bornadog
01-04-2012, 01:16 AM
Herald Sun (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/western-bulldogs-coach-brendan-mccartney-instills-his-mantra/story-fnctrk3q-1226315275274)
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa198/mmsalih/275450-brendan-mccartney.jpg
GET in." The first time Matthew Boyd heard the words that would become an integral part of the Western Bulldogs' 2012 pre-season came on Grand Final day last year.
Boyd was watching the game on TV at home, and as Geelong started to overwhelm Collingwood with relentless pressure, the text messages sent from his new coach Brendan McCartney, appointed only weeks earlier, gave more than a hint of what the Bulldogs could expect.
And what would be demanded of them.
The Western Bulldogs captain recalled this week: "I remember him (McCartney) sending me the text as soon as Geelong was coming back. It was just saying that you needed to get in (to win the footy).
"That's how he wants us to play. We've always been a good contested side, but he left me in no doubt that it was going to be a really big focus for us."
McCartney, one of a rare breed to have not played a VFL-AFL game and yet become a league coach, smiles when talking about the words that have effectively become his catchcry at the Whitten Oval.
"They laugh about it a bit here," McCartney said. "Get in ... the players think it is my favourite saying. It is fair to say that every now and again I find myself saying it."
Chances are, if those two words are not on the whiteboard at Etihad Stadium before today's game against West Coast, they will be firmly fixed in the minds of the Western Bulldogs players ahead of McCartney's first game as a senior AFL coach, and what amounts to a sort of rebirth for the club he has long respected.
Scratch a little beneath the surface and you also find those words have driven 51-year-old McCartney through his life in football - first as a player in 87 games with Newtown in the Geelong Football League and, more importantly, in his two decades as a coach and developer of young men.
They encapsulate what McCartney's late father, Graeme, tried to impart to him and his siblings in their formative football years.
Having played one game for Richmond in 1957 - three years before McCartney was born - Graeme was a bush legend at clubs such as Nyah, Nyah West, Ultima and St Pats in Ballarat.
And, as a coach, he taught the game to young men, as well as helped to pay the first two family homes off with the proceeds of his coaching.
"I think if you are a dad, or you are getting young people to learn the game, you just want to help encourage them that when it is your turn to go for the ball, you have to go," McCartney said this week.
Did he follow his father's advice as a player?
"Yes, I was a bit silly. Sometimes I wouldn't see the other people going and I would run into them."
It's that passion for the game, and taking it head on, and that passion for teaching and for building relationships that has seen Brendan McCartney become one of the most respected men in the AFL in recent years.
Just under 20 years ago, in 1993, he was getting paid $2000 to coach Ocean Grove in the Bellarine Football League.
"Not a great hourly rate," he joked.
But after four successive premierships with "the Grubbers" - a team that had never previously won a flag - McCartney's pathway saw him coach Richmond's reserves; spend 11 seasons helping to shape and develop the great Geelong playing list under another of his mentors, Mark Thompson; have a year alongside Thompson and James Hird as an assistant coach at Essendon; and now it has taken him to the Western Bulldogs as senior coach.
Coaches are defined by their experiences and environments. In that regard, McCartney is no different to the other four first-time AFL senior coaches this weekend - Nathan Buckley, Brenton Sanderson, Scott Watters and Mark Neeld (who also happened to coach Ocean Grove, also taking them to four successive flags).
It's just that McCartney's journey has been longer and less traditional, but with arguably more on-the-ground training and play-book experiences.
Noted football analyst David King said recently that of all the "rookie" AFL coaches this year, he believed McCartney would make the most immediate impact on his club.
McCartney said he would have "probably laughed" if someone had suggested 20 years ago that he would be coaching an AFL side in 2012.
"I just started coaching a club that I loved (Newtown reserves in 1990), that I had played at all my life," he said.
"I wanted to help some young people and help it be a better club. Then I was given the responsibility to coach Ocean Grove in my own right, and straight away you feel the responsibility to do a good job for the people at the club. It was the same thing that I first felt here (at the Bulldogs)."
That sense of responsibility drives him every day - from the moment that he leaves home on the grounds of Geelong Grammar, where his wife Kirsty runs Clyde House, the senior girls' boarding school, until he returns home after long and productive days at the Whitten Oval, where his office doesn't particularly need a door. It is always open.
The drive takes 35 minutes if he leaves early enough, which is often, and around an hour when he is later, which is not often.
There's always the stop-off at the Werribee roadhouse on the way where he has a sandwich, a coffee and a chat with three of the ladies - Vicky, Lorraine and Mary - and on the return home there's the phone calls he makes to his players.
I remember him (McCartney) sending me the text as soon as Geelong was coming back. It was just saying that you needed to get in (to win the footy). "That's how he wants us to play.
"I like to speak to them when they least expect me to call," he said. "I like to find out how they are going. I really enjoy that aspect of coaching."
McCartney lives and breathes the game. So much so that another of his daily rituals when he gets home is to take the family's two border collies - Jet and Clem - for a walk through the school grounds and Corio foreshore, and to think some more footy.
Two weeks ago, when he returned home after the walk, he was so deep in thought that he hadn't realised one of the dogs was missing.
"I hadn't even realised that he (Jet) had run off chasing rabbits," he said. "I had a fair bit going through my head. My wife wasn't happy with that."
The good news is that a quick search found the lost dog, which was lucky, given the dogs are a strong part of the McCartney clan that includes five children - Emily, 25, Ben, 24, Bethany, 21, Maddy, 15 and Lochy, 14.
What McCartney is certain of, though, is that the Dogs he is in charge of at the moment are anything but lost.
"I can tell you that, coaching the midfield at Geelong two and three years ago, this team was very difficult to play against around the ball and it was very difficult to play against to get the ball off," he said.
"There are a lot of things that have been right about this (Bulldogs) game. So, if anything, we are just building on what was already here. We think we are just giving it some more structure.
"I think, with our senior players, they have gone to a higher level with their strength and fitness. The ceiling is not shut on our senior players. They are fitter and stronger than they have ever been. And our young players are good enough; they just don't have the profile."
Already the Bulldogs have made a pre-season statement that winning contested ball is a non-negotiable. They averaged 13.5 more contested possessions than the opposition in the NAB Cup - ranked a clear No.1.
The other subtle changes included a high disposal rating, via short kicking and handballs, as well as a tendency to play more about the boundary line - the most of any team.
McCartney was sold on the Bulldogs from the time he was approached to apply for the position. Six months on, that feeling has only strengthened.
"I love the place," he said. "I love the people I am working with here. I have built some really good relationships with them already.
"They are a very accepting group. They have thoroughly enjoyed their careers here and they saw an opportunity for some change - not necessarily a need for one - but an opportunity, and they have enjoyed it.
"Just being a senior coach, we are mindful that we are juggling coaching careers, players' careers and staff careers.
"And there are so many people out there who want to come to the footy and see their team play like a good team, and look after each other, and go to work and brag about their team."
In an increasingly frenetic AFL world, there are few moments left for self-satisfaction. For the coach, one of them is seeing the improvement in young players.
The other, McCartney says, is the "little 50m walk" around the boundary seeing how happy the fans are after a win. He hopes to see a bit of both in 2012 and beyond.
McCartney has embraced the Bulldogs wholeheartedly. Speak to anyone associated with the club and you know the Bulldogs have embraced him back.
All that remains is for the players to "get in" and endeavour to make it happen.
McCARTNEY ANSWERS THE BULLDOGS' BURNING QUESTIONS?
IS Brian Lake in a better place physically and mentally compared with last year?
He is. We had a chat on the third day after I was appointed and it was a really good chat for about two or three hours.
It was just about me getting an insight into Brian as a person, having never met him, and probably outlining to him where I wanted to go with player leadership and where I wanted to go with his role in the team.
It was also about balancing our expectations with players. In Brian's case, it wasn't about him starring, it was about him helping the backline function as a group.
There are certain ways to play and certain ways we need him to work within the group. And there are certain things we would rather see less of. It is OK to chat, but it is also about how I interact with the players.
If I was asking him to be measured, consistent and diligent, then I have to do that, too.
Can Adam Cooney get back to his best after his knee problems?
There are going to be weeks when it will be a challenge for him, and he has said that. He has also reset some expectations of himself.
Externally, people might look for the dazzling brilliance that has always been there. Some weeks he might be able to deliver that, so when you can't, you still need to turn up and do your bit for the team.
Adam sees the game remarkably well. He is in a good position where he can share his knowledge with the younger guys.
Who's going to kick all the goals?
Do we get pessimistic because Barry Hall is gone? Do we replace him in a month? No, you can't do that because he is an all-time great.
Or do we get optimistic and say we have five or six young players who aren't dominating games yet, but I can tell our supporters that they are outstanding young men? They have the chance to build a career here. I would much rather take the optimistic view.
Why wasn't Steven King suspended for his drink-driving charge?
My immediate reaction was a bit of annoyance. My next reaction was, "Thank God no one was hurt". My third point was this is not great for our footy club and what sort of example are we setting?
Then it quickly got back to catching up with him and seeing how distraught and upset he was. He is a good human. People are going to make mistakes.
Eventually people behave their way up the ladder in an organisation or they behave their way out of it. That's where we are at.
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa198/mmsalih/275450-brendan-mccartney.jpg
GET in." The first time Matthew Boyd heard the words that would become an integral part of the Western Bulldogs' 2012 pre-season came on Grand Final day last year.
Boyd was watching the game on TV at home, and as Geelong started to overwhelm Collingwood with relentless pressure, the text messages sent from his new coach Brendan McCartney, appointed only weeks earlier, gave more than a hint of what the Bulldogs could expect.
And what would be demanded of them.
The Western Bulldogs captain recalled this week: "I remember him (McCartney) sending me the text as soon as Geelong was coming back. It was just saying that you needed to get in (to win the footy).
"That's how he wants us to play. We've always been a good contested side, but he left me in no doubt that it was going to be a really big focus for us."
McCartney, one of a rare breed to have not played a VFL-AFL game and yet become a league coach, smiles when talking about the words that have effectively become his catchcry at the Whitten Oval.
"They laugh about it a bit here," McCartney said. "Get in ... the players think it is my favourite saying. It is fair to say that every now and again I find myself saying it."
Chances are, if those two words are not on the whiteboard at Etihad Stadium before today's game against West Coast, they will be firmly fixed in the minds of the Western Bulldogs players ahead of McCartney's first game as a senior AFL coach, and what amounts to a sort of rebirth for the club he has long respected.
Scratch a little beneath the surface and you also find those words have driven 51-year-old McCartney through his life in football - first as a player in 87 games with Newtown in the Geelong Football League and, more importantly, in his two decades as a coach and developer of young men.
They encapsulate what McCartney's late father, Graeme, tried to impart to him and his siblings in their formative football years.
Having played one game for Richmond in 1957 - three years before McCartney was born - Graeme was a bush legend at clubs such as Nyah, Nyah West, Ultima and St Pats in Ballarat.
And, as a coach, he taught the game to young men, as well as helped to pay the first two family homes off with the proceeds of his coaching.
"I think if you are a dad, or you are getting young people to learn the game, you just want to help encourage them that when it is your turn to go for the ball, you have to go," McCartney said this week.
Did he follow his father's advice as a player?
"Yes, I was a bit silly. Sometimes I wouldn't see the other people going and I would run into them."
It's that passion for the game, and taking it head on, and that passion for teaching and for building relationships that has seen Brendan McCartney become one of the most respected men in the AFL in recent years.
Just under 20 years ago, in 1993, he was getting paid $2000 to coach Ocean Grove in the Bellarine Football League.
"Not a great hourly rate," he joked.
But after four successive premierships with "the Grubbers" - a team that had never previously won a flag - McCartney's pathway saw him coach Richmond's reserves; spend 11 seasons helping to shape and develop the great Geelong playing list under another of his mentors, Mark Thompson; have a year alongside Thompson and James Hird as an assistant coach at Essendon; and now it has taken him to the Western Bulldogs as senior coach.
Coaches are defined by their experiences and environments. In that regard, McCartney is no different to the other four first-time AFL senior coaches this weekend - Nathan Buckley, Brenton Sanderson, Scott Watters and Mark Neeld (who also happened to coach Ocean Grove, also taking them to four successive flags).
It's just that McCartney's journey has been longer and less traditional, but with arguably more on-the-ground training and play-book experiences.
Noted football analyst David King said recently that of all the "rookie" AFL coaches this year, he believed McCartney would make the most immediate impact on his club.
McCartney said he would have "probably laughed" if someone had suggested 20 years ago that he would be coaching an AFL side in 2012.
"I just started coaching a club that I loved (Newtown reserves in 1990), that I had played at all my life," he said.
"I wanted to help some young people and help it be a better club. Then I was given the responsibility to coach Ocean Grove in my own right, and straight away you feel the responsibility to do a good job for the people at the club. It was the same thing that I first felt here (at the Bulldogs)."
That sense of responsibility drives him every day - from the moment that he leaves home on the grounds of Geelong Grammar, where his wife Kirsty runs Clyde House, the senior girls' boarding school, until he returns home after long and productive days at the Whitten Oval, where his office doesn't particularly need a door. It is always open.
The drive takes 35 minutes if he leaves early enough, which is often, and around an hour when he is later, which is not often.
There's always the stop-off at the Werribee roadhouse on the way where he has a sandwich, a coffee and a chat with three of the ladies - Vicky, Lorraine and Mary - and on the return home there's the phone calls he makes to his players.
I remember him (McCartney) sending me the text as soon as Geelong was coming back. It was just saying that you needed to get in (to win the footy). "That's how he wants us to play.
"I like to speak to them when they least expect me to call," he said. "I like to find out how they are going. I really enjoy that aspect of coaching."
McCartney lives and breathes the game. So much so that another of his daily rituals when he gets home is to take the family's two border collies - Jet and Clem - for a walk through the school grounds and Corio foreshore, and to think some more footy.
Two weeks ago, when he returned home after the walk, he was so deep in thought that he hadn't realised one of the dogs was missing.
"I hadn't even realised that he (Jet) had run off chasing rabbits," he said. "I had a fair bit going through my head. My wife wasn't happy with that."
The good news is that a quick search found the lost dog, which was lucky, given the dogs are a strong part of the McCartney clan that includes five children - Emily, 25, Ben, 24, Bethany, 21, Maddy, 15 and Lochy, 14.
What McCartney is certain of, though, is that the Dogs he is in charge of at the moment are anything but lost.
"I can tell you that, coaching the midfield at Geelong two and three years ago, this team was very difficult to play against around the ball and it was very difficult to play against to get the ball off," he said.
"There are a lot of things that have been right about this (Bulldogs) game. So, if anything, we are just building on what was already here. We think we are just giving it some more structure.
"I think, with our senior players, they have gone to a higher level with their strength and fitness. The ceiling is not shut on our senior players. They are fitter and stronger than they have ever been. And our young players are good enough; they just don't have the profile."
Already the Bulldogs have made a pre-season statement that winning contested ball is a non-negotiable. They averaged 13.5 more contested possessions than the opposition in the NAB Cup - ranked a clear No.1.
The other subtle changes included a high disposal rating, via short kicking and handballs, as well as a tendency to play more about the boundary line - the most of any team.
McCartney was sold on the Bulldogs from the time he was approached to apply for the position. Six months on, that feeling has only strengthened.
"I love the place," he said. "I love the people I am working with here. I have built some really good relationships with them already.
"They are a very accepting group. They have thoroughly enjoyed their careers here and they saw an opportunity for some change - not necessarily a need for one - but an opportunity, and they have enjoyed it.
"Just being a senior coach, we are mindful that we are juggling coaching careers, players' careers and staff careers.
"And there are so many people out there who want to come to the footy and see their team play like a good team, and look after each other, and go to work and brag about their team."
In an increasingly frenetic AFL world, there are few moments left for self-satisfaction. For the coach, one of them is seeing the improvement in young players.
The other, McCartney says, is the "little 50m walk" around the boundary seeing how happy the fans are after a win. He hopes to see a bit of both in 2012 and beyond.
McCartney has embraced the Bulldogs wholeheartedly. Speak to anyone associated with the club and you know the Bulldogs have embraced him back.
All that remains is for the players to "get in" and endeavour to make it happen.
McCARTNEY ANSWERS THE BULLDOGS' BURNING QUESTIONS?
IS Brian Lake in a better place physically and mentally compared with last year?
He is. We had a chat on the third day after I was appointed and it was a really good chat for about two or three hours.
It was just about me getting an insight into Brian as a person, having never met him, and probably outlining to him where I wanted to go with player leadership and where I wanted to go with his role in the team.
It was also about balancing our expectations with players. In Brian's case, it wasn't about him starring, it was about him helping the backline function as a group.
There are certain ways to play and certain ways we need him to work within the group. And there are certain things we would rather see less of. It is OK to chat, but it is also about how I interact with the players.
If I was asking him to be measured, consistent and diligent, then I have to do that, too.
Can Adam Cooney get back to his best after his knee problems?
There are going to be weeks when it will be a challenge for him, and he has said that. He has also reset some expectations of himself.
Externally, people might look for the dazzling brilliance that has always been there. Some weeks he might be able to deliver that, so when you can't, you still need to turn up and do your bit for the team.
Adam sees the game remarkably well. He is in a good position where he can share his knowledge with the younger guys.
Who's going to kick all the goals?
Do we get pessimistic because Barry Hall is gone? Do we replace him in a month? No, you can't do that because he is an all-time great.
Or do we get optimistic and say we have five or six young players who aren't dominating games yet, but I can tell our supporters that they are outstanding young men? They have the chance to build a career here. I would much rather take the optimistic view.
Why wasn't Steven King suspended for his drink-driving charge?
My immediate reaction was a bit of annoyance. My next reaction was, "Thank God no one was hurt". My third point was this is not great for our footy club and what sort of example are we setting?
Then it quickly got back to catching up with him and seeing how distraught and upset he was. He is a good human. People are going to make mistakes.
Eventually people behave their way up the ladder in an organisation or they behave their way out of it. That's where we are at.