Former Bombers on a missionSteve Butler
The West Australian
May 6, 2011Ever combative and competitive, so say their friends, former Essendon teammates Mark Harvey and Damien Hardwick will secretly covet the chance for victory over the other when Fremantle battle Richmond at the MCG tomorrow.
... it was clear this week that time had done little to weary the truculent edge that endeared both to their teammates and fans during their decorated playing careers.
"Make sure you point out that when we played together, I always had to play on my man and his," the second-year Tigers coach blurted in reference to Harvey's creative defence.
"Then when I'd call him back, he'd just turn around, glare, point a lot and yell."
Told of Hardwick's claim, Harvey's reply was just as sharp for his former teammate more than seven years his junior.
"He hated training and wore long-sleeved jumpers because he had no muscle definition whatsoever," Harvey said.
"He was a bank teller when he first played down at Essendon, that's what his job was.
"He also got his sums wrong a lot of the time - he thought he was providing a customer service to the opposition when he was on the ground so I had to direct him and tell him what to do."
Former Essendon goal-kicking gun Darren Bewick, now coaching the Eastern Ranges in Victoria's TAC Cup, was Harvey's premiership teammate in 1993 and shared in the 2000 flag with Hardwick.
Bewick said he had been surprised Hardwick had turned to coaching but not with the success of either of his former teammates.
"I certainly didn't think Dimma (Hardwick) would go on to coach because of his genuine hate for meetings," Bewick said.
"He was a completely different bloke footy-wise to family-wise. Once he crossed that white line he was totally different in the way he went about things and you wouldn't think he'd be the sort of bloke to care for a family and love his kids like he does.
"He's a really good bloke off the ground and just a competitor on it. In fact, they're both like that and you can probably see that in the way they're trying to coach their sides at the moment.
"They're fiercely competitive and if they'd played against each other it would have been the last man standing.
"I'm not surprised Damien is a real teacher and development coach because he has got patience and Harvs is obviously a little bit further down the track.
"In anything he did, he hated losing and I think he's starting to develop that trait in his team. You can see a lot of Mark Harvey traits in the way Fremantle play.
"Underneath, they'll both be seriously competitive about wanting to beat each other, with the utmost respect for each other."
Interestingly, Harvey and Hardwick are yet to match their winning records as players with success as coaches.
Hardwick's 29 per cent success rate with Richmond in his 28 games as coach is well below his impressive 70 per cent mark as a player with Essendon and Port Adelaide.
Paul Salmon booted four goals for Essendon in a four-point win over Collingwood on April 23, 1994 - the year before the Anzac Day game between the two clubs was born. Harvey starred with 21 possessions as Hardwick finally made his senior debut at the age of 21.
Salmon said it was clear the pair were "cut from a similar cloth on the field, but chalk and cheese when they were away from it".
"They've both got some common ground - they're both fierce competitors and both blokes you were happy to have in your team on that basis," Salmon said.
"Dimma was a quieter bloke off the field and I remember thinking when he first came that he was a bit like an altar boy.
"But he did his job and on the field he found another gear. Some might call it white-line fever.
Salmon agreed with Bewick that their contest in the coaching boxes tomorrow would have an extra edge.
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