SACKED podcast 2024: Nathan Burke lifts lid on traumatic period after leaving the Western Bulldogs

In the latest episode of SACKED, former AFLW coach Nathan Burke reveals his traumatic experience while driving over a bridge following his departure from the Bulldogs. LISTEN HERE.

Nathan Burke details a difficult period of his life in the latest episode of the SACKED podcast.

Sacked Western Bulldogs AFLW coach Nathan Burke has opened up about overcoming anxiety so overwhelming he feared he might plunge off the side of a bridge when driving his car as a strange side effect of his removal from Whitten Oval.

Burke has described the strange sensation as having “fatalistic” thoughts while driving as part of the fallout of the loneliest six-month period of his career after moving on from the Whitten Oval.

Rather than suicidal thoughts, Burke was panicking at what might go wrong as his anxiety bubbled to the surface, unable to drive home from a planned trip to the Gold Coast with his family.

He revealed that diagnosis to the Sacked podcast – since overcome after working with an AFLPA-linked psychologist – to shed light on mental health as he admitted it was a totally unexpected side-effect of his world being turned upside down.

Burke was let go as Western Bulldogs AFLW coach last November after five seasons in charge as a result of a wooden spoon season in which he had called out some players as unfit.

Speaking to the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast he said while the buck stopped with him as senior coach, he wished a senior member of the club’s hierarchy had made clear to the players criticism was part of being a professional sportsperson.

Instead he was sacked at year’s end after the episode “festered”, with Burke revealing he had proposed to the club that they elevate assistant coach Kate McCarthy as senior coach with him as general manager of football.

Instead she joined the media full-time and the Dogs had a mediocre 4-7 season under new coach Tamara Hyett.

Burke lost his job as coach of the Bulldogs AFLW team. Picture: Getty Images

After finally joining the ‘sacked coaches’ club, he said he was floored to be hit with anxiety as he drove north to the Gold Coast.

“It was the best job I ever had. I loved the last couple of years working with a group of people and moving in a direction to achieve something special,” he said.

“I did go through what I will call a lonely period. The last six months (since the sacking) was probably the loneliest working environment that I have worked in and that hit me in funny ways.

“My wife and I take the family to Queensland and the dogs have to go so the girls fly up and the wife and I drive up. We were going through the tunnel under Sydney Harbour and I thought, ‘I am just feeling a bit weird here. I need to concentrate a little bit to not drive off into the walls’ and then out the other side of Sydney there’s a lot of big bridges. I was feeling weird going over them and a little bit anxious. It got to the point where there was a bridge on the horizon and I pulled over to the side and I said, “I can’t drive”.

“It was a sort of traumatic thing. My mum was crook at the time, and the anxiety was manifesting itself in a really weird way not being able to drive across a bridge.

“I wasn’t going to deliberately drive off the bridge. It was the fear of it.

“I didn’t trust myself to be able to stay in the line and I had all those sort of fatalistic thoughts of going over the edge.

“I don’t mind sharing the story. Because I went through a whole career of playing with pressure (as the one-time St Kilda games record holder) and it never happened. I never had those issues. But they do pop up at strange times.”

Burke at the Saints in 2003. Picture: AAP Image/Ryan Pierse

“So there have been some really good learnings out of it and one of those is that I enjoy working with a group of people and helping them grow and achieve. When that fell off a cliff, it affected me in certain ways.

Burke keeps busy with leadership programs through his company Nathan Burke consulting but has realised working in a team environment fills his cup in a way one-off seminars do not.

“The players association was good. They gave me a choice of three psychologists who specialise in those areas and I had a couple of sessions. It turns out its similar to a fear of flying. Now I am 90 per cent right going through a tunnel and 95 per cent right over a bridge. I go in the middle lane, sing to myself (to distract myself). I never had it before because I drove over the West Gate Bridge every day but we worked out that it was (related to) a big change of life.”

BECOMING AN UNLIKELY SENIOR COACH

Burke had been an assistant coach at St Kilda under Grant Thomas and loved the football aspect but not the 24-7 intensity.

He was set to return as a St Kilda AFLW assistant coach before catching the eye of the Dogs officials coaching Chris Grant’s daughter Izzy for Vic Metro.

“Grant Thomas would come down and schedule when we were happy and grumpy and he would have it scheduled on the calendar. Not this week Burkey, we have to be hard on them,” Burke said.

“So I thought, “I have found my niche. My philosophy of coaching is what fits in with what these players need.” You have 30 young women and you get to help them realise their dream in football and away from football. It was just great.”

Burke loved his job. Picture: AAP Image/Michael Dodge

There were challenges unique to AFLW – the growing pains of the burgeoning competition and several star players in relationships with teammates at the club who moved elsewhere when they broke up with their partners.

The Dogs played finals in 2022 but a horror pre-season in 2023 continued in an early-season injury crisis that saw players go down with two ACL tears, a broken leg and an achilles tear.

After an 18-point loss to St Kilda saw the Dogs slump to 0-5 Burke called out his players: “We’re not fit enough. I said that to the girls in there, we’re not going to make excuses over that, because I think there are probably things outside of injuries, within our control, that would make us fitter. Just understanding the level of professionalism required now – skipping an ice bath or not eating properly, that doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Burke told Sacked the honesty backfired.

“That was probably the beginning of my demise, just that little bit of honesty there. I made some comments about the standards we had, that they needed to get better. That didn’t go down very well at all. I apologised and 90 per cent of them moved on.

Burke couldn’t make it work at the Bulldogs. Picture: Getty Images

“If I regret something it’s that I would have loved somebody to grab the players and say he’s not the first coach to make that mistake. He’s apologised and he won’t be the last. He might even say something again.

“There was no one in the background willing to have that conversation and things probably festered from there, which probably didn’t help the last 40 per cent of our season. So that is a mistake I will own. If I ever get in that position again I will be very careful not to do that again.”

A month out from the end of the season, Burke asked to meet chief executive Ameet Bains to discuss levels of support but was told the meeting could wait until the post-season.

“That (criticism) was something I shouldn’t have done but it’s hard to quantify what else,” Burke said.

“We had a 1-9 season. It’s not great. I can go through a whole list of reasons, we had 10 girls with stress fractures. I can go through the injuries. But at the end of the day it doesn’t make a difference. Am I the scapegoat for that season? No, I am a big part of that season so I can’t divorce myself from it.

The Bulldogs had a nasty run of injuries in 2023. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“So they waited until I did all the exit interviews with the players, And I had my list of things to improve on and the roles we needed to fill and I never got the chance to (present it). That was the meeting where I was told, ‘Hey, this is untenable, we need to move you on’.

Burke reveals for the first time that he believes assistant coach McCarthy, currently a star media performer, should have replaced him.

“No one knows this. We didn’t really have a GM of football. We had a head of football. I actually presented to the club that I step into that role and we had an assistant coach named Kate McCarthy who I think will be an outstanding AFLW coach. She will be sensational.

“And I said, what if I step into that role. Because I know everything that is wrong in that areas and Kate comes on as coach. I can mentor her closely, but I didn’t get through to the first step.”

Would it have worked?

“I think so. There were some relationships issues and leadership issues at the top that needed to be addressed. And Kate in her one year there as an assistant coach had great relationships with the group. I think it would have worked, and she’s smart enough to be able to run with it from that level but now they had grander plans in place, and that’s their prerogative.”