Sacked podcast: North Melbourne’s destiny in 1999 was decided by shock preliminary final result, says Denis Pagan
Denis Pagan was convinced the 1997 premiership was ‘there for the taking’, but he never had a chance to find out. And champions Glenn Archer and Wayne Schwass were in the firing line. The former coach lifts the lid on his dramatic Kangaroos years.
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As Channel 7’s cameras panned on Justin Murphy holding the ball aloft following Carlton‘s 1999 preliminary final heist of Essendon, North Melbourne coach Denis Pagan almost wanted to dance a celebratory jig.
Sitting on centre wing alongside trusty lieutenant Tony Elshaug, Pagan knew exactly where those cameras would swing next.
He swiftly issued his assistant coach one specific order – do nothing!
On the same day Jeff Kennett was voted out of office in an election bombshell, the Bombers had just coughed up the unlosable final.
While Pagan felt almost giddy inside about the removal of the biggest impediment to North Melbourne’s quest for Grand Final redemption, he sat stony-faced in his seat.
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He didn’t want to give any ammunition to his new Grand Final opponent – Carlton.
All of the notes he had instructed Elshaug to write in his notebook throughout the game had centred on the Bombers, not the Blues.
“I’m telling Tony to write down this and look at (Mark) Mercuri and to look at (Joe) Misiti,” Pagan said.
“The siren went and Carlton had won. I said to Tony, 100-1 on, they are going to put the cameras on us, so pack your bag up, stand up and quietly walk out.”
Pagan and Elshaug kept their cool as they left the aisle, but you can imagine the pair exploding with emotion once they were deep in the bowels of the MCG.
“All our focus had been on Essendon. I had to go home and watch the tape again,” he said.
“I don’t know if I was prepared for Carlton at all.”
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Asked 21 years on what would have happened if his Kangaroos had met Kevin Sheedy’s Bombers in the 1999 Grand Final, Pagan confessed: “If Essendon had won by four goals, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“We weren’t the best team; Essendon were. I reckon if you played that 10 times in a row Essendon would have beaten Carlton in the prelim final and who knows if they would have beaten us, but we would have needed a lot of luck on the day.”
The Kangaroos had provided Pagan with his greatest disappointment 12 months earlier. Now he looked ahead to the 1999 playoff with relish.
‘YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET NOT APPOINTING ME’
Pagan had been one of the best under-age coaches in the history of the game, leading North Melbourne under-19s to nine consecutive Grand Finals for five flags.
Yet any time he sought a senior role, he missed out.
He even lost out on the Kangaroos’ reserves role in 1992 when the under-19s transformed into an under-18s competition.
But a surprise late night phone call from Sheedy offered Pagan the Bombers’ reserves job, and he led them to the “seconds” flag in 1992.
That led to an interview for the Melbourne senior coaching role, even if he found out it was a charade.
Neil Balme had already been guaranteed the job.
“I thought it was the silliest thing ever … (but) Ron Joseph was the one who told me to go along anyway, that it would be a great experience,” Pagan said.
“I thought the interview went well.
“Hassa Mann, who was a real gentleman, escorted me out. We shook hands. I couldn’t help myself, I said ‘You are going to regret this, Hassa, not appointing me’.”
DERM v ROCKET v DENIS
An opportunity arose early in 1993 when Wayne Schimmelbusch was sacked as North Melbourne coach after a pre-season flogging in Adelaide.
“There were three people in for the job at the start,” Pagan said.
“There was Dermott Brereton, Rodney Eade and myself. I reckon Dermott was 6/4, Rodney was 5/2 and I reckon I was 66/1. Dermott pulled out, so there was just me and Rodney.”
Pagan won the role he had been auditioning for throughout most of his coaching life.
He crafted a competitive team and centred it around Wayne Carey, whom he had first met at a training session a few years earlier.
“My first introduction to Wayne – and he denies this – came when I was coaching North Melbourne‘s under-19s.
“Greg Miller came up to check on some recruits. I didn’t know Wayne then. I said to him: ‘Are you coming down to have a run with the under-19s, Wayne?’ He looked at me, and said ‘Turn it up, I’m training with the seniors’.”
The Kangaroos won 13 games in Pagan’s first season, but lost an elimination final to West Coast.
“The huge year caught up with us,” he said.
“We had run out of petrol tickets.”
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1994 NEAR MISS
We know it as “Pagan’s Paddock”, but the coach called it “three-quarter concertina”.
He had been doing it since the under-19s, but in isolating a footballer of the talent and power of Wayne Carey, it proved a seismic move.
“I was always a devotee of Tommy Hafey and the game plan to get it into Royce Hart and to get everyone else out of the way,” he laughed.
Carey “tore” his calf at the end of the 1994 home-and-away season, but managed to play against Hawthorn in the elimination final.
“You could see he was restricted, but he still kicked four (goals),” he said.
The Kangaroos won that first extra-time game and other results meant they had the next week off.
“He (Carey) did about five minutes training on the Thursday night (before the preliminary final against Geelong),” Pagan said.
“I don’t think anyone else I would have coached could have done this, but he came out and brained them.
“He kicked six goals. He would have been spot on for the Grand Final, if we had made it.”
But a late “mongrel” punt from Leigh Tudor found Gary Ablett and his after-the-siren goal sank the Roos.
Pagan recounted: “If Glenn Archer hangs onto the ball for a little bit longer, Leigh Tudor doesn’t get it …if it got to extra-time, I think we would have run over the top of (Geelong), but Malcolm Blight is probably saying the same thing.”
Geelong lost the Grand Final to West Coast by 80 points.
Pagan maintains the Kangaroos could have won that game if they had advanced.
“People can shoot me down, and say, ‘You wouldn’t have beaten West Coast’, that’s OK,” he said.
“I just thought we could have.”
Having won the first two finals of 1995, the Kangaroos were convincingly beaten by the all-conquering Carlton, in the preliminary final.
“Carlton … were a lot better than us. It only made us hungrier for next year.”
FLAG DAY
The coach felt pressure leading into the 1996 finals, but his chairman put him at ease.
“You start to think to yourself, ‘it is three years and we haven’t won one’. I remember thinking I was feeling a bit of pressure before the 1996 finals started.
“I remember Ron Casey coming to me and saying: ‘Listen, coach, relax a bit’. He said … ‘Sooner or later Dame Fortune will smile upon you’.”
All of Pagan‘s meticulous planning, and the Kangaroos’ hard work, came to fruition when they defeated Sydney to win the 1996 premiership.
The Swans led by three goals at quarter-time.
“Then (Paul) Kelly comes out of the centre and if he hits (Tony) Lockett on the chest and he goes back and kicks the goal, it is seven to three,” Pagan said.
“We bring on (Glenn) Freeborn and he kicks three freakish goals and we are two points up at halftime.”
The Kangaroos booted 11 goals to five in the second half, winning the club’s third flag by 43 points.
It was a huge triumph for Pagan. His players let their hair down, but the premiership coach was plotting more success.
“I always subscribe to the two-beer policy and leave at functions.
“We went to a Japanese restaurant on the Sunday night up the top of Arden Street, … then we went into the city on the Monday, but the pace was too hot for me.
“Some of them didn’t go to bed for three days. I needed my beauty sleep.”
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‘YOU F’N COST US’
Pagan was fuming as he walked back towards the race after their premiership defence ended in a 31-point 1997 preliminary final loss to St Kilda.
The subjects of his ire were Glenn Archer and Wayne Schwass, who had missed due to suspension.
Archer wisely left the race; Schwass tempted fate.
“Steam was coming out of my ears because it was a wasted opportunity. If … Schwass and Archer had been playing, it (the flag) was there for the taking.
“When I got close to the race, I could see Schwatta. I said to him, and this is the honest truth, ‘You f’n cost us’.
“Schwatta was a very talented player. He could take shortcuts and still be successful. I was a perfectionist in everything.”
Pagan’s frustration continued after the press conference.
He still smiles about it more than 20 years later.
“I gave a journo a burst. He’s a lovely bloke from AAP (Roger Vaughan). We came out of the press conference and I was still steaming. He was chasing me down the corridor, saying ‘Who’s your tip for the Brownlow?’ I would love to tell you what I said.”
Pagan never coached Schwass again. He was traded for Sydney‘s Shannon Grant, which proved a win-win for both clubs.
‘IF YOUR AUNTY HAD WHISKERS …’
The Kangaroos were overwhelming favourites against Adelaide leading into the 1998 Grand Final, but a halftime scoreline of 6.15 to 4.3 left the door open.
“I remember coming in at halftime and all the staff were clapping and saying ‘well done’. I gave them a rocket.
“I looked at Mark Roberts’ face at halftime … it looked like a tomato. I thought to myself: ‘I think we are in trouble here’. We were a spent force at halftime.”
The Crows turned the game on its head in the second half.
“We were the best side by a country mile that year, but the lesson you learn is the best side doesn’t always win. The best side on the day does.
“They (Adelaide) were the best side on the day. We could probably have played them 10 times after that and beaten them every time.
“But on that particular day for whatever reason (they beat us).
“To kick 6.15 ..... if we had kicked 15.6 … but if your Aunty had whiskers, she’d be your Uncle.
“I still have nightmares about that game.”
Pagan knew only another flag would partially ease the pain.
That came 12 months later when the Kangaroos defeated Carlton to win the 1999 premiership – making it two flags for Pagan.
“You look back and think maybe we shouldn’t have won it (in 1999). But losing in 1998, we should never have lost that.”
THE OTHER LOSS THAT HAUNTS
Pagan still can’t explain what happened after quarter-time in Round 16, 2001 against Essendon.
The Kangaroos led by 58 points at quarter-time, which pushed to 69 points nine minutes into the second term.
Someone joked to Pagan at quarter-time the Kangaroos might end up kicking “48 goals”.
But it was no laughing matter when the Bombers produced one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history, winning by 12 points.
“You think ‘If only I had put someone behind the ball’. But why would you do that when you kick 12 goals in the first quarter?
“You think to yourself ‘How could you possibly lose from that situation?’ It still (eats) away at me.”
FALLOUT
He fell out with powerbroker Mark Dawson over a few issues, including the selection of Pagan’s son Ryan in three games in 2000. They still don‘t speak today.
He feels sorry that his son – with whom he now runs Pagan Real Estate – was caught up in the drama.
“His performances justified playing the three games he did,” he said of Ryan.
“He had 40 possessions a week for about three years.
“It is all under the bridge now, I don’t talk to Mark Dawson and we were good mates. That was a product of that.
Pagan’s contract ended after the 2002 season, when the Kangaroos lost in an elimination final.
He felt his Kangaroos players needed a new voice, but political forces were also working against him.
As wooden spooners Carlton sought his services, the Kangaroos tried to pin a new contract on how many fans the club could push through the gates.
He still has the unsigned contract at home.
“I know the people who were behind it. It all gets political. One of the blokes wanted to be chairman and it probably didn’t help my cause when my son played.
“They reckon I was getting too much money. At that stage, I might have been on $620,000. I think I went to Carlton for $600,000.
“North made me an offer that was going to reduce my last contract substantially, but it wasn’t all about the money.
“It was about the indignation of having so much success there and they were going to judge me on the amount of people who went to the games and how many membership tickets they sold.
“I thought to myself, ‘Who was the moron who thought that one up?’”
Pagan felt he had no other alternative but to sign with Carlton, but the political games he hoped he was escaping from would be even more toxic at his new club.