Tony Shaw was an AFL legend and the games record-holder at Collingwood, but admits now he should have gone to Carlton as an assistant, rather than positioning himself as the next Magpies’ coach.
John Elliott was desperate to make Tony Shaw a rich man.
It was late 1994 and the famously brash Carlton president Elliott had summoned the recently-retired Collingwood star to his boardroom to make him a proposition.
He would be an assistant coach under the legendary David Parkin and this would be no love job.
Yet, as Shaw left Elliott’s offices with a nagging feeling of discomfort, a phone call would change the path of his coaching trajectory.
Instead of securing a lucrative position at a rival club, he would accept a Collingwood coaching role that eventually became a poisoned chalice.
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Shaw’s rejection of Elliott’s proposal saw him become Collingwood’s senior coach in a short but turbulent stint from 1996-1999, walking away and never coaching any football side again.
It was the ultimate Sliding Doors moment for Shaw.
He inherited a side from Leigh Matthews with few established stars and quickly ran into trouble coaching players who were so recently his own teammates.
He would survive a coup that saw the board try to spirit Damien Drum into the job, then was sacked the next year anyway.
Shaw left Collingwood with his head held high, sacked mid-1999 but coaching out the season as the Pies farewelled Victoria Park exactly 20 years and one week ago today.
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Regrets?
Damned straight he has a few, starting with the decision to be lured back to Collingwood against his better judgment.
“I should have taken the job at Carlton as soon as I retired,” Shaw tells the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast.
“John Elliott was pretty aggressive. I was with (Carlton CEO) Stephen Gough in John’s board room, and John said.
“You will be the highest paid second coach ever in the history of the game”.
“I had just met him and he was full of bullshit.
“I can’t remember how much they had offered me but it was more about Parko and the great honour for Parko to come to me.
“On the way home (Collingwood president) Allan McAlister rings me said, ‘We don’t know how long Leigh will be here, but 10 years is a long time to be at a club and we would like you to be the development coach to Leigh and maybe take over’. I said, ‘Why do I leave Collingwood?’.
“In hindsight I should have gone and I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get back to Collingwood, but you need to see another culture.”
THE COLLINGWOOD YEARS
Shaw retired as one of football’s iconic premiership stars.
Only four years before he had finished the 1990 season as the Norm Smith medallist and best-and-fairest winner in a drought-breaking premiership season.
Coach Matthews was famously offered the job for life, with Shaw eventually retiring with a Pies’ record 313 AFL games.
Yet he would walk away four years after starting his coaching stint never to coach another side at any level again.
Shaw is no recluse, an opinionated and entertaining special comments man for 3AW and real estate agent for McGrath Estate Agents in Greensborough.
But he admits those four seasons threw up challenges he would never have imagined.
“I probably think about the darkest moments in a lot of ways. Not to have success after four years, I don’t like losing anything let alone being sacked as a coach.
“It was rewarding in some ways but I thought I coached best in my last year and we won the wooden spoon. I didn’t identify that the whole game was turning defensive. We kicked big scores but got scores kicked against us.
“Leigh Matthews said he didn’t leave us with a lot. But I still had four years and it’s nearly enough to build and get it done, but it just didn’t work out.”
Shaw would leave a lasting legacy in his development of players like Nathan Buckley, Tarkyn Lockyer, Chris Tarrant, Scott Burns, Simon Prestigiacomo and Anthony Rocca.
But when the music stopped, he had no desire to ever coach again.
“I never coached anywhere. Not even locally. I didn’t want to.
“I had kids. Matter of fact I once said to my kid (Brayden), ‘I thought you could have done this (after a game)’.
“And he said, ‘You never think I do anything right’, and that was it.
“I used to stand over the other side of the ground with a duffel coat on with my hood over my head so they didn’t know I was there with sunglasses so they didn’t know I was watching him half the time.”
THE DRUM COUP
Shaw’s first two seasons as Collingwood coach were full of merit but short on finals appearances.
A 9-13 first season featured eight consecutive mid-season losses before a 10-12 season in 1997, again with a six-week barren patch mid-year.
But as the 1998 season drew to a close with the Pies having won only seven games, word filtered out that the Pies were trying to knife Shaw in the back.
Damien Drum was the bright young senior coaching aspirant on the scene, doing marvellous things under Ron Barassi at Sydney.
Remarkably, he was offered Shaw’s job in a decision that rocked the club to its core.
“I couldn’t believe it. The club at the end of my second year had come out and said, ‘We want to give you a two-year extension’,” says Shaw.
“I couldn’t see it coming. It was a blindsider. Lucky we had some very loyal board members. It wasn’t all the board.
“One board member called me and said, ‘This is happening’, and I said, ‘I can’t believe it’.
“I had the president in and I was pretty hard. I said, “I will never trust you again, I will never speak to you”.
I said, ‘I have got to talk to you’ and he sort of denied it and I said, ‘I know’. So be upfront.
“That was Kevin Rose. We are over it now. We speak and I had a function recently with Kevin in Collingwood for Bobby Rose. So we have got no worries now but it was ordinary.
“Egos brought down empires and they destroy clubs.
“No disrespect to Drummy. If it was Allan Jeans or Kevin Sheedy, but Drummy wasn’t a household name and hadn’t done a lot.
“So I was dirty. We weren’t far away in those first two years so it was just a shock.
“I was still thinking I could turn it around. I am an upfront person and I was taught that’s the best way to be.
“I am over it now but it was, at the time, a very low act from someone at the footy club.”
Danny Frawley was an assistant at the time, telling Sacked the club went as far as getting recruiters to present to Drum on the list.
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“(Collingwood recruiter) Noel Judkins was a great mentor to me. They thought they were doing the right thing at the time and they had advised Damien, you are going to be the next coach,” Frawley said.
“They wanted Noel to come in and assess the list. Noel thought he was going into a board meeting to assess the list but they went to some lawyer’s place in the city and he walked in and Damien Drum was there.
“Noel was gobsmacked. He didn’t go through it, to his credit. He said, ‘This is untenable, we have still got a guy coaching’.
“It’s hard to believe it happened. I went over to Shawy’s place in Eltham and we went for a run.
“I thought, ‘If he got hold of someone he is going to rip their bloody head off’.
“He ran it off, thank god, and to his credit he remains a legend at Collingwood.”
Famously, an image of Shaw close to tears at Victoria Park crystallised the intention of young media identity Eddie McGuire to take on the club presidency.
SACKED
Shaw’s coaching career ended not in a blaze of glory but with a whimper, his rebuilding Pies starting the season with only a Round 8 win in the first 12 weeks.
“Going into my fourth year, I knew something had to happen but it didn’t work,” Shaw said.
“In the end, I copped it and I knew it was coming 10 weeks prior.
“It was actually when I coached really well.
“We lost seven games by under 20 points and won a couple.
“By Round 10 I was open to it. It was ‘Gubby’ (Graeme) Allan and Eddie’s first year and I found out in a fair way.
Gubby said, ‘This might be happening’.
I said with 10 weeks to go, “I probably won’t go on next year if this is to continue, so we will coach for the person in the role next.
“We had Balmey (Neil Balme), Stan Magro, Danny Frawley as assistants. I had Chris Tarrant and Mal Michael, two of the most undisciplined blokes you will ever see in your life.
“They were shockers and they have turned their lives around since but I said I am going to give you four weeks in the seniors.
“We would be in a meeting and they would be laughing and joking at the back of the room and they had no respect for the group.
“Scotty Burns and Bucks were trying to lead and they were disrespecting them.
“I said if you don’t disrespect the group I will play you.
“But those four weeks were sensational. We laugh about it now.”
At that stage the Pies were wooing West Coast premiership coach Mick Malthouse, who would only officially be announced as Collingwood coach in the off-season.
But Shaw says it was apparent mid-year was going to be his replacement.
“It was really well done by Gubby and Eddie,” Shaw said.
“Everyone knew what was happening and don’t worry, I wish it was a situation where Mick had to fight me to get the spot but it was well done.
“It doesn’t happen in footy clubs or Collingwood that much, and don’t worry we have had some shocking debacles with things happening behind the scenes with Tommy Hafey and others.
“I was upfront with the players and said, ‘This is how we are going to do it, we will try a few things, but there will be a new coach’.
“Mick denied it but it was already done.
“I reckon halfway through the year probably.
“I don’t know about the signing of Mick Malthouse and I don’t worry.
“I don’t know whether it was the official formulation of a contract but I knew it was Mick.
“I don’t think Eddie mentioned his name, but we knew.”
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