Brodie Smith and Tom Rockliff recount the most memorable moments under some of their former coaches in a special episode of The Lowdown

Brodie Smith takes us inside the Crows’ 5am jetty swim in the dark, the time he was roughed up in the meeting room, Walsh’s favourite sayings living on and a spray for being in the paper.

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Adelaide midfielder Brodie Smith says the 5am jetty swim in the dark under the late Phil Walsh is still spoken about at West Lakes and his favourite sayings are repeated at training as his legacy lives on.

This July will be five years since Walsh died just 12 games into his senior coaching career.

But speaking on a special coaches’ episode of The Lowdown Podcast this week, Smith said Walsh made a big impact on him in that short time and he remembered his former mentor fondly.

Even if he did make him swim to the end of Brighton Jetty before dawn after following through on a threat if the Crows lost the ‘groundball’ statistic against the Western Bulldogs in Round 4, 2015.

“We didn’t go off the jetty but we swam to the end of it,” Smith told The Lowdown.

“5am at Brighton Jetty and he said ‘if one media person rocks up, you’re all in deep trouble and we’ll go again’.

“We were sitting in the cars at 5am in the dark with our lights on and we see this old bloke walking past the cars in red Speedos and a towel over his shoulder, and sure enough it’s Walshy setting the example.

Walsh made his players swim to the end of Brighton Jetty in the dark in Round 4, 2015, but also hopped in and did the swim himself. Picture: Morne de Klerk (Getty).

“We had boys rock up in westuits and jumpers ready to go and he said ‘everything off’ so we were all down to our jocks or Speedos and in we went into the freezing cold water.

“We swam to the end of the jetty and had a meeting treading water, then swam back.

“It was a brutal, brutal morning.”

Smith said he thought Walsh might have been joking when he first raised the punishment but quickly realised he wasn’t.

“With Walshy if he said something he followed through with it, but at the same time we thought surely this can’t happen,” Smith said.

“We got a warning the week before and the next week it was against the Bulldogs and they absolutely smashed us so after the meeting we copped the spray and got the 5am see you at Brighton Jetty.

“And I remember Charlie Cameron at the time, he was the travelling emergency, he worked up the courage to put his hand up and say ‘Walshy, is it just the guys who played or everyone in the room?’

“And he got out of it, it was just the 22, but very lucky for Charles because he’s not a great swimmer so great courage.

“But I don’t think we lost contested ball for the next few weeks (after the 5am swim) so that worked and you definitely get that bond out of it.

“We still share this story to this day, whenever we go down to Brighton Jetty we say ‘do you remember the 5am in the water?’ and we tell the first-year boys those stories so you still get a lot of bonding out it.

“You do feel better as a group once it’s done but that half-an-hour in the water was one of the worst 30 minutes of my life.”

Smith admitted his first impression of Walsh was “fear” after hearing him speak at Dean Bailey’s funeral and then having him push the team so hard on their first pre-season that only nine players were still standing in the last running set before Christmas.

But Smith said that quickly developed into a mutual respect and care, and said his attention to detail lives on at the club.

“As much as he was very hard on us and pushed us, for whatever reason there was this huge amount of respect back towards him and you knew that no matter how hard he was on you, he really cared for you,” Smith said.

“The way he went about training and how training should look, doing everything right, when we walked into team meetings everyone had to be in the exact same uniform, you couldn’t have different socks, he was really particular about getting all the little things right.

“We don’t go to that extent anymore but the message of doing the little things well is still there.

“And even little things like someone at training rolling onto their left foot and hitting a kick and someone yelling out ‘that’s eliiiite’, which is one of his great sayings.

“So things like that are definitely around the footy club and I know the guys who were lucky enough to be around that year and spend time with him definitely hold a lot of his traits and characteristics close to him.”

Smith’s co-host on The Lowdown, Tom Rockliff said Walsh was also spoken about fondly at Port Adelaide where he was an assistant coach in their premiership year in 2004 and beyond.

“The guys that were under him as a midfield coach speak really highly of him, and there are still times they talk about it, Robbie (Gray) and Boaky still reminisce about what he was like and the bond they had so he is held in really high regard at the football club,” Rockliff said.

Walsh was also involved in one of Smith’s other most memorable coaching moments when he found a novel way of providing him with some feedback post-game.

“I was playing in the midfield and Walshy and Campo weren’t happy with my body work so they took me into the mids room which is 3m x 3m with a big projector and they had my clips up on the screen, showing my lack of body work around the contest,” Smith said.

“And Walshy sat on the couch and Campo got me to stand up and basically pushed me around all over the place showing me how I should do body work while Walshy sat there and critiqued my clips, so that was one of the better reviews I’ve had.”

But when he thinks of the biggest spray he’s ever copped from a coach, Smith said Brenton Sanderson took first prize.

Smith said one of the best rockets he ever got was from Brenton Sanderson on the bench one day against the Bulldogs. Picture: Sarah Reed.

“If you had a double page spread in the paper when Sando was around, usually I swear he must have put them up on his wall because he was coming after you that week to make sure you were ready to go,” Smith said.

“We were playing the Bulldogs and having a pretty ordinary start and I got down to the bench and got the phone handed to you and they say ‘it’s Sando on line b’ and you’re like ‘here we go’.

“Sure enough he answers and says ‘get your heads out of the bloody clouds, the double page spread in the paper’ and I thought ‘oh no the curse has got me’.

“I copped that one on the phone for about two minutes which was great.”

Smith said Sanderson had some of the players covered in the gym and in particular on the bench press.

“Including myself, he had me covered by a long way, it was quite embarrassing to know you could go into the weights room and the coach would be able to throw you around,” Smith said.

Rockliff’s most memorable spray was from his defensive coach at Brisbane Jade Rawlings after a loss to Melbourne.

“One that sticks out for me was in a team review, we’d just lost to Melbourne up at the Gabba and I thought I’d played a really good game - one of the best of my career,” Rockliff said.

“And Jade Rawlings who is a really good coach, a defensive coach at the time, tore absolute shreds off me.

“I think I gave away two free kicks in the second half and they were the only two goals that Melbourne kicked and we should have won the game, so he certainly didn’t miss me in the team review, it’s one that I’ll never forget.”