Sheedy’s tells to AFL players to show more personality
Legendary coach Kevin Sheedy has taken a brazen swipe at modern day AFL players, saying the players have been stripped of personality when dealing with the media and fans should be fed up.
Fiona Byrne
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Legendary coach Kevin Sheedy has called for AFL players to be less like robots and show more personality.
“There are too many Alfred Hitchcocks. He was a boring TV personality. Brilliant person, boring in expression,” Sheedy said of the master of Hollywood suspense.
His point, he said, was that current players had been trained to be boring and give nothing away when dealing with the media and that audiences were crying out for more personality from their on field favourites.
“Everybody says the same bloody thing as if they are robots,” Sheedy said.
“The worst thing I see, and I hear it every time, is ‘Oh thanks for having me’ on a radio or TV interview.
“That is a robot. I had never heard that ever until all of a sudden in the last four or five years. “It must be in their training. ‘Thanks for having me’, it irks me. They need to be themselves.
“I think, ‘be yourself’.”
With the paperback release of his book Icons of Footy with Affirm Press, Sheedy was reflecting on the greats of the game and state of footy.
Meanwhile during Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown he has been watching Sylvester Stallone pick off the enemy in Rambo movies.
“Every Rambo film, I reckon I’ve watched five times,” he said.
“I have watched James Bond, I have been forced to watch Farmer Wants A Wife and I watch all the gardening shows.”
Icons of Footy: The greatest players and coaches of my lifetime by Kevin Sheedy, published by Affirm Press is out now.
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