Opinion
It was a Saturday morning after the round 11 Friday night game of 2009 in which my Tigers, where I was an assistant coach, had been soundly beaten by the Western Bulldogs. It was coach Terry Wallace’s last game as coach of Richmond.
I walked toward the boardroom at Punt Road for a meeting where I was hoping (expecting …) to be named the interim coach for the remainder of the 2009 season. The Herald Sun had an article saying I would get the job and the night before, Terry had kindly passed the coach’s phone to me for the last 15 minutes of the game to talk to players and make some moves. It was a lovely gesture.
I departed the meeting 10 minutes later, still an assistant coach. It was explained that I’d only been an assistant coach for two years and that I hadn’t coached my own team. Jade Rawlings, our VFL coach, had that experience, and so he would be the caretaker.
It made sense and while disappointed, I agreed with the decision. I found out the real reason in a chance encounter about 10 years later. I’ll get to that.
The world of sacking the coach into the choice of interim coach is a fascinating media cycle – the incessant craving for a decision from the club, but when it finally comes, sometimes it feels like an anti climax. But once the head is on the plate, the tone shifts to unabashed optimism of what the interim coach can do.
Josh Fraser’s strategy in his first press conference was clever and one that should be noted by future interim coaches. By saying the full-time coaching position wasn’t his aim, he achieved several things.
1. He takes pressure off himself that this is his rehearsal, and he’d better not fluff his lines.
2. It will matter to the next coach who takes over. They don’t want a disgruntled staff member who has missed out on the job. The new coach wants a clean slate but by not putting his hand up for the job, he comes across as a team player who is doing what’s best for the club.
3. Finally, if he does well and the club asks him to take the job he can change his mind. The world doesn’t like it when people change their minds, but it’s not a crime, and it feels like in this case we would forgive him.
The interim coaching role is simple in the short term and difficult in the medium to long term. On almost all occasions you’ve come into the job because the team isn’t performing. You need to make change while not being too disrespectful to the previous coach, who many still have good relationships with.
You also have no time to train those tactical/structural changes. When a team is playing poorly, it will be because of many things but generally the players will be playing too tight. They aren’t free in the mind. The coach has tried too many things or run out of ideas and the result is the players are confused and disillusioned.
Players can be confused and disillusioned but still hold the coach in high regard, while believing that a change might help. They above all else, want to win.
So the interim coach, who has little time for tactical change, will relax the locker room and loosen the reins strategically. “Just go and play,” he will say heading into his first game. This is the simple part, and will generally work for a short period of time.
Then the lack of time for strategy will kick in. The players will also start looking to the end, and thinking about who will be their coach the next season.
It’s why clubs try to hold off on making the call on their current coach for as long as they can. It feels like four-to-six weeks is the optimal time for an interim coach. Get the two-to-three-week enthusiasm bump, then
the finish line is close enough to hold on.
The Blues and Bombers have got 14 weeks. This is the hard part. The other factor that makes that long period hard is the timing of the new coach search.
The Blues had, until Essendon’s decision this week, got the jump, but now with Tassie looking to appoint a coach in a process that appears to have a fluid timeline, suddenly what was a “club looking for coach” market has become a “coach looking for club” market.
Club boards get nervous when they think they might miss out on the best. While clubs shouldn’t rush the process, candidates don’t want to be strung out forever. So you don’t want to start to early, you don’t want to start too late, and you don’t want a strung-out process. Timing is critical.
Do they name a coach while the season is still going? After Danny Frawley was sacked at the end of 2004, he continued to coach for a few weeks. As a leadership group, we met with Terry Wallace at his house, in part to convince him to come to us. It felt like we were cheating on our coach, who we respected enormously.
At Gold Coast, we knew a few weeks out that Damien Hardwick would coach the next season but held off the announcement out of respect to Steven King, who was the interim, but also to not disrupt players and staff.
We agreed to announce on the Monday of the final game. There was an energy around the club, but the feeling instantly changed. We lost to North Melbourne in one of our poorer performances of the year.
So what was the real reason I missed out on the interim job? The factors above played a part, but also a board member asked if I was likely to get the job the next year. The answer was “probably not”.
“Well, the new guy won’t want the interim coach around so if we want him to stay longer term, we shouldn’t give him the job.”
Jade Rawlings left the club after that season.
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Wayne Campbell is a former Richmond captain and All-Australian, ex-Gold Coast football manager, and the current boss of the Sydney Swans academy.
