Footy22 magazine: Get your 2022 AFL season guide

Sacked by the club he loved, Michael Voss arrived at Port Adelaide needing to learn how to teach others to do what came so easily to him.

Carlton coach Michael Voss needed to learn how to coach again after being dumped by the Brisbane Lions and arriving at Port Adelaide to begin the long campaign back to senior coaching.

Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley said Voss was a phenomenal asset at Port and, now that he was coaching again, reckoned that if Voss won a premiership at the Blues, it would surpass his achievements as a player.

Voss was a three-time premiership captain, a Brownlow medallist, a two-time league MVP and is regarded as one of the great midfield leaders of all time.

“We both love the underdog and we both love that he’s getting off the canvas,” Hinkley said. “It would be huge (if he won a flag).”

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Michael Voss holds the coach's board during an AFL practice match between the Carlton Blues and the St Kilda Saints. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Voss was sacked as coach by the club he loved in August 2013.

He joined Port Adelaide for the 2015 season.

Speaking at length to Footy 2022 magazine, Hinkley said Voss had to learn many aspects of coaching when he arrived at Port.

“He knew how to play, and at Port he learnt plenty about coaching,” Hinkley said.

“As a coach you want go out and fix it yourself. As a player, Michael could go out a fix almost any problem himself.

“Here, he had to learn how to coach the game, not just do the game, and he had to learn how to teach people with lesser talent how to do the game, and that means spending hours on that player.

“He was sensational from the start. He never had a problem with working, he was a beast when it comes to working.

“Ask Ollie Wines. He would talk glowingly of Michael.”

Michael Voss learned how to coach from Ken Hinkley at Port. Picture Sarah Reed

Wines did.

“Vossy’ is the ultimate motivator, he’s the best at motivating that I’ve ever seen in my life,” Wines said in 2021.

Asked to describe the difference in Voss from 2015 to his departure at the end of last season, Hinkley said: “It’s so clear to me. The aura and presence has never changed, the understanding and knowledge has got much greater, and he’s an educator.

“He also has a great handle on the buzz word called connection.”

Voss’ former coach Leigh Matthews said Voss now had a “good background” to go coaching.

“When he first started, he went straight from playing and he had never worked behind the scenes at a club. He got the job because of the enormous regard everyone held him in,” Matthew said.

“Now, he’s got a fantastic background.

“Sam Mitchell has had a very small coaching background and there will be exceptions to the rule, but 10 years in the system behind the scenes should be the prerequisite to go coaching.’’

Voss praised Hinkley for helping him to climb off the canvass and, after seven years as an assistant coach, hitching his career to the Blues.

“One of the big things I learnt with Ken … he helped me go to work on myself as coach, whether that was teaching people how to play the game, teaching people how to lead, or whether it was creating an environment which brought out the best in people,” Voss said.

“They were all challenges in the past seven or eight year that I grew enormously with Ken.

“I really loved my time with Ken. He taught me an enormous amount about the game and what I loved was, he gave me the room to be the coach you want to be and he always backed you in.”

CAN SAM MITCHELL EMERGE FROM CLARKO’S SHADOW?

Dual premiership player David King has backed Sam Mitchell to emerge from the giant shadow cast by Hawthorn coaching great Alastair Clarkson.

As Mitchell prepares to lead the Hawks for the first time in a practice match against Collingwood in Morwell on Friday, King says his approach will bare “little semblance” to the man he replaced in controversial circumstances late last year.

“Mitchell is part of the new wave coaching fraternity that believes in relationships over ‘x’s and o’s’ — the tactical side of the game,” King writes in his exclusive Footy 2022 magazine columns.

“Maybe the relationships up the management chain will be more important early on than those with the playing group?”

“Life after Kevin Sheedy wasn’t difficult, it was impossible for Matthew Knights at Essendon.

“It’s a different era, a different football club and it won’t be without growing pains. But I can guarantee one thing, Mitchell will be different.”

Sam Mitchell has some big shoes to fill. Picture: Michael Klein

King believes Mitchell’s challenge will be to rectify a “broken list demographic” — a shortage of high-end mid-20s draft talent across the past 10 years.

But he believes Mitchell will benefit from the return of James Sicily and Jack Gunston and be able to rebuild around a backline of Sicily, Sam Frost, Changkuoth Jiath, Blake Hardwick, Jack Scrimshaw and Grainger-Barras.

King says Mitchell’s opposing coach this Friday, Craig McRae, faces a similar challenge with the balance of his list and the depth of his rebuild.

“The major problem for McRae is the Magpies’ list is too good to completely bottom out, but not good enough to contend for the flag,” King says.

“Scott Pendlebury, Taylor Adams, Darcy Moore, Brodie Grundy, Jack Crisp, Brayden Maynard, Steele Sidebottom. They’re too stacked with high level talent to crash to the bottom of the table, while the recent draft classes continue to gain AFL experience.”

King says Collingwood’s game plan under McRae will shift from uncontested possession to “a propensity for contest” — a seismic change that will take time.

“The new coaching approach is far more prepared to engage in risk and participate in turnover football.

“It’s a reinvigorated team that has returned to the basics throughout this o -season, resetting the core fundamentals of simply winning contests.

“It’s “Fly McRae’s” Collingwood program now, so don’t be shocked if he just continues on winning, because he knows no other way.”

Read King’s analysis on every club in Footy 2022.

Can Craig McRae get Collingwood back on track? Picture: Getty Images

PETRACCA’S STUNNING NEXT MOVE AFTER FLAG TRIUMPH

Melbourne’s only Norm Smith medallist Christian Petracca has revealed he had a mere nine-day break after the club’s drought-breaking premiership before he launched back into training.

In an exclusive interview with Footy 2022 magazine, the 26-year-old midfielder said he kickstarted his preparation for the coming season with a 10km run and a gym session – in October.

“I had a lot of people saying, ‘Have a break, enjoy it’,” Petracca tells Footy 2022.

“I was like, ‘What’s to enjoy?’ We were in Covid, the outlet for me was going to the gym or for a run.

“Bella (Petracca’s partner) works from 8.30 ’til 5.30. What was I going to do? Sit on my arse all day and watch replays of the game?

“Someone sent me a tweet that someone had posted: ‘Petracca already back in the gym.’

“That’s our job, that’s what I get paid to do.

Christian Petracca wasted no time getting back to business. Picture: Getty Images

“I don’t get paid to sit on my arse, I get paid to train and get better for next year.”

Petracca said the reaction from Melbourne supporters since he and his Demon teammates ended a painful 57-year stretch without a premiership had brought a smile to his face.

“When we were out of lockdown and started to go out a bit, you’d see Melbourne fans, the smiles on their faces, and you realised what you’ve actually done in terms of breaking this curse, ending a 57-year drought,” Petracca says.

“The person we bought our house off was a massive Melbourne supporter. The mum was an elderly lady, she gave me a massive hug, which was really, really cool. I couldn’t stop smiling.”

Fox Footy commentator David King believes Melbourne and Petracca have more to give in 2022.

“No one is talking down what Petracca and Oliver have been able to do,” King told Footy 2022.

“They are the best one-two punch in the competition. There’s no talent issue, there’s no structure issue, because they are ahead of the game with what they’ve done defensively. I just think this group has a thirst for more.”

Read the full interview in Footy 2022, on sale Saturday, Feb 26 $7.95 with the Herald Sun.

Originally published as Footy22 magazine: Get your 2022 AFL season guide