AFL great Adam Cooney on sliding at Big Freeze Geelong and coaching Geelong College school football

Adam Cooney braved the icy waters of Big Freeze Geelong, and he has also taken the plunge into coaching. And the usually cool customer says he has channelled Rodney Eade at times.

Adam Cooney was among the sliders at Big Freeze Geelong. Picture: Mark Wilson

Adam Cooney was one of the big names that went down the slide at Big Freeze Geelong last Sunday, which raised $140,000 for Fight MND.

And a mayor mix-up left the Brownlow medallist scrambling in the lead-up.

“I wanted to go as ‘Lingy’ (Cameron Ling) because now that I live down here that Lingy is Geelong’s second favourite ranga,” Cooney quipped.

“But the mayor went as him last year unfortunately, and I was thinking Gary Rohan but Gary Rohan was there himself, so I made a mad dash to the costume shop and thought I’d keep on the ginger theme and go as ‘Ginger Spice’ from the Spice Girls.”

Rohan stuck with the redhead theme himself as Chucky from Rugrats.

Cooney didn’t hesitate when he was asked to go down the slide and said the icebaths and icy cold recovery sessions helped him adjust to the freezing water.

Adam Cooney went down the slide as Ginger Spice. Picture: Mark Wilson

“It’s just such a horrible disease isn’t it, which takes away everything. Your capacity to talk, to communicate and it’s just a slow, horrible thing,” Cooney said.

“What we’ve seen over the years with Neale Daniher and what he’s been able to do and raise awareness, I think everyone has been just amazed at how well he has soldiered on and raised money and awareness towards it. When you get asked to do something like that, you put your hand up straight away to try and help out anyway you can.

“I didn’t do a lot of ice baths earlier in my career but I picked them up as I got a bit more professional, so I’m used to the cold water and going down to the beach on a Sunday morning to do your recovery is always pretty fresh.”

And the dismount. Picture: Mark Wilson

The same can’t be said for loveable Geelong water boy Sam Moorfoot, though.

“I don’t think Sammy Moorfoot handled it as well, I thought he was going to have a heart attack at one stage, he was freezing. He got the shock of his life,” Cooney said with a laugh.

Cooney has also taken the plunge into coaching over the past two seasons.

The former Western Bulldogs and Essendon star took the reins for his son Jax’s under-16s team at St Joseph’s last year, with Jax debuting for the Geelong Falcons at under-16s level this year.

Cooney then took it up a notch by joining Geelong College as their first XVIII boys coach late last year, joining an array of former AFL players in the APS competition – including Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd and Collingwood champion Scott Pendlebury at Haileybury.

He has thoroughly enjoyed offering up his wealth of experience from his 250-games at the top level and has been lauded by Geelong College football director Nathan Brown, who played 183 games for Collingwood and St Kilda, for his work with the boys program.

Relaxed as a player and in the media, Cooney has found it difficult to keep his emotions in check at times with the coaches hat on.

He has even shown shades of his former Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade – minus the expletives.

Adam Cooney has coached Geelong College this season. Picture: footballtgc Instagram

“I have channelled him a couple of times, obviously I am more the PG rated version of some of those Rodney Eade sprays, but at times I have gone a bit of Rocket. At one point I was banging my head against the Perspex glass of the bench,” Cooney said.

“The first thing that I wanted to achieve when I took over the role was to get the know the guys as well as I could. I’m a pretty emotional coach, which is strange because I wasn’t a very emotional player.

“I was a lot calmer as a player than I am as a coach, so if I do get emotional with one of the players you obviously have to follow that up and you have to have the relationship there with the player or else they lose faith in you as a coach pretty quickly.

“It has had its challenges but I have loved coaching the boys this year and we’ve won a few games which is nice. We would have liked to win a couple more, we had a heartbreaking one after the siren against St Kevin’s where we played really well.

“It has been a great year, I have really enjoyed it, the APS system is like nothing I’ve experienced before in terms of, it’s completely different to club footy. You are almost like a schoolteacher effectively, so you’re trying to teach the kids on a limited time frame, and some of the schools you come up against are pretty talented and amazing schools and kids.”

Adam Cooney has enjoyed his time coaching Geelong College this year. Picture: Instagram

He has been impressed by River Stevens in particular, whose father Anthony’s glittering career with North Melbourne was wrapping up as Cooney’s was just beginning.

“I think River Stevens is the main one who is father son this year, made the Vic Country U18 squad. He has a lot of talent and works really hard to go with that and he has got a lethal left foot,” Cooney said.

“He definitely has some AFL attributes.”

While he has enjoyed helping younger players develop in the last two seasons, don’t count on him taking his coaching to the top level.

“I don’t think I am man enough to be an AFL coach. Having said that, after coaching this year maybe I am,” he chuckled.

“Very happy with where I’m at at the moment, time is of the essence and when you’re an AFL coach you don’t get a second of your day free. So I don’t think I’m that crazy.”

Originally published as AFL great Adam Cooney on sliding at Big Freeze Geelong and coaching Geelong College school football