Final siren: Former VFL and VFLW coach Patrick Hill bows out of football

Patrick Hill admits he wasn’t much of a player. But he excelled as a coach, particularly in women’s football, where he moulded Hawthorn VFLW into a premiership team.

Patrick Hill with his triumphant Hawthorn players after their VFLW premiership in 2018. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Patrick Hill could laugh about his lack of football ability.

There were 15 coaches in the VFL when he was appointed at Frankston Dolphins in 2015, and he said if they were to be pulled together to make up a team, he might not get a game.

Hill was no great shakes as a player.

But from modest beginnings he evolved into one of Victoria’s most respected coaches, progressing from local level, to the VFL and VFWL and to the AFLW.

For the past five years he’s worked as an assistant and in development with St Kilda’s AFLW team, but his supporters are adamant he should have been the Saints’ head coach.

Hill applied for but was overlooked for the role given to St Kilda great Nick Dal Santo in August, 2021.

Still, he stayed at the Saints in support of Dal Santo, whom he calls a “great human being’’.

“I don’t think I’m speaking out of school when I say I was really disappointed with the outcome of it (coaching appointment),’’ Hill says.

“From the time I got involved at Box Hill, my aim was to get a full-time job in football and coach my own team. To fall agonisingly short – and not just with that job, there was another AFL job I went for, interstate – it was frustrating. I left no stone unturned to be that coach and get to the dream, but I’m still incredibly proud at what I’ve done. I certainly don’t have any regrets.’’

Patrick Hill working the whiteboard for Hawthorn in June 2019. Picture: Andy Brownbill

At 52, Hill is stepping away from coaching.

He says his decision is about putting his time into other areas, mostly his family, which enjoyed his rise through the ranks but endured his absences.

All through his coaching he worked full-time with Australia Post – Postman Pat, as wags liked to say. It left his wife, Tara, to take care of many things he would normally attend to.

“Footy is all-encompassing … I’d like to move on and do some other things in life,’’ Hill says.

“I’m really happy to finish at Moorabbin. The last game I coached was at Moorabbin. My whole family are St Kilda supporters. My great grandfather played there. It seems fitting for me to go now.’’

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“Mine probably wasn’t the typical coaching journey,’’ Patrick Hill says.

“For someone who played very little senior footy and started off coaching reserves because no one would have me, it’s been a bit different.’’

He began as an assistant to former Springvale VFA star Damian Carroll at local club Bonbeach and was keen to go higher at Bonny.

But, he says, there was a school of thought at the club that he did not communicate well and “it would be very hard for me to win over a group’’.

He ended up going to Tooradin for a season, as playing coach of the reserves.

Hill was back at Bonbeach in 2008, then crossed to Springvale Districts, where he looked after the reserves in 2009 and ‘10.

His coaching took off in 2011 when he followed to Carroll to Box Hill Hawks in the VFL. Kicking off as an assistant to Marco Bello for the Development League team, he progressed to a line coach for Carroll’s senior side.

Patrick Hill urging on his Frankston players. Picture: Valeriu Campan

One day he had Jarryd Roughead in his forward line. On another it was Luke Hodge. “You’re coaching a few mates at Springy Districts and then you’re telling Jarryd Roughead what to do!’’ he says. “That was pretty surreal. A year or two later you’ve got Cyril Rioli running around in your midfield.’’

His experience under Carroll helped lift him to the Frankston VFL senior position in 2015.

It was tough going; the Dolphins failed to win a game in his first season, picking up two victories the following year.

On the morning of their last match in 2016, the players were told of Frankston’s crushing debt and the possibility of it losing its VFL licence. It did.

Hill was a coach without a club. His next move was to jump into female football, returning to Box Hill Hawks as the inaugural coach of its women’s team. Twelve months later, with a side rebadged as Hawthorn, he was lifting a VFLW premiership cup after an 11-point grand final win over Geelong at Marvel Stadium.

He quickly warmed to his players’ passion for football, their eagerness to learn, and their commitment to each other and the team. Cold winter training nights had never been so enjoyable.

“That will be the moment I will always think about,’’ Hill says of the flag.

“You form really close bonds with your players anyway. When you coach them to a premiership … I still communicate with all those girls regularly. They are incredibly supportive of me and my family.’’

Patrick Hill helping out at Springvale Districts last year.

At Frankston, “as we were getting slaughtered’’, Hill had encouraged his players to think of other, wider issues.

They looked into the White Ribbon Foundation and violence against women.

“The guys got into it. It gave them a focus away from football,’’ Hill says.

“It also opened my mind to women in sport and women in general. I saw an opportunity to do something new and fresh and help develop women’s footy. I’m not sure it worked out favourably for my career, because you tend to get pigeonholed, but as a human being I was much better for doing it. I became a better husband and father and member of society. Loved every second of it. My nature and my personality fitted in perfectly in the women’s game. I was able to be genuine and authentic with the players. I didn’t have to put up any bravado or anything like that.’’

As he saw it, the game had changed.

What were considered his weaknesses when he was starting in coaching became his strengths.

Hill says he’s always been a little introverted and it’s sometimes mistaken for arrogance or a lack of ability to communicate.

“Coaches were a lot different when I started. There was a certain prototype for what a coach was meant to look like and how you needed to act and behave,’’ he says. “I didn’t really fit that. I was more thinking about game plans and strategy and I was a lot more quietly spoken and not one to fit in easily with footy teams, especially male footy teams. But it’s changed a lot over the years. I fit in a lot more easily now. I think some of those traits I had back then and were off-putting for clubs now hold me in good stead … I’m talking about being vulnerable and showing your emotions and speaking about things other than footy.

Patrick Hill enjoys a Hawthorn VFLW victory in 2018. Photo: AAP Image/James Ross)

“Also back then, you had to be seen as a very good player. If you weren’t, the suggestion was you didn’t know enough about the game and that a group wouldn’t listen to you if you hadn’t played at the highest level or you weren’t a star. Game plans were centred around the stars and for coaches it was around motivation, the rev-up before the game and quarter-time, the booming voice …’’

Hill gives a lot of credit for his coaching experience to Carroll. They were together at Bonbeach, at Box Hill Hawks and, at the end, St Kilda, where Carroll is the AFL head of development and where Hill had gone in 2019.

Hill says he has been a great friend, mentor and role model.

“I owe him a lot,’’ he says. “He was the first person to show faith and belief in me. He’s one who’s broken the mould as well.’’

When Carroll coached Box Hill Hawks to the VFL premiership in 2013, he and Hill shared the walk down the stairs and onto the ground.

“Hey,’’ Hill said. “Who would have thought two blokes from Bonbeach would end up here?’’

Originally published as Final siren: Former VFL and VFLW coach Patrick Hill bows out of football