Considered Cotchin talks about terrible 2016 season, fighting footy stereotypes, Dustin Martin
Hamish McLachlan
Sunday Herald Sun
April 1, 2018
TRENT Cotchin. Footballer. Best and Fairest. Brownlow medallist. Premiership captain. Father of two. Level headed. Wise beyond his years. Caring. Generous. Humble. Considered and thoughtful. A ripper.
HM: How were your days spent growing up?
TC: I think being a typical kid, Hame! I grew up in Reservoir with a pretty big back yard, and I spent a lot of time with Dad kicking the footy. We had a bike track next door, so golf and footy, any sort of sport, really, was played. I’m just a typical Reservoir kid!
HM: Close family?
TC: Yep, very lucky. I’ve got an older and a younger sister. We spent a lot of time together. The younger one is a little bit further apart in years than my older sister and I. We all played together a lot, knocked teeth out with indoor basketball and footy games, all standard stuff.
HM: Pretty standard. When did you realise you could play football better than most around you?
TC: Umm … that’s a good question. It’s probably something the old man would be better answering. I was always a good player in the juniors, and I tried to play in the age group above what I was, or I’d fill in for the U/11s when I was U/9s, or U/13s when I was U/11s. I felt like I competed okay, but I was always very little, and that was my No. 1 concern.
HM: There must have been a point where you made the conscious decision that you didn’t want to be a chippie or a doctor or a lawyer, but you wanted to be a professional footballer. When was that?
TC: I always dreamt of being an AFL player, but if I look back now, I probably subconsciously made decisions as a year 9 or 10 student to not attend parties as much, and things like that. It wasn’t as evident in my life as it was in a lot of my friends. There were guys that were equally or similarly talented in the sport, that may or may not have gone on because of the choices they made. That’s not to say that kids shouldn’t be kids and experience that part of their life, but I think subconsciously I made that decision as early as 14 or 15.
HM: You were making those decisions because you thought “if I sacrifice now, it will help me become an AFL footballer”, or do you think it was your personality? You’re not a big drinker now.
TC: I’m not a big drinker now, but it was probably a combination. I always made sure I was in bed at a certain time the night before a game from as young as 10! In saying that, I never prepared the same way for basketball, it was just for the footy.
HM: You were made captain of Richmond at 22, the youngest Richmond captain in 100 years. When you were asked, were there any reservations?
TC: None. There was a lot excitement and a bit of angst, but the thing that I now know is how much I didn’t know. If I had have known what I needed to know, I would have been s--- scared.
HM: I assume you thought you were ready.
TC: I did, but I wasn’t. I don’t think you can ever be ready.
HM: What do you know now that you didn’t then?
TC: My greatest lesson I’ve learnt came to me even as late as the 2016 off-season. I started to realise that I didn’t need to be Luke Hodge or Nick Riewoldt or Joel Selwood. I just needed to find Trent Cotchin and be the best version of me. That’s been an incredible learning for me.
HM: Who opened that door of awareness for you?
TC: Ben Crowe, who’s now a great friend. It wasn’t just about leadership and managing a team in a sense, but his No. 1 focus for me was just finding myself initially, and then determining how we would build on that once that was achieved.
HM: How did you end up talking with Ben, who has become a mentor of yours? Who introduced you?
TC: It was the morning after the 2016 Best and Fairest. I was at Crown, and I was battling a bit with a whole host of things, and (wife) Brooke and I had a conversation, and it was sort of a “what the f--- is happening with me” conversation. It was Neville Crowe’s funeral later that morning, and I spent a good hour or so on the phone to Brooke’s dad. He was talking about how he engaged with a business mentor or a life coach — however you want to put it. He put me in touch with his, and I just opened up to Dimma at the funeral. Dimma was feeling vulnerable at that time too, and he said that he was starting to see Crowey and it was really helping. I met with Ben and just connected straight away. I caught up with him and didn’t really look back.
HM: You were obviously feeling a little lost or vulnerable to ring your father-in-law, Rick Kennedy, looking for help?
TC: I think I plummeted without knowing that I’d plummeted after the 2016 season finished. Articles were still being written about me and the club. We’d had a horrible year, we were all in a bit of a free-fall. I probably don’t speak enough about the support Brooke is. She suggested that I call her dad. I also spoke to Gerard Murphy that morning; he was our leadership co-ordinator at the club at that time.
HM: Was the negativity coming through both the mainstream and social media affecting you?
TC: Yeah, it was, even though I was thinking I could block it out. I’ve always been one of those people that can say, “you know what, it’s just a keyboard warrior”, but I think the two sort of collided, and it got to me. If a journalist writes an article about your performance on the weekend, or about you not being a leader that people are expecting, then you’ve got people on social media piling on, it can get heavy. I think that was when the cracks started to appear, and it split open.
HM: And you got your head around it with help?
TC: Yeah … the greater awareness you have of yourself and what is truly important to you, and which opinions really matter, you build your resilience, and you effectively create a shield and you don’t care about what’s said.
HM: I can’t remember who it was I read who recently said: “What other people think of me is none of my business.”
TC: Yep, it’s the perfect way of approaching it.
HM: So what about those around you that aren’t as philosophical and as strong as you. How badly do you reckon they get affected?
TC: I reckon that’s the biggest part about why athletes start to suffer. Partners, parents, family, friends; they’re the ones that read most of it, because typically you’re educated not to read it or to ignore it. They don’t have the same coping mechanisms, nor do they have the opportunity to go out there and prove people wrong on the weekend or in training, or speak about it if they get a chance. The more of a burden it starts to become for them, the more it affects the way they behave, or the way they speak to you and pass on information. I think it snowballs, and those cracks become even bigger.
HM: It’s a privileged life. You get to play the game you grew up loving, you get well looked after, but you are highly scrutinised. You are judged, criticised, analysed. That’s the price you pay?
TC: I think it’s also the perspective you have on why or how they judge you. Typically, a football club is judged on wins and losses, but if you’re really confident with the work you’re doing inside the four walls, the growth you’re having from the brand of footy you’re playing, or the work you’re doing from a culture aspect; these are the things that people commentating on the game don’t really understand and don’t know. If you don’t focus too much on the outcome and just focus on the things that are actually going well for you, then typically those judgments shouldn’t affect you as much.
HM: Depending on who you listened to, Damien Hardwick “had to go” from the Richmond Football Club at the end of 2016. If the board listened to the noise outside or didn’t know itself as well as it does, there’s a high chance the Richmond Football Club wouldn’t be the premiers. It says a lot about the strength of the club’s leadership.
TC: Absolutely. That’s right. If you took the populist view from outside at the time, Dimma probably goes. But the populist view, although easy to take, isn’t always the right one. I commended Peggy, Brendon and the board in my season launch speech. They stood firm. Dimma was the right man, they knew that, and they didn’t get swayed by people yelling opinions formed with limited information.
