It was my 15th senior game in round two of my second season in 2001. We were playing North Melbourne at the Gabba, and although we were on our way to a comfortable 10-goal win, I incurred the captain’s wrath.
I’d failed to cover Vossy’s man, as I should have done, and he let me know it wasn’t good enough.
Happily, there weren’t too many other sprays in the years that followed and that was largely because I tried to make sure I did the right thing. I didn’t want to let the captain down again. Or, more importantly, the team.
That was Vossy in a nutshell. Everything was about the team. Everyone had a role to play and it didn’t matter about kicks, marks and handballs – it was all about doing the little things that had the big impact.
It didn’t matter who you were or where you sat in the overall scheme of things – you had a job to do. And if the captain didn’t think you were doing your job he let you know about it.
It’ll be no different now that after two years away he’s returned to the Lions as coach. He’ll expect everyone to do their job, and everything will be about the team.
There is no need for him to prove anything to the playing group but very quickly there have been a few examples that he means business.
For the first time in my career we’ll do a 3km time-trial on the Saturday morning of the club championship dinner on 4 October, when everyone is required back in town after four weeks off.
Going by his time as captain, he’ll treat the older blokes and the younger blokes just the same, and it’ll be no different for those who played 200 games alongside him to those who weren’t fortunate enough to enjoy the privilege.
I’ve never known a more competitive person than Vossy. No matter what we were playing he wanted to win. He’s a killer. And he’s a winner.
But as much as his professionalism and his competitiveness I’ve always admired his balance. Even as a captain he was always one of the standout performers on the footy trip, when he enjoyed some “down time” with the full group. He just got in and had a good time.
As a coach he won’t be a dictator and he won’t be a pushover. I reckon he’ll sit somewhere in the middle, and he’ll fluctuate as necessary.
His time with Channel 10 will have helped keep him up to speed with the competition, allowing him the chance to watch all clubs from a neutral observer’s viewpoint, and his time with the Australian Institute of Sport will have shown him first hand some of the new trends in preparation.
Of the 45 active players presently on the Brisbane Lions list, only five have played AFL football under a coach other than Leigh Matthews – Simon Black, Daniel Bradshaw, Tim Notting, Luke Power and 2008 recruit Travis Johnstone – so it’ll be a whole new scene and a fresh start.
As Leigh said a million times over, coaches coach, administrators look after off-field things and players play. So it’s our job to do whatever is necessary to get the Lions back into the finals next year.
I believe there is sufficient talent in the group for us to play finals next year, but first we’ve got to accept responsibility as a group for what happened in the last 11 weeks of the season.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who the coach is if we don’t address the collective shortcomings that let us down so badly when a spot in the finals beckoned.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
