From article: How do you tell Eade and Wallace apart?
31 July 2004
Herald Sun
Bruce Matthews
RODNEY EADE Eade retired in 1990 after 259 games and started as an assistant coach with the Kangaroos.
... enhanced higher coaching ambitions by utilising their often daring methods to snare reserve grade premierships and, inevitably, ... joined the AFL senior coaches' club in 1996. Eade moved to Sydney.
"Rocket always had a very good football mind. We knew that. A very clever footballer and it probably flowed through to his coaching from a strategic point of view. He always had a retort, there was always an answer," explained Hawk premiership teammate Russell Morris, now St Kilda's corporate sales manager.
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RIGHT to the end, the coach remained true to the backman who found himself fighting well above his weight division, being battered on body and scoreboard.
When Sydney's Rowan Warfe shook hands with opponent Fraser Gehrig, he had conceded seven goals to the powerful West Coast forward. But the Swans had won the war, snapping a five-year losing streak.
Eade never wavered in his belief that eventually delivered the 19-point win under the WACA lights in Round 4, 1998.
It emphasised that the coach had retained the innovative wiles despite finding himself with a hard act to follow after steering Sydney to the Grand Final in his debut season two years earlier.
"I'm very big on including players in the discussion so that if things go pear-shaped on the weekend at least I can make a change and he knows what's going on," Eade said.
"That (Warfe-Gehrig duel) is probably a good illustration as I'm seen as making a lot of moves and throwing things around and being unpredictable. But there's a fine line of backing your players as well.
"That game we went in fairly well prepared and Rowan had six kicked on him by three-quarter time. But Rowan was the best option for us because he had great perseverance and would stick to his task and wouldn't drop his head. In the last quarter he started to generate a bit more run out of the backline and actually help set up a couple of goals."
Midfielder Wayne Schwass, now a Fox commentator, remembered it was his first season with the Swans and he still marvels at how the coach held his nerve.
"You look at a Kevin Sheedy who does the same thing, they leave players there for a particular reason even though the scoreboard may suggest a change is needed. It takes a fair amount of conviction and courage to stick with a plan and see it through.
"He (Eade) had a willingness to leave players in their position even if he thought or the supporters thought that particular person was getting beaten."
That intense my-way policy didn't always endear Eade to the Sydney management, although it seems he never lost the core of senior players.
"There was a bit of pressure applied after '96 because we got so close," former full-back Andrew Dunkley said.
"He came in very relaxed with nothing to lose because he was a new coach. He was an excellent players' person, he got on well with all the players. But he started to get a bit of pressure from above and that made it hard for him. The expectations were high and being second and third year in made his job tougher.
"I listen to his special comments on the radio and you can tell he just knows what's going on. I think the key to `Rocket' being successful again is to get the right people around him, to let him do his job.
"I felt near the end that there was no support for him at all from the directive point of view and it was just getting uglier and uglier. In any work environment, whether it's footy or whatever, if you haven't got the support, it makes it pretty tough. He knows from his experiences the sort of people he needs with him."
Eade is still living in Sydney after putting his coaching career on hold to provide support for a family illness. He won't elaborate, other than to say "things are moving in the right direction" and it doesn't hinder an interstate move.
"Everyone is going to make mistakes, whether it's coaches, players, umpires, people in business. I look back to early on when we were travelling well, the team was successful and maybe at the end the pressure got to me a little bit and I became a bit insular and tense," he said.
"I needed to be more like I was in the first four or five years with my demeanour and consistency of approach. You know not to become embroiled in issues that are out of your control.
"I've got no doubt I'll be a better coach second time around. You can analyse yourself where you can improve, the mistakes you made along the way."
What Eade won't alter is the strive to be bold. And make sure his men get an early warning of what will be the match-day card trick.
"A big part of that is educating the players during the week so that when you try something at the weekend, they're in the loop," he said.
Eade calls games for ABC Radio in Melbourne on Friday nights and covers Sydney's home games as well as putting a heavy demand on his VCR to tape the rest of the round.
"I know when I finished and after the initial three months break, you think you're right to get back into it. But the break really does enable you to clear your head. You understand better the pitfalls of the job," he said.
Geelong assistant coach Daryn Cresswell still regularly phones Eade to "pick his brain" on opposition teams.
"I was about 24 or 25 when he came to Sydney and I learnt more under him in one year in terms of tactics. In my time he's the best I've seen," he said.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,10292281%255E19742,00.html
