Legendary coach Mick Malthouse has been inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame
Mick Malthouse had one simple message for his players — “Don’t count the games, make the games count”. The legendary coach clearly lived by his own advice and has been officially recognised with induction into the Hall of Fame.
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The first thing Mick Malthouse said to Gillon McLachlan when the AFL chief told him of his elevation into the Australian Football Hall of Fame was that he hoped it “wasn’t about numbers”.
Malthouse, 65, explained: “My preaching to my players was always ‘Don’t count the games, make the games count’.”
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“When I got the call from Gill, my immediate reaction was ‘I hope it isn’t about numbers’ … he said ‘no, it wasn’t’.”
Malthouse’s numbers are, without doubt, extraordinary.
There’s 174 games as an “honest” player (his words) with St Kilda and Richmond; 718 as a coach with Footscray, West Coast, Collingwood and Carlton; four flags (one as a player, three as a coach); 346 players coached at senior level; eight who went on to become AFL coaches.
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But his influence on the game has a far greater reach than pure numbers. It’s about passion, work ethic, resilience, a sense of team, and an insatiable drive to achieve.
To understand where those attributes came from, you have to go back to where it all began.
KID FROM WENDOUREE WEST
Nothing came easy for the Malthouse family, living in a housing commission zone known as Ballarat Common, which would become Wendouree West.
Malthouse’s father, Ray, known as ‘Hardy’ (for hard life), endured “a bloody tough life”, according to his son.
“He was paralysed when I was 12 (with auto-immune disease Guillain-Barre syndrome and a form of polio). I just admired his toughness and his strength.”
Footy was a distraction, albeit Malthouse didn’t have much choice when playing his first game for Wendouree West in the early 1960s.
“I first played when I was eight, not because I was good, but because we needed the numbers,” he said. “If you didn’t have the numbers, (the team) didn’t play.
“We went two years (without winning a game) and our first win was against the Orphanage.”
He later transferred to North Ballarat — where his father had played — with their black and white colours the reason he grew up a Collingwood supporter.
He was zoned to St Kilda, and after playing senior football as a teenager, went down for a few practice matches with the Saints — and a reality check.
“I had three practice matches (in 1972), I got a tap on the shoulder, and someone said ‘Listen son, thanks for coming down … we want you to go back to Ballarat and enjoy your footy, because you won’t make it’,” he said.
BECOMING A SAINT
Malthouse did make it, after all.
One game for North Ballarat — where he kept a prolific Daylesford forward goalless until a relayed free kick just before the final siren — was the catalyst.
He returned to Moorabbin, and ended up a late inclusion for the Round 15 clash with Footscray at Western Oval, but has no recollection of it.
He was concussed. Laurie Sandilands was reported for striking.
“I remember sitting up in the stands (watching the seconds) not knowing what to do with myself, then waking up on Sunday morning, and being told I’d played a senior game,” he explained.
Malthouse “loved every moment” of his 53 games for the Saints across four-and-a-half seasons, recalling with clarity that he used to board for a time in a caravan near the ground because there was no more room inside the shared house.
He formed a basketball team of Saints players, which fortuitously led him to the woman who would become his wife, Nanette.
“We played basketball locally, and Nanette’s team did too,” he said. “We met at 19, were married at 21, and we had our first child at 23,” he said.
PUNT RD BOUND
Malthouse’s footy world changed with one phone call in mid-1976.
He “got the call from someone one day and they said ‘You are now a Richmond player’. I turned up (to Punt Rd) and got my boots on the Monday night, trained with them on the Tuesday, and was playing for them by the weekend.”
He would go on to play 121 games for the Tigers, and was a vital player in the club’s 1980 premiership team, overcoming serious knee and ankle injuries from the previous year.
“It was an interesting period, I loved it,” he said.
As far back as then, Malthouse knew he would coach one day.
“From my mid 20s, I was thinking ‘I love this game and I want to coach’. But my mind was way below anything (that happened). I was thinking about going to Ballarat, or at the very best, to an interstate job.”
BEACH TO THE BULLDOGS
Malthouse was playing with his kids on Coronet Bay beach and listening to the cricket in January 1984 when an on-air message presented an opportunity.
The radio announcer said ‘Bluey’ Hampshire had resigned as Footscray coach.
Having knocked back a coaching job at Wangaratta Rovers and been overlooked for the Central Districts role in the SANFL, Malthouse packed up the towels, headed back to Melbourne and resolved to have a crack at the Bulldogs job.
So began the career of the man who would go on to coach more VFL-AFL games than anyone in history.
“The Bulldogs would rather have a fight than a feed, and that really suited me,” he said. “We did ‘Moneyball’ (recruiting) back. We had to … because we had nothing.”
Malthouse took his young Bulldogs into a preliminary final in his second season (1985), but injuries hurt them.
He coached six seasons on the smell of an oily rag, but loved every minute of it, bar his final season in 1989, when the club was being railroaded into a merger with Fitzroy.
Ultimately, people power stopped the merger, but Malthouse had a new challenge beckoning.
TRAILBLAZING OUT WEST
Malthouse planned to spend only two seasons in Perth when he signed as coach of West Coast in 1990.
“I didn’t think a Victorian would be accepted there,” he said. “So I thought it would be two years and we’d be home.”
He lasted 10 seasons, and played finals in every one.
Malthouse bristles at suggestions the Eagles had a dream run in terms of players and facilities.
“It was quite the contrary to what a lot of people would have you believe,” he said. “There were no gifts in this. For a time we didn’t have a home ground, we used the seconds rooms at Subiaco, and I never stepped into any new rooms as coach.”
He still marvels at how his team flew 36,000 kilometres in a six-week period leading into, and including, the 1990 finals.
“We had six weeks on the road,” he said. “That was the genesis of why the Eagles became one of the most remarkable sides.”
The Eagles became the first non-Victorian club to win a premiership in 1992, and backed it up with another flag in 1994, cementing a reputation as one of the most resilient AFL sides.
Malthouse bowed out of the Eagles in a semi-final loss to Carlton at the MCG in 1999 that he maintains should have been played in Perth.
“I’m still very angry about that,” he explained.
MAGPIE CONNECTION
After taking over a wooden-spoon team at the start of the millennium, Malthouse crafted Collingwood into a cohesive unit which played off in successive Grand Finals in 2002 and 2003.
That those blue-collar teams didn’t taste the ultimate success still pains him.
“I’ve always looked back on the losses more than the wins, and I would have given everything to see that group win a premiership,” he said.
“I’ve had a medal around my neck, but I would have loved those blokes to have the chance, too.
“They (Brisbane) were like two sides in one (after the Fitzroy merger in 1996). They had a million dollar salary cap advantage; they had six All-Australians (in 2002), we had none.”
He’s still convinced Anthony Rocca’s last quarter “behind” was a goal in the 2002 Grand Final, which the Pies lost by nine points.
He is still angry with what he terms the injustice of Rocca being suspended in 2003, costing him a spot in the Grand Final, and tearing the heart out of the group.
In trying to rebuild the playing list a few years later, Malthouse transformed the game by looking to ice hockey to revolutionise interchange rotations.
He brought in a box formation used by the Romans, which was also based on Barcelona and Manchester United’s defensive skills, to push Collingwood into premiership contention again.
It almost won them a flag in 2007 (narrowly losing to Geelong in a preliminary final), but the reward came three years later when he won his third premiership as coach in 2010.
Typically, they did it the hard way, beating St Kilda after playing out a draw a week earlier.
Malthouse had agreed to a much-debated coaching transition in mid 2009, when his family was dealing with some issues.
But he says the Collingwood director of coaching role on offer at the end of 2011 wasn’t what he was promised in 2009.
So he walked away from the deal after the Magpies lost the Grand Final to Geelong.
THE BLUES
Malthouse doesn’t regret his two-and-a-half seasons as coach of Carlton, but wishes he had more time.
He knew when the men who appointed him — president Stephen Kernahan and CEO Greg Swann — were moved on, his cards were marked.
“I’ve been in footy long enough to know when there is a new CEO and a new president who haven’t picked you, you are in trouble,” he said.
Just a few weeks after he passed Jock McHale’s longstanding coaching games record, Malthouse was sacked by the Blues.
It wasn’t the way it was meant to end, though he doesn’t harbour recriminations, even though the Blues are still in the doldrums.
But he takes satisfaction in playing a role in getting Patrick Cripps to the club, as well as his relationship with other Blues players.
“Prior to the (2013) draft, the recruiting officer asked me which of two players I would pick,” he said. “It was rare they would do that, but I said quite frankly, ‘Why would you even think about that?’. The player I told him to pick was Patrick Cripps.”
Making it more special, Cripps is the cousins of late West Coast star Chris Mainwaring, whom Malthouse loved.
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LOVING THE GAME
His coaching days are over, but Malthouse’s love of footy endures, while working with the Sunday Herald Sun and ABC radio.
He loves spending time with Nanette and his four children, and has his ninth grandchild on the way.
His advice to anyone looking to embark on a coaching career is simple — “Live and die by your own sword, and not someone else’s.”
Malthouse did that, and those around him reaped the rewards.
Originally published as Legendary coach Mick Malthouse has been inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame
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