• Gerard Neesham
AFL clubs today have so many assistants and support staff the coach’s box on game day resembles a sheep truck heading to Fremantle Ports, stink and all.
And let’s not forget the recruiters who roam Australia’s suburbs and outback—and increasingly overseas—hoping to spot exceptional young talent that can be both hammered and nurtured into shape, to help take their club to the G in September.
It was a different story when Fremantle’s foundation coach Gerard Neesham took the club into its first season back in 1995: It was just him for much of the time and after that he had a skeleton staff to help pick his squad.
Fast-forward 18 frustrating—god, so frustrating—years later and the Dockers are one tantalising win away from appearing in their first grand final.
The Herald spoke to Neesham about his time at the club and his thoughts on the club’s chances of winning the flag.
“We were on our bare bones, so we didn’t have the scope and time to study form,” he told the Herald of those early days. “It was pretty much just me there for a while. But’s that’s the way it was at the time.”
Neesham’s time wasn’t helped by the AFL, reluctant to give the Dockers the same draft concessions as the Eagles which entered the-then VFL in 1987. West Coast received access to 35 WA players across the league and was allowed to cherrypick six players from WAFL clubs. It went on to become an immediate powerhouse and win the flag in 1992 and 1994 under Mick Malthouse.
When the Dockers entered the expanded AFL competition in 1995, Neesham could only go after 12 uncontracted players and pick players from four WAFL clubs.
“It was made very tough for us,” he said. “I don’t think it was necessarily deliberate but you never know. The Eagles were still getting priority picks up until ‘92. The rules were very tough on us.
“Any of the players we went after we didn’t get. We tried Harvey, Mercuri but we couldn’t get them.”
Despite a shallow talent pool to pick from, Neesham said a number of players went on to enjoy stellar careers.
“Peter Bell and Winston Abraham went onto become premiership players, just not with the Dockers,” he said. “James Clement, Shane Parker and Dale Kickett played 200-odd games. And Shaun McManus was another bloke that played a lot of games.”
Neesham coached the Dockers in 88 games between 95-98 and was one of the first coaches to introduce teeth-grindingly annoying “chip and draw” tactics that had seen him take four flags coaching Claremont.
A gimmick
At the time the possession-at-all-costs style was lampooned as a gimmick but has since become a staple of most clubs’ tactical armoury.
Neesham—who set up the Aboriginal football development Clontarf Foundation after leaving Freo—reckons the Dockers are a good chance for the flag—he reckons against the Cats—and pays tribute to Ross Lyon for knitting individual players into a team with grit and self-belief.
“Lyon is a very good coach,” he says. “He’s got a very good bunch of players who are very competent at carrying out his game style.
“They will win this weekend and they think they can win the grand final. They comprehensibly beat Geelong at Geelong, where only two other teams beat them in 45 or something games.
“And the Hawks haven’t beaten Geelong since 2008.”
by BRENDAN FOSTER