Cloke and dagger
Jake Niall | August 10, 2007 | The Age
AS HE considers the fate of all three of his sons, David Cloke now regrets that each of them went to the same club.
The Clokes' desire to keep the brothers together in black and white ended abruptly in 2006, when Collingwood could find room only for the youngest and most gifted of David and Julie's progeny.
"Probably in hindsight, it was the wrong decision sending the three boys all to the one club," Cloke snr, who also manages his sons, admitted yesterday.
"But at the time, you make the decision you think is best, and look, probably as well, Richmond were going through a number of problems … at that stage, they hadn't appointed a coach. They were in financial troubles, president troubles.
"The way Collingwood was going with the stability they had, probably, you know, that was probably the better direction to go at that stage."
The time referred to by Papa Cloke was the middle of 2004, when, after much negotiation, intrigue and covert work by both Collingwood and Richmond, the Magpies secured the prize signature of Travis — a process that famously involved Eddie McGuire being assailed by a pony, when he and chief executive Greg Swann went to the Cloke home to close the deal.
If the father has reason to question the family's decision to send all three sons to his second club, then the Richmond Football Club, too, must have wondered since whether it could or should have pursued all the boys without hesitation, and not just the prized third son.
For the principal reason that Travis Cloke will wear vertical stripes and not a yellow sash tonight is that the Magpies were prepared to punt on the less-gifted elder sons — a calculated, blind gamble that has turned two third- and a second-round draft pick into a winning lottery ticket, a veritable Cloke-lotto.
Only this season has it become clear what was at stake, as Travis emerged from his teenage cocoon to become a powerful centre half-forward, who, with better conversion earlier this season, would be in the All-Australian conversation, at the least.
In 1982, David Cloke crossed from Richmond to Collingwood, the first shot in what became a vicious recruiting war between these ferocious neighbours, a conflict that proved ruinous for both clubs, especially the financially wounded Tigers.
The battle for David's third son was much less dramatic, but in these days of a restrictive draft system, it was one of those rare occasions when two clubs actually vie for the services of a player, and are permitted to cajole and make promises — while rubbishing one another — in a bid to get a signature.
What all parties now agree upon is that the 2000 decision by Collingwood to secure the eldest son, Jason, who would play 76 games for the Magpies over five seasons, and then brother No. 2 Cameron, placed Collingwood in pole position for Travis. "There's no doubt about that," said Greg Miller, Richmond football director, who would seek to play catch-up in 2004, to no avail.
Miller offered Travis a four-year contract on pretty generous terms, forcing the Magpies to match it. To this day, the only small satisfaction he has from the contest is that the Tigers "cost Collingwood a bit of money".
Travis' first contract had a clause saying that he could renegotiate the terms of that fourth year, if he wished, at the end of 2007 — fine print that his manager and father already has acted upon. "We've had some initial talks and may be extending that contract further," said David Cloke, who now will be able to obtain a sizeable pay increase for Travis.
Miller had been well aware of Travis Cloke's talent, as his comments to an associate back in 2004 attested, when he rated him among the top three or four players in the draft. "He's a great player," Miller said yesterday. "I'm really impressed."
Back when Jason was up for grabs, Julie and David had stated their preference that the sons play for the same team. The Magpies said they would try to accommodate this, but did not give guarantees.
"We said, 'Within reason, we'll try to make that happen,' " said Neil Balme, the then Collingwood and now Geelong football manager, who, like Mick Malthouse, was a former Richmond teammate of Cloke snr. One of the many oddities of the Cloke contest was that the Magpies, with Balme, Malthouse and (another former Richmond person) recruiter Noel Judkins, probably had as many Richmond connections to the family as the Tigers.
If the Travis die was cast in black and white because Collingwood drafted the first brother under the father-son rule (pick No. 19), Richmond also was unlucky that the player it chose instead of Jason, Mark Coughlan, has had his knee reconstructed twice, damaging an excellent career that already counted a best and fairest in 2003.
Danny Frawley, the Tiger coach from 2000 until 2004, recalled that he went to the Cloke home to discuss Jason, and explained that while the club wanted Jason, it had a preference for midfielders.
Frawley said he wanted to draft Jason and rated him, having played him in the Richmond twos a few times that year, but the upshot was that, unlike Collingwood, it would not part with its second draft pick under the father-son rule, eventually taking Coughlan instead — a call that then seemed pretty sound.
"They ummed and erred and said, 'Oh well, look we may take him, may not.' They wouldn't make any promises," David Cloke said. "And Collingwood's attitude was we wanted him, we wanted him to come here.
"So that was where the decision was made … Danny Frawley was probably the one who at the time was saying, 'Yeah, look, he wanted him there,' others, Greg Beck, who was in the recruiting, all of sudden said, 'No, no, hang on, hang on, hang on.' And they came to us and said, 'Well, look you don't have to worry. Look, he'll get drafted'."
One myth surrounding the Clokes is that the Magpies, who were similarly unequivocal about recruiting Cameron (agreeing to draft him early in 2002, according to David), knew that the third son was "the best of the lot" — the same refrain that was said of Trevor Chappell (wrongly) and Joel Selwood (rightly).
Judkins, who was ultimately responsible for drafting the first two Clokes as father-sons, said, contrary to what has been suggested, he had no way of knowing that Travis would end up the player he subsequently became when the club drafted Jason.
"Travis was 13," he said. The youngest son had represented Victoria already in under 12s in football and cricket, but, according to dad, he was "a chubby 13-year-old" and it was until until was 14 or 15 that his eye-hand co-ordination — and size — was truly evident.
So, with two Clokes entrenched at Collingwood in 2004, Richmond's only hope was to make Travis a substantial offer, and to tell the Clokes, an extremely close-knit family, that there wasn't room for all three in one team.
"One of the things in our minds was, with Travis going to Collingwood, would the other two may have cut each other's throat in some way?" David said. "They (Richmond) pushed that line, yeah. And look, that was a concern of ours, and (it was) reinforced by Mick and Balmey and that, and they said, 'No, no, no, they're totally all different."
"That was our whole plan," said Miller, of the 'They can't play them all' strategy he employed. "That was our only hope. We were coming from a long way back."
And so Travis went to Collingwood, instead of the club for which his father played 219 games, where he was part of two premierships and which, if he sons were removed from the equation, he said he would still support first.
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