

About getting married for a while.

No, I had you had.

Haley had been it for a little while, and I sort of thought, well, I didn't want to make them And I've said this a few times. I didn't want to make the mistake of getting her a ring that she didn't like, and I know she enjoys burgering. So I basically just went to the kitchen, came back into the bedroom, threw it at her and said, all, how about it, then, darl, that's about as romantic as it gets.

True story.

Have you ever tried to redo that moment again and like doing it with a little bit more pizaz, I think you deserved that, Hale.

I was that was such a failure.

Oh well, I still think about myself.

I was just too young, don know any better?

Yeah, we were pretty young. We were pretty young.

Yeah, that that is young. I A lot of people know this story. But when Cam asked me, he asked me in this really odd way. He said, well, it was like what did you say? And you're like, oh, well, should should.

We get Maybe maybe we should get married.

Maybe we should get married? Then and I was like, are you I think? I said, can you ask me properly?

Did you have a ring? Cam?

No mate, cheese or nothing?

Yeah, the cheesels would have gotten burger rings would have gotten wet, and and you know it's kind of like eating Doritos.

They sort of smell on.

Your fingers anyway, So we actually we.

Do you do? Did you frame it? Did you put in a little clear frame?

It's in a little box and it sat there for about I think about eight years untouched, and then one day, three year old Evy when the burger ring and try to bite the burger ring. So it's got a chunk out of it now, but it's really gross because it really still looks like a burger ene so seventeen years ago.

So what do they put in those crazy modern day preservatives?

They're delicious?

What was it about Adam that you knew he was the one?

It sounds sounds really corny, but I looked at him the first one I ever met him, and I just loved him the minute I just laid eyes on him. And I remember it was like a movie. I was like, who is that? It was bizarre and I don't know. I didn't even know him, but I just thought I want to get to know him, and when I was nineteen at the time, Adam was sixteen. But I just want people to know that he wasn't like a stringy

I think that was our first date, but that was about thirty people.

Yeah, the cheesy christ for you, Adam, you're dating this older woman. You must have been like the talk of the town. What did you know also that this was someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

Yeah.

I think we were always really close from the moment we met We were actually friends for a few years before we officially got together, So from sixteen to about nineteen we're probably the bestest of friends.

We used to hang out every day.

I used to go around to her house, yeah, just about it every day after school and she would feed me and I Also, I.

Think the biggest the thing was I had a one year old when I met Adam, so obviously super controversial at the time, being a sixteen year old. And now I have a sixteen year old boy, and I'm sort of like realizing how Adam's parents would have felt. But at the time, I was just like, well, you know, by one get one Free. But I think it's huge. I think, looking back, I probably need to give my in laws a massive cuddle and say I'm so sorry,

Got ash too, so yeah, totally.

Yeah.

But now I have a sixteen year old I look at it a lot differently.

I think, don't we Yeah, it's a bit of it's straight now, sixteen year old son who's got a girlfriend at the moment as well, who are pretty closer. It's eerily sort of similar to me and Hailey. They just are so obsessed with each other that all they want to do is spend every waking moment with each other. And we're trying to tell, you know, go out and hang out with your friends.

But me and Hailey exactly the same.

Yeah, isn't that interesting?

And do they sort of throw it back at you guys and say, yeah, yeah, but you did.

It, Yeah you did. It's the same with tattoos and piercings and probably drinking. Now our kids like, but hold on. We've got really great relationships with our kids, pretty open, and we had lots of different conversations. So it probably sometimes does backfire a little bit because they're like, well, hello, what were you guys doing or mum, you had a one year old when you were sorry, you were had baby when you were eighteen, so that anything, But no, they're good kids, they're good.

Adam, you were sixteen and so you would have been deep into football at that point, into AFL footy. How a were you when you got drafted?

So I was eighteen, the draft was in I think it might have been in November, and I turned eighteen in the September, so eighteen and a couple of months, and I had an inklet well, I had a fair idea that I was going to get drafted to the Western Bulldogs and have to move over to Victoria, probably about six or eight months before the draft, so I had a little bit of time to get my head around moving away from family and friends and leaving everyone behind to go and play footy. So but you're not

Straight into the cauldron off on that spotlight where it's cuckoo yeah.

And being the number ones aft because well, there was lots of media attention around that. And Adam was so homesick, like he used to call me every night and he'd be in tears sometimes just almost wanting to come home, like ready to give it up. Yeah, so yeah, it was really.

Yeah, the intensity must have been huge because you're still only I mean you're eighteen, you're a little bit still.

Yeah, yeah, look back on it now, and very immature. I wasn't professional enough to which to end I suppose the riggers of afling.

At that stage. I was a little bit overweight.

I probably didn't train hard enough leading in even though I knew I was to get drafted. So I was a little bit unprofessional, a little bit overweight. And then couple that with working so hard, you're tired all the time. All you want to do is go to sleep, and then you miss your family, you miss your friends.

I did. I was in tears a few times in the first couple of months.

I think I racked my dad at one stage and said that I was going to quit before the Christmas break at the end of my first pre season, and he just got rid of me.

So he was pretty keen, I'm not having me back in the house.

So yeah, it.

Was pretty keen for me to stay over there in Melbourne, I think.

But yeah, once I got into playing, so I came back after Christmas obviously, and did some more training and then I was lucky enough to get picked for the first game in my first year. And once I played ten or eleven games in my first year, I sort of started to feel a little bit more at home and started to make some friends. And you get a bit more respect too once you start playing AFL football. So once I yeah, once I settled in and started playing games, yeah, I felt a little bit more at home.

Yeah, how was that for you then, Haley when you moved here and your little one to Melbourne because you're you've left everyone behind and now you're the girlfriend of the hot footy player.

Yeah, yeah, we're very close to it family. I've only got my mum and dad and my sister in Australia. We're from England originally, so right, Okay, I really broke my parents heart by moving, but I did it just I sort of had to. I think Adam would have wanted to come home otherwise and I didn't want that to happen. So yeah, I made the decision to take Ash and you know, move over, and I left obviously all of my friends and but we came to the

There were only twenty at that stage. Most of them were still going out partying on the weekend. I didn't understand why I wasn't joining them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and.

That was hard. I remember saying to Adam, I'm not moving and coming here and sitting here on the weekends by myself. It's just not happening. I'm not going to I'm not going to be there for you during the week and give you all this support and then you leave me on the weekends. It's just not happening. I'll believe. I actually think I packed up the maybe twice. Yeah, I was ready to drive home really because you were out.

I probably got home a bit late, maybe from the public after a game and the car was backed. Yeah.

I had no babysitters here. I had no one.

Yeah, I hear you. It was that was us in LA. It was just like no one else except me and Cam. So yeah, I get it. Yeah, Adam, you've you've spoken really openly and beautifully about you know, meeting Haley and of course beautiful Ash and basically becoming a dad. You know what I mean, because you were immediately in the dad role, you know, when you were with when you were with Hailey. How was that for you? I mean, what was that like for you?

At the time, I didn't really think it was a big deal. I didn't think much of it. As Haley said, it was a package deal. I always knew that. But I guess when they moved over, I had a lot of my friends and a lot of advice coming.

You know, do you think you're ready for this?

Your only most people did say, what the hell are you doing? I just I didn't ever really think that it was a massive responsibility and Ash has a few challenges as well, and I sort of when Haley moved over, I worked with her on a number of things and that sort of kept me busy and we grew a bond from that. So yeah, and I look back on it now and it was actually huge. It's probably it was a deal, but I just didn't think of it at the time.

Yeah.

Now we have a sixteen year old. I think if he came home I was like, hey, I've met this girl. She got a kid, I'd be like what. But we just took it. We were just like, well, yeah, what's the big deal sort of thing, like yeah, sure, it's just it's just, yeah, going to happen.

Love does that, doesn't it When when you're that much in love, it's like, well, we'll figure everything else out because we're together.

We did that, didn't. We sort of just went, let's take it on. We're just going to make it happen. Yeah, it was going to work. So and yeah, we have people now that say wow, like we didn't think it was going to last or you know, and here we are now. I think this year, we've been married for sixteen years, and it feels like yesterday. It feels like forever ago, but it feels like yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful.

I can relate to that.

What do you think has been the biggest challenge in your relationship and how how did you overcome it?

Do you know what?

We haven't really had too many challenging situations.

We've to be honest with you.

We still spend and most of my work is on Friday and Saturday and sometimes Sundays, and how it does a bit of work during the week now, but for the last probably or since I finished playing footy, we've spent We spend every day together. We get our jobs done, We take the kids to school in the morning together.

Then we come home.

We do our jobs together, the gym to the gym together, we go to the pub together.

We shower together.

To pretty much we're pretty much in severable.

So in terms of the usual challenges of so I take care of finances, bills, all those sorts of things, and Hailey does the house and it sort of just works.

We obviously we bicker.

And Hailey's into this stage now where the perimenopausal stage, which I think she must be.

She must mention it, you know, ten to fifteen.

I can see that I'm happy. Can I tell you something? Adam thinks it is made up? Yes, you do. Look at I can feel a hot flush. Now it's actually.

Embarrassing, Adam, Adam, I've got a book you need to read. I've got a book you need to read. It's called Queen Menopause. And you're talking to the author, the pretty late in front of the pink sign. She's written a book and there's a chapter in there for us fellows.

Its helpful.

I have noticed recently, in the last couple of months that she's getting just a little bit irritated by really minor things.

And it's not one of things.

I think.

It's so important.

He's an example.

Just just this morning, our son, Jack's our sixteen year old who's recently been diagnosed with ADHD, so he can't remember or do anything, so he leaves his towel on the floor every single morning.

Which.

But there was there was water on the bathroom floor this morning, and you would have thought that the house was burning down.

I just flipped. I just bathrooms. I meant to have water on the floor. It's okay.

Yeah, And maybe a couple of years ago, she wouldn't, she would have let that slide but I think she's in a stage in her life now where I think she's getting a little bit racky with of those things.

It's it's because it's the twenty five thousandth time that the water has been on the floor, thank you. That's what it is. If it was the first time, yeah, she'd be fine.

But there's also ash Jack's eavy plus Adam that I'm telling these things every day that they're not doing, and it just builds.

And absolutely it bells, and it may not get any better for a little while.

That's the.

You've just got to take long, deep breaths at him. I think long, deepst and do a lot of flowers, chocolates, hoppy, I bought you, yeah, date nights. Yeah.

I told her this morning that he's in charge of the kids bathroom now for one week. Just you just go in the bathroom and just pick the towels up, so I don't have to do it. Just give me one week break.

Separate bathrooms, separate it's all.

About But honey, they they bathe together, they shower together.

Don't ruin that.

We don't even have separate towns. We just rug ourselves up in the same one. Getting question, we don't.

We've we've got things figured now where we don't have a lot to argue. We're in a pretty lucky situation financially, I would say, I mean, we're not the richest people in the world, but we're pretty comfortable. I would say so that. I think that's a huge part of it. I think the mentional thing, we're so lucky. Adam was really clever in his football years in making sure that we were going to be set up so we could live comfortably after, which was good. We're not very materialistic people.

Do you know?

Aldi?

Let me tell you something. We we love the frozen Barrel Monday from.

It's Aldi does it go. Is there a memorable moment that you feel might have really strengthened your relationship.

Yeah, I think we when we before we had Bax, we miscarried a couple of times and I think I'm sorry, yeah, thank you know. That was a really hard time. I was here without my mum and my sister, who were huge more than my bestest friends.

Yeah, that was.

A really tough time and for Adam to ride that emotion with me, because it's hard for men, even though it's their loss too, really hard, I think for some men to understand the actual feeling of that loss. And Adam at what twenty one, I think else twenty twenty, he was amazing and I was a nightmare. I was beside myself and obviously I didn't have anyone here. And I thought afterwards, I thought, if we can get through the is like boring it on, we can get through anything.

Well and again it was well, we're both young and and it happened a couple of times and it was just a Hailey had sort of just moved over from Adelaide, so you mentioned she didn't have that support there, and she was just so sad for months until and then we were obviously trying, and then each month it didn't happen. Then there's that sadness again, and then another miscarriage. So it was probably it was probably a year and a half.

Before we felt pregnant. And I think being a part of a food club as well. There's a lot of other pregnancies around you.

At the time.

Sure it makes it so much more pain.

Yeah.

You see pregnant people wherever you go. So yeah, for Adam to really stand up at such a young age and yeah, that that's a pretty that was pretty a standout for me. I knew it was a keeper them.

Yeah, Adam, was that Was that a nate for you or were you getting some help through the footy club or through parents or helping you.

I was just focusing on helping Haley, to be honest with you.

And some of the advice that I got after we miscarried the first time was from football club people some other people that were close to me, was well, don't do that again.

Yeah, you judged all.

Yeah, that was that was and that was sort of confronting at the time, some of the some of the advice that I got, considering that I actually wanted to have a baby myself, it probably wasn't a lot of trust in you a young relationship with two people from a football club side of things, and and some other people that were close to us. So but yeah, my focus on was trying to get Hailey happy really and

A couple of years later and along came.

We had to go again, Carrot Super Carrot Top one.

She came out with red hair, a wiring from day one.

I think the third one often are actually our third was just the same thing. Came out with the loudest voice, screaming. She's never stopped being the loudest and the sassiest and oh boy, yeah.

She's organizer, isn't she. Evie likes to know where everyone is, what time everyone's getting home, who's you know, who's there, and who's where? And yeah, she's still of the glue at the moment. She's keeping us all together.

She gives us a hard time if we want to go out for dinner, she tells us what times we have to be home.

We have curfews.

And I know that you've that Ash said before and said, you know obviously publicly she's she's had she's got her challenges, some disabilities. How have your other two kids benefited from having Ash in their lives? Do you see them as more empathetic kids.

Especially Jackson, especially jack Sie's with other kids who have challenges and disabilities.

He always has been, hasn't he. I think he's prep teacher. In a parent teaching interview, she said to me, you can tell that he's got a sister with a disability, and that he's got a younger baby sister. She's like from six, she said, he's always the one if there's an underdog in the class, or if there's someone getting believed, he's right over there making sure that they you know, he lifts them. And even now we had an incident yesterday.

Jax's a bit more. He has that empathy inside to him. Where's a bit more like me? Yeah, she's a bit cold hearted.

She's a cold vision to you warm up, whereas Jaxson's like me, He's.

Nice, beautiful.

I love just thinking about the way you propose throwing a burger, right Cam.

So I mean having having kids is it does take a lot of time, and they they need time, But so do you guys as a couple, how do you how do you balance your time with the kids, for yourselves and obviously through work commitments.

Oh well, I spend a lot of time.

I'll probably spend eighty percent of my time with Jacks in terms of like, I've coached his footy team. He wants to play lucky, so I spent a lot of time with him giving him advice. You know, gym staff working on his foot he working on the mental side of the game. So he takes up he takes up a lot of my time. Thankfully, next I don't have to coach him. I can pass him on to someone else because I've just I'm just about at that stage where I've given him all I can.

Now I've got to hand him over to someone else, So coaching coaching him.

Unfortunately, when I was his coach last year, he dislocated his shoulder before round one and didn't play a game of footy for the whole season. So I coached his team and he didn't even play, which was a little bit disappointing.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of time, a lot of time he spent with him.

And then because it's Saturday mornings as well, and Eve he plays netball at the same time, so I don't get to watch her play a lot on the Saturday mornings, which is disap But I suppose next year will open up I.

Can spend a bit more time with her there.

But balancing our time together and the kids is good because it's it is easy because we have so much time during the day.

Yeah.

Nice is Jack's going to play for the Bombers or the Bulldogs.

Well, he's a father son academy to the Western Bulldogs, so I actually qualify. You have to play one hundred games for a club to qualify as a father's son.

So he's qualified.

So that I didn't play thankfully a lot of depending which way you want to look at, I didn't play enough games for the Bombers unfortunately.

So he's been in the Bulldog's Academy, which is great.

They get all sort of father son picks in potentially you know, four or five years before they actually get drafted, and they sort of start to coach them and do some academy stuff, training and school holidays and things with them.

So he's been in the.

Academy there for a number of years now and he loves I think he's just about got me and now in terms of heights, so he's grown a bit over the last couple of years, which is which is really sad that he's taller about me now.

But yeah, he's got he's got a bit of potential.

He's he's athletic, but he's got a lot of hard work to do if he thinks that he's going to play it.

Especially these days. It's a bit of a different game to when you were playing, isn't it.

Yeah, you just have to be so fit.

Yeah. True. Is there any lessons that you learned from playing AFL that you now apply to your just everyday life.

Uh? Well, I try and pass those lessons onto to Jack's at the moment.

More you know, nutrition, learning about nutrition, diet, what you have to put put into your body to get yourself healthy and fit and strong, and you know protein and all that sort of stuff. But so I've learned so much as a as a player in terms of, you know, what you have to put into your body to become

Yeah, what does that mean, Hailey.

Everything that he got taught about healthy eating and not drinking, keeping himself fitting, strong and healthy, that's a lot of the window. Now he's living his best life. But said that, we always said that it was going to be, you know, give it everything in Adam's years, and then I promised him as soon as you're done, you can drink beer on a Friday night, you can eat hungry jacks whenever you want. So definitely living his best life now.

Yeah, and as many burger rings as you want.

Yeah, exactly, Hayley, Can I ask you a question, yes, when Adam was playing footy, what was it like for you? Because it feels like it was a different time than what it is now. People are being thrown out for saying racist comments from football stadiums, as they should be.

I mean crowds.

I think back in that day when you were playing Adam, and certainly in the seventies and eighties were pretty rough, you know, And how was that for you as Adam's partner hearing, you know, fifty year old man screaming abuse at your husband and his mates playing footy.

I would many times have the girls dragging you back because I'm like especially having the kids next to me. You're like, on these people, their families are year like, this is my you know, it's my five year old son hearing that his dad's the biggest beat beat Bee Pepper and you know Cooney bbe like just huge, huge abuse. It doesn't happen so much now. I'm still lucky enough

You can't.

People don't put up with that anymore, which is fantastic. And I'm also super grateful that Adam, we missed the social media stuff, didn't we most Yeah, that I can't even imagine now. I'm oh, I just can't imagine what the people what they have to read about themselves and their families, and a lot of them it's shocking.

Yeah, after every game you and I had, I think on Twitter at the sort of back end of my career, and if you had a game, you wouldn't you wouldn't check your social media for forty eight seventy two hours after it, and you you get abused sort.

Of weekly, no matter you know, win, lose, or draw.

But I just can't imagine now with TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, players would check their social media after a game and even if you might have had a great game, but you might have had twenty nine disposals and someone has had a multi bet for you to get thirty plus, and that will just that'll abuse at you and death threats and all sorts of abuse these days. So I'm glad that I sort of missed out in those times, and even younger years.

My first year was two thousand and four.

We would sort of go out, maybe if we had an eight day break with some of the players and enjoy a few drinks at a pub and there's no mobile phones, no one's.

Recording you know, anything they're doing.

Now the players are just in the spotlight twenty four hours a day.

Yeah, I think I was pretty I was a bit of a cipho when when phones and cameras and Adam don't have a photo at a nightclub, when you're holding a beer and you've got your arm around a girl, just don't do it. And I think he used to be like, oh, you're so jealous, You're such a psycho, But I was jealous and psycho.

But I used to say it besides that, besides that, I was so I used to think, we've got children that go to school and also takes this for one girl or you know, someone's boyfriend to see her girlfriend with Adam and start this.

You know he touched me or he did this, and and yeah, it's the same. You know, even even drinking. I'm like, you're not just it's not just you. You know, you have to go pick up Ash from school on Monday, and so it was always about our family. So I wasn't that much of a psycho. I was clever.

Yes, you was thinking ahead, you're a picture. Yeah that's you. That's you, Hailey. Tell us a bit about I'm not sure. Are you still working in the disability district's best job? Yeah? So you obviously was that inspired by Ash or you just this is where you wanted to go.

Yeah, okay.

I worked as an education support officer in the school for a few years and I really enjoyed that, but there were so many rules and this is how we do it and this is how we've always done it, and I knew that it could be better, but I wasn't in a position as an ESO to make this call. So I left too much politics and yeah, too many rules, and then Ash. I think at about the same time, Ash was eighteen, so she had finished school, and so she had these support workers that were coming into her life,

But.

When it's not your family.

He actually wanted to engine that. In the questionaire that we did for you guys, you said one of your worst traits, Hailey, is that you're nice to everyone else about your family. I can't write that. No, I do have patience, and I just love my job. I work with three different participants. I work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and

Ah, it's fantastic. Good for you.

Thank you, Adam.

You're still working in sports, aren't you.

Yeah?

So I worked for seven We do a show on Friday night after the footy and I work for SCN radio station over.

Here in Melbourne. Right.

I actually listened to you do you Go? Yeah in the afternoon with Gayzy. You guys you get on show everything.

Yeah.

I'd usually do a Friday slot there and do some summer stuff and then I'll do a game on commentary.

For in on the weekend.

Yeah.

Now, okay, So, so as we acknowledged that the game has changed, what was what was your approach to managing the mental side of the game, Like you said you didn't you didn't have that, You didn't have doctors and psych's working with you at the time. So how are you dealing.

With performance anxiety and scrutiny of the media.

Yeah.

I wasn't a warrior.

I wasn't one to overthink a game coming in and I was great at switching off.

Can I just interrupt you, I think as well, having kids. Young Adam would walk out of the change rooms and straight away it was not about football anymore. It was about being dads. The kids didn't care whether they won, lose, draw, So I think that kept you really grounded.

Yeah.

So, and I was always and there's no bigger critic than yourself when you were an athlete.

So if I would have a poor game, I would be really sort of angry and down. But that's not once you walk out, Well, it's not the kid's fault and it's not Hailey's fault that you've had a bad game.

So there's no point in being grumpy or going home and being down for two days about it. Deal with that yourself. You know, the kids don't really at that age, didn't really care if you had one disposal. They would just happen to see you after the game.

I used to have to go home in separate cars from them.

Yeah, there was a few of my teammates that would sleep in separate beds you can talk about separate bathrooms'd sleep in separate bedrooms a night before a game, and then if they had a bad game, they'd be grumpy for two or three days at home, and I just

Get rid of there.

But well, yeah, I was really good at switching off when it wasn't football time. So as soon as I left the football club after training or after a game, then I just wouldn't think about it anymore. I had other things to deal with in my life. Sit there and steal on football all the time.

What a great approach, That's fantastic.

Yeah, it doesn't work for some though, So sometime people, or had some of my teammates, if they had the same attitude as me, they wouldn't have lasted two or three years. Some people have to be like all encompassing seven. Ye have to live their life twenty four to seven to get the best out of themselves. And I was the complete opposite. If I did that, I would have been burnt out and the tide by the time I was twenty.

I think, right, we do something called the two minute shower, So we'll ask both of you the same questions. We're conserving waters, so just keep your answers as sure as possible. Do you want to ask the first one?

Hun?

Yeah, I'm just going to dive in with this one. Who's got the best tattoos.

Has got the best tattoos. I have the worst tattoos.

I've got some home jobs on my back that my kids have actually done with the tattoo gun and all sorts of things.

So Ailey's a much more finer than mine.

Yeah, they both agree on that one. Is there one experience with each other? You would love to relive.

The proposal in my head? Love this.

Living in Mark too in a better way? Yeah.

Yeah, every time we go on a holiday with just the two of us, I think we live that as soon as we get home.

Yes, yeah, all right.

What the world needs now is more Haley's.

Oh that's nice.

I think when she mentioned that, you know, the disability stuff.

She has an amazing heart and wants to help every single person that she bumps into and takes a lot on more than what she should, which you.

Can cross me about that.

She just just tries to do too much. But if the world had more Haley's would be a much better place.

That's that's gorgeous.

That's nice.

What so you, Hailey, What does the world need now?

The world needs a bit of love and peace, I think, so maybe they do need more met horn.

There is there a favorite weird habit that you love about each other?

I think our favorite weird habit is that we love playing the pokes together.

We love going on for a little poke together. That's so fun. Yeah, that's a good one.

That's brilliant and I love it all right.

Last question, one word to describe each other.

Very menopausal. We love each other.

I would describe Adam as my soulmate. And that's so corny and I feel like I slap myself, but it's true. My best friend, that's that's yeah.

Well, I would describe myself as lucky and you two words too, caring. Wow.

We've had a lot of couples that we've spoken to over the years, and your story to me, like, that's the whole, the whole thing that was coming through with soulmates, soul mate, so and and and I'm with you, you know.

Thank you, lovely.

And love it through that, Peri Menopo. Yeah, thanks for your time, Thank you for having us.

That was an excellent chat, Honey.

They were just so I know, we know we say that with so many of our guests, but boy, didn't I mean to have met that young and to have just to still be sort of kind of gooey eyed over each other. That's that's that really is amazing. I think that's beautiful. I have to I have to ask you, were you slightly fan boying a little bit, Adam?

Really?

Look, I could I know, I know it's a serious serious yeah, and look, we could have gone way I know you could have i know, into into the psychology of football. Yeah, I mean professional sports. But we're a relationship show. And when I do my Man podcast, I'll get him back on a great chat.

I found them.

The word that I was going to say was refreshing, you know, like you said, I didn't worry about stuff, and what's that quote? Worry? Paul's tomorrow's clouds over today. It just seems like it was just such an ease about them. I just don't sweat the small stuff.

It's just why are we here?

What's the big picture? And I loved that.

I loved it. No, it was really really beautiful. Well we hope you loved it too. Thank you so much for listening, and catch us next time on separate bathrooms.