Stars & stoppages
Rohan Connolly | April 28, 2007
The Age
WAYNE Campbell got married late in the November before last. Two weeks later, the freshly retired Richmond star and his new wife Sarah took off overseas.
It was an expedition that started in Tahiti, then moved to the United States. The Campbells navigated most of the west coast, spent time in Seattle and Canada, Mexico, Miami, Boston, and three months in New York.
Then it was on to Europe for another four months; Italy, France, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia, among other destinations.
Campbell had poured every ounce of energy into his AFL career. Now there was a sense of relief.
"I've often said to people that I loved footy for every minute I played, but I couldn't have played another minute," he said. "I certainly didn't achieve what I wanted to achieve, but it was just at the point where it was time to do something else."
The overseas sojourn occupied 10 eye-opening months in all, and at one stage, he wasn't coming back. "It made me think about living overseas, and we almost did," he said.
But another six months down the track since his return, Campbell might have found the something else he was looking for. In the rather less exotic surrounds of Footscray. And up to his neck once more in AFL football.
A specialist stoppages coach with the Western Bulldogs, Campbell says it's a very different caper to playing, but that he's loving the differences, even if they're being discovered across town, and not half a world away.
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Campbell sees plenty of similarities between the Richmond at which he spent 15 seasons at senior level racking up 297 games, and his new football home. "Very low-key, hard-working, honest, all that sort of stuff. They haven't had the success they've been after, so they crave knowledge. They just want to be told how to be successful."
And when the two clubs met last week, Campbell was inevitably asked a lot about the supposed hostility between them. A bit of a beat-up, he thinks. "People tried to pump it up, but no one bought into it. No one really cares any more."
But Campbell is happy to admit he still cares deeply for the Tigers.
"It was the first time in my life last week that I've wanted Richmond to lose," he said. "I was a Richmond supporter when I was young, I played there, and I saw a fair bit of them over the first three rounds (this season), and I wanted them to win all those, but I really wanted them to lose round four."
Campbell still has plenty of Richmond mates: the former Tigers with whom he plays basketball, Brendon Gale, Chris Naish, Nathan Bower and Paul Broderick. More recent former Tigers like Mark Chaffey and Andrew Kellaway. Present stars Nathan Brown and the man who succeeded him as captain, Kane Johnson.
And the one who sparks perhaps more debate than any former or current Richmond player, Matthew Richardson.
"He's a champion," Campbell said, unprompted, dismissing the popular misgivings about the Tiger key forward's kicking.
"His kicking percentage is about one off (Sydney spearhead) Barry Hall's, I think, and when he misses, he tries even harder to get the ball the next time, where most people would be thinking: 'Don't give it to me, because I might miss'.
"He's played for 15 years in a side that hasn't gone that well, at a remarkably high level. To me, that's a champion.
"I think he's probably had as much thrown at him over the years as anyone, so if he can come out of that sane at the end of it all, he'll be set up pretty well for life, I reckon."
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Yet there's another potentially great memory in the making now, whether or not his first foray into AFL coaching culminates in a senior post at some stage.
"You'd like to know after a few years whether you're going to have a go at it or not," he said. "Right now, I don't know. I can't see myself being an assistant coach for 15 years. But I am very lucky to have such a good group of coaches to work with. And I know when I get in my car every day to go to work, I'm enthused."
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