Danny Frawley reflecting on his time as Richmond's coachHerald-Sun
15 October 2017DF: The plan was for me to go back and help Barks [Trevor Barker, then Sandringham's coach] after a bit of experience with Collingwood. And then the great man died. I thought, what do I do now? I was on a bit of an island. I coached for another two years, and then the Richmond job came up. I thought, there it is. I’m ready to go. Collingwood were a great club, and they gave me a great opportunity. I was probably 1000 to 1 to get the job, but I interviewed quite well. It came down to two, and I got it. It was about me trying to achieve what was a little bit of a black hole as a player. I was going to coach a flag — the thing I didn’t achieve as a player. I had a little bit of success early, and then quite amazingly, I was 36 when I coached Richmond to the prelim.
HM: That’s bloody young.
DF: It was — but I was out of the game at 41, yet at the age of 54 now, in any other world sport I should be coaching in my prime! In 2001 we had a first-time coach in me, we had a first-time footy ops in Trevor Poole, we had a first-time CEO in Mark Brayshaw, and we had a first-time president in Clinton Casey. We wanted to win a flag. We were beaten quite comfortably by Brisbane in the prelim. At that stage I knew Brisbane were going to be a great team, but I didn’t know they were going to be the greatest team of all time. I thought the year was still a success. We’d come third, and as coach I had a win-loss record of around 61 per cent in my first two years. The great Leigh Matthews, one of the greatest coaches of all time, retired at around that percentage, so I thought I was the man! After a poor season in 2004 I resigned with nine games to go, and the easiest thing to do was to walk away. I should have, but I’d signed a deal with Richmond to coach to the end of 2004, and I thought being a man of my word, I’d do it.
HM: And just like that, a coaching career was over?
DF: I was waiting for the phone to ring after Richmond, and it never did. I was as low as shark poo, but I didn’t want anyone to know that.
HM: Embarrassed?
DF: A bit, and empty and lonely too. A week after I’d left Richmond, I could have had the going-away party in a telephone box and still had plenty of room! I had to sell my house because I thought I would be coaching ongoing and had bought a house with a bigger mortgage — but that’s fine; people have pressures. That didn’t worry me, because we bought a beautiful house around the corner.
HM: It can’t be healthy, coaching. Forget the departure, but the week-by-week analysis, criticism and critique of a coach is beyond almost any other profession.
DF: It is, and it’s interesting when I look back at my time. I was like that bloke from the Monty Python film with no arms and no legs …
HM: … just a flesh wound.
DF: Just a flesh wound, but I could still bite your kneecaps off. That was me. It really hit home for me on a Friday night, when we were beaten by 80 points. There was a young lad there that had too much to drink, and he actually spat on me.
Being escorted by security guards after a game against Adelaide.
HM: This was a spectator at the game?
DF: It was. It wasn’t a great night for the club, or me, or the players. The whole week was just bizarre. All of a sudden the Frawley name was put into disrepute. I heard my sister on the radio crying, saying “Danny’s a good fella”. We played Hawthorn on the Friday night seven days later, and a whole bus load of family and friends came down from Bungaree. I lost it. We won the game, but I walked into the footy ops afterwards and said: “I’m done. I don’t care whether we get in the finals; I’m done”.
HM: What was next?
DF: I left Richmond and got into the media and went to Triple M.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/danny-frawley-my-secret-pain/news-story/b22c860a7a6ec4fdad9e83c612b68ff4
