Paul Roos opens up about controversies during his time as Sydney and Melbourne coach
PAUL Roos’ new book delves into some of the controversies in the AFL great’s coaching career, including Barry Hall’s exit, handling Heritier Lumumba and the Adam Goodes booing saga.
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PAUL ROOS spent the last 10 games of his glittering career starting on the bench, including the first half of a losing semi-final against Adelaide.
It gave him “a real empathy” for those players who were not stars and crystallised his thoughts on how players should be coached and led.
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Those games rounded out his views on coaching, and within weeks of his 1998 retirement he penned a list of 25 coaching philosophies.
That handwritten list, later typed onto an A4 sheet he kept in his desk at Sydney and Melbourne, became his blueprint.
Upon the release of his new book Here It Is, the Swans premiership coach reflects on how he used that philosophy to deal with the players and coaches he met along the way.
NO D---HEADS
Roos describes goalsneak Nick Davis as “mercurial”, a tempestuous player who could be lazy or could turn a game in a quarter.
He says there was never actually a “No Dickheads” policy, but a visit to the Denver Broncos reinforced his views that character should play a huge role in recruiting players.
One of his 25 rules was to deal with each player individually.
“It’s why I am so big on relationships You have to get to know your players. They won’t all agree with you or like you,’’ says Roos.
“But if you tell them face-to-face they can’t have too many gripes with them.
“In that 2004 final (against Geelong) his man kicked a goal and put them four goals up.
“The story goes that Brett Kirk said, “You owe us one”, and he said “I will give you four”.
“He kicked four goals and it was one of the best quarters of finals footy I have ever seen. People have maybe said at Sydney we brought guys in who were pretty different.
“But if you put them in an environment that is disciplined, most players want discipline and direction.
“So it was always a balancing act, you had to treat Nick differently to Leo Barry but provide structure.”
TO MELBOURNE
The much-maligned Jack Watts was one of the players who met Paul Roos when he was considering coaching Melbourne.
Watts looked Roos in the eye and said: “Roosy, I just want to be treated like a human being.”
It struck a chord with Roos, who spent much of his early time at Melbourne lifting flagging confidence.
“It was just an unbelievably powerful statement,” says Roos.
“I just felt like I really needed to wrap my arms around the players. I didn’t want to know specifically what had happened before but I was aware it was pretty blunt and I was careful not to apportion blame. But I could see there was something significantly wrong at the club and it just galvanised my view.
“At that moment I thought, ‘I can help these guys’, and it’s why I went there.”
THAT’S DIFFERENT
Two of Roos’ rules are “good communication skills” and “treat people as you want to be treated yourself”.
He recruited Heritier Lumumba after a turbulent exit at Collingwood and says despite perceptions Lumumba was a strong contributor and leader.
“It’s funny, I never had a problem with “H”. Your footy club needs to be an honest environment where people feel valued,’’ Roos says.
“He was voted into the leadership group after a short time being there and was quickly accepted.
“We had good discussions about footy and life and he’s a deep thinker. He had been through a lot in his life and you had to respect his perspective.
“The big shift in footy now that we have gone full time is that you need to know the whole person, you need to get to know them and what makes them tick.
“You have to set parameters about what you discuss in team meetings but we want players who challenge the coach and coaches.”
QUESTION OF LUCK
Roos says premiership coaches are often deemed to be bulletproof, while those like great mate Ross Lyon are criticised unfairly.
“I often reflect that if Nick Davis hadn’t kicked that goal in the final we would have been slaughtered for not scoring. Then the next week we kicked seven goals in the first quarter.
“I am fully aware of the fractions it takes to win games at that level.
“Ross is an incredible coach. The only difference between him and me is Leo Barry marks it and the ball goes one way past Stephen Milne (in 2010) and Scarlo (Matthew Scarlett) had his moment in the middle of the ground (in 2009). There is such a fine line at that level. He does a great job. Look at his relationship still with the St Kilda players.
“Someone once said to me you are measured as a coach by the amount of weddings you are invited to (by your players).
“If you win a premiership the pressure disappates from everyone at the club and there is a flipside if you lose.
“I remember sitting on a beach in Maui after we won the Grand Final and I genuinely felt it was the first season I had been involved in as a coach that had actually finished.”
GOODES THING
When Luke Ablett coughed up a horror goal-face turnover in the 2005 Grand Final, Adam Goodes was one of the first Swans to reassure him.
It reinforced to Roos what a wonderful teammate Goodes was, with his premiership coach disappointed Goodes retired after a year-long booing controversy.
“Goodsey is an outstanding individual. I still keep in contact with him.
“He had great empathy for his teammates and at that moment, it just calmed everyone down in the coaches box.
“It was almost a sign of him saying, ‘We won’t let you down, we understand what is going on’.
“It was true to his character and what he stands for as a character.
“He was pretty hurt by (the booing controversy). It would have hurt him deeply.
“If a people feel that is racist its hard for those of us to say it’s not. When he says it is hurting him and people still do it, if you keep doing it clearly you are racist.
“That’s pretty black and white to me. So it was disappointing and I think as a society we have a long way to go.”
BIG BAD BARRY
Barry Hall was Sydney’s premiership captain and yet after suspensions for punching Brent Staker and Shane Wakelin, he then hit Adelaide’s Ben Rutten in 2009.
He would eventually retire but only after Roos didn’t answer his call before talking to the media about Hall’s issues.
Roos says he broke one of his golden rules around communication, one of the biggest regrets of his time in coaching.
“I was angry because I couldn’t work out why he kept doing it. He called me and said I will come and talk to you and when he dropped in I was in match committee,’’ Roos says.
“Then I spoke to the media. I should have done a better job of sourcing him out first. He got angry about that and we talked multiple times after that.
“But it just reinforced my view you can’t get too emotional. As hard as it is, you have to sit down and eyeball people.
“I was pretty angry but it was one of the first times I let myself down and let my emotion get the better of me.”
UGLY SWANS
As the Swans built towards a premiership the AFL chief described their footy as “unattractive”, with headlines quickly morphing into his disdain for the “ugly Swans”.
“It wasn’t a big issue for us in Sydney but coming to Melbourne later I realise how big things can get,” Roos said.
“What Andrew said was disrespectful, it was unnecessary, it was strange.
“Mick Malthouse said the Swans were trying to win a premiership and play a premiership brand of footy and I have thanked him for that several times.
“This is not a criticism of Demetriou, but my knowledge of footy is far greater than his. I couldn’t have run the AFL, his knowledge of business was greater than mine.
“But for him to try to tell me how to do my job was farcical. Someone from the AFL Commission could have come out and said something about it in respect to the comment, but it’s over and done with now.”
Here It Is: Coaching, leadership and life: Paul Roos, Penguin Random House, RRP $39.99, available Monday
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