CTV > Watch the June 12 Press Conference with Eddie McGuire, Mick Malthouse and Shane WakelinCOLLINGWOOD coach Mick Malthouse has promised to walk away from coaching the minute the fire dies.
On Sunday, Malthouse will coach his 576th senior game, moving past mentor Allan Jeans into third place on the all-time list of most games coached in VFL/AFL history.
Malthouse will also become just the fourth person to participate in 750 VFL/AFL games as player and coach, comprising 53 games as a player for St Kilda, 121 games as a premiership player for Richmond, 135 games as a coach for Footscray, 243 games as a premiership coach for West Coast and 197 games as a coach for Collingwood.
But the 54-year-old said it wasn't a matter of age, but of desire.
"I don't think there's an age limit on your progress – some people at 60 are old, some people at 60 aren't," Malthouse said.
I've promised Ed (Collingwood president Eddie McGuire) and I'll back this up here, contract or no contract – and I am contracted until the end of 2009 – if I don't believe for one moment that I can give of what I know that you need to be a senior coach, then I'm not going to be a senior coach.
"I don't get any joy out of make-believe.
"I'll be quite honest with you – there's a lot of things in football I don't like, there's a lot of things in [this job] that if it went from nought to 100, there's probably 45 things that really … like a lot of people who've been in their jobs for a long time, there's things that you just don't enjoy.
"But as long as I enjoy the competition, as long as I can get up and say that I am there because I want to win this game, and therefore if I want to win it badly enough – and I can relay that onto my player group, who have also got the taste and the hunger for success – then I know I won't let Collingwood down.
"But the moment that diminishes, I'll be saying to Ed – regardless of what stage of the year it is, or what year it is – 'Ed, you need someone else'."
