Clare enjoys top night with Hafey and LewisTERRY BEVAN
Northern Argus | 24/06/2009
The Valleys Lifestyle Centre was packed out last Tuesday night with around 240 people enjoying a Night on the Couch with AFL Legend Tom Hafey and former Sydney Swans star Dale Lewis.
Hafey, who will be 78 in August, began his VFL career at Richmond Football Club in 1953, playing 67 games and booting 12 goals before retiring in 1958.
Following his retirement, he took on a coaching role in the country at Shepparton in the Golden Valley League, winning a hat-trick of premierships from 1963-1965 before returning to Melbourne to coach the Richmond Tigers and what a coaching career it turned out to be.
Hafey coached Richmond from 1967-1976 for a total of 248 games, winning 173 of them with premierships in 1967, 1969, 1973 and 1974, before making the move to Collingwood in 1977 to coach the Magpies for 138 games over six years tasting success 89 times.
Geelong was the next football club to be guided by the fitness fanatic where he coached from 1983-1985 for 66 games winning 31 times and then it was up to Sydney to take on the Swans for three years before retiring in 1988 with 70 games under the belt in the harbour city with 43 wins and 27 losses.
Other career highlights for Hafey included Victorian State Coach in 1971, 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1981; Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee in 1996; Richmond Life Member; Richmond Team of the Century Coach; Richmond Hall of Fame inductee in 2002; Richmond “Immortal” conferred in 2003 and AFL Life Member.
The motivational Hafey addressed the crowd with his time coaching at Shepparton and the hat-trick of flags from 1963-65 where they were down at every break in 1965 before winning their third premiership in a row by four points. He said four of the opposing team’s players played VFL football the following year where his side had none, they were just a great “team”.
Hafey said he loved country footy and how important it is for a country town to have a football and netball club and to have good contributors throughout the club. He attends schools and talks to students about the issues with drugs and alcohol and encourages them to give everything in life their best shot.
He spoke about how many players hadbeen successful at their second AFL club after getting the stuff from their previous club because they didn’t give up and how he had some great leaders at Richmond while coaching which he didn’t have at the Collingwood Football Club.
With Hafey and Lewis settled down on the couch for the night, Matt Vandeleur began firing the questions, firstly at Hafey on the differences between coaching Shepparton and Richmond.
Hafey answered that the pressure on AFL/VFL footballers was far greater than those on country players where as after a win it was very important that when celebrating, the Richmond players didn’t do silly things outside the club and get a bad reputation.
He said the Richmond Football Club was dead against country zoning and preferred to recruit locals.
Some clubs had strong country zones where many didn’t and that Hawthorn and Carlton won many premierships from their country zoning.
Hafey said the money wasn’t real flash back then, he was on 800 pounds a year at Shepparton and when he went to Richmond he was on the same wage before he took home $8000 in his final year at the Tigers in 1976.
Vandeleur asked Hafey about his coaching days at Sydney, Warwick Capper and the Richmond reunions. Hafey said the membership grew from 8000 to a staggering 26,000 in one year with Dr Geoffrey Eddleston in control and that Eddleston was great for the Swans and he didn’t interfere with the playing side of things at the club.
Hafey was a talented footballer and, under his guidance, he nailed 92 and 103 goals before transferring to the Brisbane Bears where he only managed to bag 45, 16 and 10 goals in his three seasons because he didn’t have the respect from his team-mates. Hafey rings Capper once a month to see how he’s getting on.
As for the Richmond reunions he loves catching up with the players he coached, they come from far and wide and become quite emotional when that catch with each other and he rings them all the time to see how they’re going.
The final couple of questions fired at Hafey from Vandeleur were about the 1973 flag at Richmond and the 1977 grand final when he coached Collingwood.
Hafey began planning his assault on the 1973 Premiership five weeks after they were defeated by Carlton in the 1972 grand final and with the 1973 flag in the bag they went on to win the 1974 premiership over North Melbourne which was a rare feat to win two flags in a row.
He took Collingwood from bottom to the grand final in 1977, only to draw the game with North Melbourne and lose the following week. He was cranky with the great Phil Carmen for getting suspended as he’s always telling people “don’t do dumb things”.
On AFL Hafey and Lewis both said you’re sometimes better off watching country football these days because they still play the style of football that everybody loves and not the chipping around and messing around with the footy that the robots play today in the AFL.
In closing once again both Hafey and Lewis agreed that Ben Cousins was lucky to get another chance at AFL with Richmond after his episode with drugs and how it doesn’t send the right message to the youngsters that idolise the great players.
Full article at:
http://www.northernargus.com.au/news/local/sport/general/clare-enjoys-top-night-with-hafey-and-lewis/1549696.aspx?storypage=0
