Inside Robert Harvey’s incredible 1998 season that finished with him winning his second Brownlow Medal
By his own admission, Robert Harvey’s 1997 Brownlow Medal was a ‘hollow victory’. However, the following year he made sure there was no asterisk next to his name. This is the story of his insane 1998 season.
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Stan Alves would always have the perfect response ready.
When coaching St Kilda, reserves players would sometimes come to him at training and complain about not getting a game in the seniors.
Alves would always immediately point to Robert Harvey.
“Harves may not even know this, but there were times in 1998 where there were players that would come to me and say ‘I don’t think I’m getting a go,’” Alves said.
“It was very difficult sometimes because often someone was playing well in the reserves but there just wasn’t a spot for them.
“Sometimes I’d say: ‘OK, let’s have a chat after training, but first can you do me a favour and just run with Harves tonight on the track and during drills?’
“I can tell you the number of times afterwards a player would then come to me and say ‘I don’t need to speak to you anymore.’
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“I’ve never seen anyone train as hard and be as committed as Harvey was, full stop.”
Alves, who coached the Saints to the 1997 grand final, admitted he struggled to hold Harvey back at times.
“Legend is, and it’s right, there were times at training where the medical staff would say ‘look, we really need to give him a light night,” Alves said.
“You’d ask him to do so and then you go back in later and ask ‘where’s Bob?’
“They’d say ‘oh, he’s gone for a run.’
“He was just that sort of person.”
Peter ‘Spida’ Everitt – the only other Saint to win All-Australian honours in 1998 – said Harvey was still manic by his Brownlow years but a lot less so than his earlier days.
“By 1998 I think he probably understood himself a little bit better and understood his body,” he said.
“Before that he had a lot of injuries with his calves and hammies because he’d probably overtrain.
“He’d be injured down to a 10km road run before that.”
MAKING UP FOR 1997
TWO very significant events in Harvey’s footballing life occurred in 1997.
First, he won his first Brownlow Medal.
It was, however, in bizarre circumstances as it was the first time in the game’s history the winner had not polled the most votes.
Bulldog Chris Grant would have collected the medal had he not been ineligible due to suspension.
The footage of Bulldog and 1990 Brownlow medallist Tony Liberatore – still also hurting from his side’s dramatic preliminary final loss to Adelaide two days earlier – with his head in his hands is still burned in the memory of many.
“I’d have to say commiserations to Chris Grant. In a way it’s a hollow victory I suppose,” Harvey said on stage.
Less than a week later, Harvey’s Saints led the grand final at half-time before Adelaide stormed home to snatch the flag.
The late Danny Frawley told the Saints website in 2016 his good mate Harvey reacted to both by putting in a summer of training like never before.
“Rob, unbeknown to anybody else had a pre-season that he’s never had before after winning the Brownlow,” Frawley said.
“You’d expect some people to sit back and smoke the cigar, but Rob wanted to go to a new level.”
Everitt said he noticed a change in Harvey heading into the 1998 season.
“You could just see the determination in him,” he said.
“Even though he had a cracking year in 1997, I think it was a driving force for him in 1998 to say ‘you know what, I can win it on my merit’ and that’s what he did.”
Harvey said there was a lot happening going into 1998, but admitted the pain of the grand final defeat was his main driver.
“I got married over that time so it was a busy time and a good time, but obviously there was the disappointment of the grand final,” he said.
“That stuck in the guts a bit because we felt like we were just so close and were hoping to take the step the next year.”
HARVEY’S BLISTERING RUN
AFTER Round 2, Harvey went on one of the most dominant runs in the game’s history.
In 10 consecutive games, Harvey did not have less than 30 disposals.
The biggest of that period was in Round 5 against Carlton, when he had 40 possessions, including 31 kicks, and 12 clearances.
Alves remembered teams would alternate taggers on him in a bid to just keep up.
“That was just the thing they would do with him to try and run him into the ground,” he said.
“But when that happened to Robert, it would just take him to another level and to me it looked like he thrived on it.
“The bigger the challenger, the better he performed.
“Without question he was on another level.
“He would take it on himself where he would feel, even though he’s played so well, guilty and often feel he still had more in the tank that he could give.”
Alves said there were days in the coaches’ box when others encouraged him to leave Harvey alone.
“Often during games, our chairman of selectors Kel Moore would grab my hand and just whisper in my ear: ‘mate, just let him play,’.
“You don’t need to overburden players like that.”
Everitt said Harvey was ahead of his time.
“Normally at St Kilda during that late 1990s period, if you’d come second in the best and fairest you still pretty much claimed it as a win because it always just went to Robert Harvey,” Everitt said.
“You look at the players today like Dustin Martin and how they train and prepare, but Harves was already doing it 20 years ago.”
Harvey said he felt at the top of his game in many ways.
“When you’re about 26 or 27 it’s probably when you’re at the peak of your powers and you’re a bit more experienced and physically feeling good,” Harvey said.
“Out of all the years I played, even though I played a lot of games, I didn’t get a lot of full seasons in.
“I was probably getting a bit smarter with my program a bit (by 1997 and 1998).
“I was a bit reckless early with my body and probably didn’t look after it like I should have, but I did in 1997 and 98.”
FIRST-BORN CHILD, THEN 3 VOTES
In 1998, Harvey and wife Danielle welcomed their first child.
Baby Connor was born after a long labour, and then hours later Harvey raced to the MCG to face Melbourne on a Sunday afternoon.
“I was up all night and then went to the game and was just high in adrenaline,” Harvey recalled.
“That was just another factor in how it was just such a great time of my life and that helps your mindset.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to play.
“I didn’t get much sleep but I was on adrenaline so it didn’t matter, and it was a good day,”
Good day is an understatement.
How did he go?
On the same day the sleep-deprived Harvey became a father, he had 29 possessions and nine clearances.
The result? Three Brownlow votes.
A COACH SACKING AND THEN A MEDAL
ON the day Harvey would win his second Brownlow, his coach was sacked.
Alves took the Saints to the 1997 grand final and the semi-finals in 1998, only to be told his services would no longer be required following the Saints’ September exit.
“That was a difficult one, the boom landed on that day,” Alves said.
“As a result my invitation to the Brownlow obviously got lost in the mail.
“I sat at home and watched it from afar, but it doesn’t detract from that year.
“In this game it’s very easy to get hung up on the negative thing in the finish, but it was such a joy to get an opportunity to coach a team.
“But also to coach a player like Harvey, that’s one of the great joys of coaching.”
Harvey described the events of the day as “a big blur.”
“I remember being picked up to go the Brownlow and it was just a really strange feeling, which was almost the shock of it all,” he said.
“That was just a crazy time.”
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Harvey polled in 14 games and won the medal by eight votes to cap off one of the most dominant seasons of all time.
Despite claiming his second Brownlow – and his first outright – Harvey admitted he was still lamenting the one that got away the previous September.
And he didn’t mean the Brownlow.
“There wasn’t any great feeling on it,” he said.
“You never have any expectations around those things, I was more so just disappointed with the result from the previous year.
“You’re just so hungry to get back to finals and the grand final, it didn’t even really factor in.”
