Mick Malthouse reflects on the time he spent coaching Chris Mainwaring, Ron James and John McCarthy who were all taken too soon

ALMOST eight years on from Chris Mainwaring’s death, Mick Malthouse still can’t get the premiership star’s “cheesy grin” out of his mind.

Chris Mainwaring of West Coast celebrates a goal in the AFL Grand Final match between the West Coast Eagles and the Geelong ...

ALMOST eight years on from Chris Mainwaring’s death, Mick Malthouse still can’t get the premiership star’s “cheesy grin” out of his mind.

It makes him sad; and almost in the same instance, it cannot help but make him smile.

For Malthouse knows that Mainwaring played it hard on and off the field, and those who knew him will never forget what he brought to their lives, and what he brought to West Coast throughout the 1990s.

“I quite often still think of Mainy,” a reflective Malthouse said. “I can still see that cheesy grin. I never had anything but great times with Mainy.”

Three of the 345 players Malthouse have coached are gone — each taken in tragic circumstances, and long before their time.

Chris Mainwaring during his playing days at the Eagles. Picture: Tony Feder/ALLSPORT

Footscray young gun Ron James was 19 when he died in a waterskiing accident on the Murray River near Echuca on New Year’s Day, 1990, just a few months after Malthouse left for West Coast and the Bulldogs army had rallied to keep their club alive.

Mainwaring, 42, died of a seizure caused by a cocaine overdose in Perth in October 2007.

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And former Collingwood and then Port Adelaide footballer John McCarthy was only 22 when he was killed after falling more than nine metres from the rooftop of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in September 2012.

“Ronny James was a tragedy; these were all tragedies,” Malthouse said. “I didn’t have a lot of time with Ronny, or with John. They were all taken too soon.”

He said McCarthy had confided in him in late 2011 after being told he was on the outer at Collingwood and looking to play elsewhere.

“John rang me and said ‘I think I am gone at Collingwood’. I said ‘OK, what do you want to do?’ and he said he wanted to keep playing with Richmond. I said you can’t go wrong there, they are local and they are a good club.

“In the end, Port Adelaide managed to get him first.”

The loss of Mainwaring impacted significantly on Malthouse, as it did on everyone who has been associated with the 201-game, two-time premiership player.

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“He played it hard off the ground and he played it hard on the ground,” Malthouse said.

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“I remember when I first arrived (in late 1989), there was a hint he was going to go to North Melbourne. So I said to him: ‘All I can offer you is opportunity ... if you want to take it, I will give it to you’, and he did.

“He had this goal to get to 200 games. He hobbled out ... his knee had gone, particularly the one that had been crushed up.

“But he got to his 200th game, and that was fantastic for him.”

Mainwaring flashed that cheesy grin in the rooms that day, and it’s a vision that will forever sit with the man who coached him.

Mick Malthouse’s coaching career.