Adelaide Crows premiership stars recount the brutal genius of Malcolm Blight in 1997 documentary

THE brutal genius of legendary coach Malcolm Blight has been recounted by some of Adelaide’s premiership heroes in a Fox Footy documentary celebrating 20 years since the 1997 triumph.

Malcolm Blight and Mark Bickley with the 1997 premiership cup. Both are interviewed in a Fox Footy documentary on the club’s inaugural flag to be aired on Wednesday night.

• Finals flashback: A true fairytale
• The moment that fired up Jarman to become grand final hero
• Adelaide ‘has best chance to win premiership since Blight era’

THE brutal genius of legendary coach Malcolm Blight has been recounted by some of Adelaide’s premiership heroes in a Fox Footy documentary celebrating 20 years since the 1997 triumph.

In a one-hour special to air on Wednesday night, maligned ruckman David Pittman, Norm Smith Medallist Andrew McLeod and Mark Bickley have revealed how Blight knew exactly how to motivate and relax his players for the first of their back-to-back flags.

On the day of the grand final, McLeod said players were sitting in nervous silence eating their pre-game meal together when Blight walked in.

“He just said ‘boys, relax, everything will be all right,” McLeod recalls.

“And it was like ‘ohhhhh’ (exhales).”

Bickley told the story of how Blight had asked the players to remember to look up to the coaches’ box and give him a thumbs up after receiving Bickley’s final instructions before the bounce.

“If they could remember that, the concentration levels were pretty good, and what was I going to do? Nothing,” Blight said.

“It really was about an art of concentration ‘I wonder if they’ll do this?’ and they did, it was pretty special actually.”

Shaun Rehn and Malcolm Blight embrace after the final siren in 1997. Rehn has told how Blight’s swipe at him at half-time of the preliminary final helped him overcome the mental hurdle of a previous knee injury.

Blight started motivating his players from the moment he was appointed and made the bold call to sack Tony McGuinness, Chris McDermott and Andrew Jarman during a meeting with John Reid. All four men were interviewed in the documentary.

“It (Blight’s arrival) had a massive impact on me,” Rehn said.

“I walked out of that room for the first time he spoke and just went — ‘you got me at hello’. I could not try any harder to try to please him as a coach after what he said.”

Rehn also told the story of how Blight’s backhander at him in the rooms at half-time of their 1997 preliminary final when they trailed the Bulldogs by 31 points inspired him to throw away his knee brace and get over the mental hurdle of his injury.

“As he walks through to his coach’s room he yelled very loudly for everybody to hear ‘ruck advantage? What effing ruck advantage’ and just kept walking,” Rehn said.

It wasn’t the first time Blight had taken aim at his ruckmen.

Malcolm Blight congratulates ruckman David Pittman after the 1997 grand final victory against St Kilda.

In April 1997 he savaged David Pittman privately — with three sprays at each quarter break — and publicly post-match saying his performance was the most disgraceful he’d seen from a big man.

Pittman recalls hurting his calf at the opening bounce but Blight didn’t want to know about it and still blasted him at three-quarter-time despite not playing for an entire half.

“It was that point I thought ‘this guy has actually got a loose chip’,” Pittman said.

The documentary titled ‘Nineteen Ninety Seven’ is produced by Fox Footy presenter Tom Chadwick and also features interviews with rival players Dermott Brereton, Tony Liberatore, Brad Johnson and Nathan Burke.

It also covers the birth of the Adelaide Crows in 1991, how they had to borrow footballs from the under-18s for their first training sessions and Nigel Smart’s bizarre decision to walk on hot coals at a pre-season camp.

Nineteen Ninety Seven will air on FOX FOOTY (channel 504) this Wednesday at 8pm (SA time).