Same goal, unique styles
20 April 2007 Herald-Sun
Trevor Grant
Comparing coaches: Former Hawthorn champion Dermott Brereton says comparisions will always be made between ex- teammates and turned AFL coaches Terry Wallace and Rodney Eade.COACHING talent, like beauty, is often in the eye of beholder.
And according to Dermott Brereton, skin-deep perceptions, rather than talent, are too often used by people when they try to compare his premiership mates from Hawthorn, Terry Wallace and Rodney Eade.
He says Wallace, 48, is often judged more harshly than Eade, 49, because of the way he looks.
"Rodney is now a middle-aged man with a bit of a spread and a balding pate. He appeals to people in a certain way because of this and they don't want to take him down," Brereton said this week.
"Terry is sun-tanned and a supremely fit mid-40s man. He holds those looks proudly. He changed the coaching uniform at Richmond. It looks slicker now.
"There is an aspect in peoples' minds that this bloke is slick, a bit of a snake-oil salesman. They say, 'Let's not believe him and take him down when the chance is there'. But he's not that at all. He's an exceptionally good coach."
The ongoing comparison between the pair continues tonight when Wallace's Tigers take on Eade's Western Bulldogs at the MCG.
While they played together on the centre line at Hawthorn for nine seasons, which included the 1978, 1983 and 1986 premierships, there has been a perception that, as with the teams they coach, they do not get on.
"I've heard that before but I never saw any signs of that in all the time I have known them," said Brereton, who played at Hawthorn from 1982-92.
He said they were very different personalities who had different ways of achieving the same objective.
"When I played with them, Terry would die for the team. No problem whatsoever. Off the ground he was approachable, amenable, great fun to be around. But football never entered into the conversation. You really had to prise things out of him.
"Whereas Rodney was the bloke I could go and ask about any player and what to do in a situation. He'd very free-flowing and open with his advice.
"Both would do right by their teammates and the team but from a different angle.
"Actually I think Jason (Dunstall) and Terry are very similar characters.
"They were team-oriented once they pulled on the jumper but focused to the point of selfishness once they stepped outside the ground."
He said while Wallace was perceived, wrongly, as a master of spin, "Rodney has had his detractors as well.
"He can be brusque and his acid tongue has gone against him in the past. His demeanour when he was younger, as a player and coach, worked against him for a while," Brereton said.
"They are both outgoing people, but Rodney uses humour to defuse situations while Terry would want to explain things more.
"Rodney's really a rogue who has learned how to cover up that side of him, whereas Terry has a playboy streak in him as well as immense pride."
Brereton played in two of his five premierships with Wallace and Eade -- 1983 and '86 -- and regards both men as close mates and brilliant coaches.
So it was understandable he paused when asked which one he would employ to coach for his life.
"I'd be happy with both but I would select Rodney. I like the way he looks down into the fibres of the individuals he coaches so he can understand them," Brereton said, before adding that he couldn't really split them.
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