Round 19, 2004

 

 

After a dull year of no coaching turnovers at all in 2003, four AFL coaches have now been terminated in 2004, and the fourth was certainly the most enjoyable to watch. Peter Rohde was finally put out of his misery this week and in so doing actually emerged briefly from the obscurity that has enveloped his coaching career and to which he will surely return.

 

As always, there was some poignancy attached to the sacking, but at least the Doggies and Rohde put on a good show for the media. It was a classic footy sacking, worthy even of Carlton or Richmond at their most cynical and expedient. Barely 2 weeks after a smiling David Smorgon had informed the national media that Rohde would stay in the job, he ever-so-smoothly pulled the rug and plunged the knife – a classic, text-book manoeuvre by a club president in the finest traditions of VFL-AFL human resource management.*** Those bumbling kids in the Glenferrie sandpit should take note of how it should be done – so inept is everyone at Hawthorn these days that they can’t even sack a coach properly.

 

But what made the story even more complete, and a worthy addition to the annals of classic VFL-AFL sackings was the response of Rohde who, reading from an indignant prepared statement this weekend, spoke of how disappointed he was at the decision and “the attempts to publicly rationalise it in recent days.” Heartless, two-faced president plus indignant ambushed coach equals all the ingredients for a classic footy sacking. Gold!

 

But if Peter Rohde is getting worked up at the club's attempts to “publicly rationalise” things, he should take a good hard look at himself after his own efforts at rationalising the single-greatest humiliation of 2004, namely the Dogs going down to Hawthorn.

 

Rohde’s team had just suffered its greatest indignity in years, getting done by the biggest bunch of show-ponies since the Brisbane Bears (dis)graced Carrara under the ownership of the Gold Coast white shoe brigade. Surely there can be no excuses or bright spots on such a black day, yet this is what Rohde came out with after the game: 

"I think our future is really bright. Tonight our young players, I thought, took steps. (With) some of those young players that took steps tonight (I've) probably been frustrated that they hadn’t been taking enough steps throughout the last 40 games, but I think there was a lot of them that showed signs."

 

Say wot? Bright future? Took steps? Showed signs? Obviously the events of the past week have had quite an effect on Rohde’s mental soundness. His bizarre attempts at rationalising were clearly the product of a mind in a state of severe denial and delusion. With attributes such as that, he would have to be the clear frontrunner for the Hawthorn coaching vacancy. He should be waiting beside the phone for a call from Dermie or Ian Dicker any time now.

 

Meanwhile Geelong continued on its way with its 12^th win in 14 rounds with a regulation win over Richmond. It was a normal day at the office for Matty Richardson, who kicked 2 goals and 6 behinds, with a routine 3 dummy spits thrown in as well. Walking through the car park after the game footballinvective.com overheard a conversation between two young Tiger fans of approximately 7 and 9 years old. Whilst we lamented that the wide-eyed innocence of childhood has been cruelly snatched from these two kids by virtue of being Tiger fans, we nonetheless admired them for already having acquired the more grown-up traits of defeatism and cynicism that will enable them to endure the lifetime of Richmond supporting that awaits them. Their conversation went something like this:

 

7 year-old (sulking): “We lost again. We’re the worst team in the league”

9 year-old (putting on a brave face): “No were not, we’re only the second-worst. We won’t get the wooden spoon, but we will get the extra draft picks though”

 

It’s encouraging to see that the 9 year-old is such a pragmatic and practical thinker, even at that tender age. With an approach like that, perhaps in 30 or 40 seasons time he might be the one to finally to lead the club out of the wilderness, in place of the succession of clowns who have filled the boardroom at Punt Road since the golden era of Graeme Richmond and Ian Wilson. The most notable in this long line of clowns must surely have been Alan Bond, who despite having had no previous involvement with the club, ‘served’ as President of Richmond for several appalling months in 1987. Bond infamously told the club AGM that “I’ve always loved the black and red, that’s why I wanted to be president of Richmond”, then mis-pronounced the name of the club captain (Dale Whiteman) at the club Best and Fairest. But Bondy no longer remembers those incidents, of course.

 

Now that the Brisbane Lions have lost two in a row they are equal with Geelong on 13 wins each. If anyone had said after Round 3 (with the Cats on the bottom after 3 losses) that only percentage would separate Geelong and Brisbane after Round 19, then footballinvective.com would have tipped Warwick Capper to be drafted by NASA as a rocket scientist. Yet, amazingly, the Cats have come good.

 

The same cannot be said for the Paddington Pretty Boys, who folded spectacularly in response to a long-awaited display of Shinboner Spirit, whilst Essendon once again got done by a clearly inferior Carlton side. It has been a regular occurrence for the Dons ever since Kouta’s epic heroics in the ’99 Prelim Final. This was also the day that Jeff Kennett lost the unlosable election, when Alice Springs bookmakers were offering 100-1 for the Carlton-Labor Party double. 

 

But maybe the Swans and Dons have both been outdone for the title of Dud of the Week by Melbourne, who for the second time in 6 rounds got brutally walloped at Footy Park. Yet even Melbourne’s ignominy was almost overshadowed by some truly bizarre comments by Robert Walls on 3AW after the game. In response to a question from an overconfident Port Power talkback caller of unsurprisingly limited vocabulary, Walls declared in no uncertain terms that, on the basis of this one (that’s right, one) performance, and only one week after being made to look like fools by Essendon, Port Adelaide were now a genuine premiership threat. Turn it up Wallsy - what planet have you been living on for the past two Septembers? Or does your short-term memory not extend back as far as seven days? Like the Sword of Damocles, September 2002 and September 2003 still dangle ominously over Alberton, casting a huge shadow of doubt over everything Port Adelaide does. Not even the former Iraqi information minister could deny something so bleeding obvious as that. Go Dees.

 

 

 

*** Classic VFL-AFL coach sackings:

 

1965: The (then) Mighty Demons sack Norm Smith, after he had taken them to 8 Grand Finals and 6 flags in the previous 11 years, only to re-instate him four days later.

1979: Carlton gives favourite son Alex Jesaulenko the boot after Jezza had captain-coached the team to an epic (boundary umpire-assisted) Grand Final win.

1990: Carlton sack Jezza again, who makes the classic comment “What they say and what they do are two different things”

2002: Carlton sack Wayne Britten. Britten had just led the Blues to their first-ever wooden spoon and the club was still being run (sic) by the John Elliott rortocracy, with its well-known tolerance of mediocrity, yet Britten somehow manages to express surprise at being axed.

1976: Richmond sack Tom Hafey after 4 flags in 11 years

1978: Richmond sack Barry Richardson

1981: Richmond sack Tony Jewell

1983: Richmond sack Francis Bourke 

1984: Richmond sack Mike Patterson 

1985: Richmond sack Paul Sproule 

1987: Richmond sack Tony Jewell (again!)

1991: Richmond sack Kevin Bartlett 

1995: Richmond almost sack John Northey (after leading them to the finals for the first time in 13 years), but he beats them to it by resigning

1997: Richmond sack Robert Walls (many Tiger fan conspiracy theorists still think that Walls’ tenure as coach of the Tiges was all part of a sinister plot by Carlton to undermine their arch-rivals)

1999: Richmond sack Jeff Gieschen (after then-president Leon Daphne famously promised to resign if this occurred)

2004: Richmond sack Danny Frawley