Stephen Milne and Steven Baker open up about tribunal cases, Malcolm Blight’s 15 games at St Kilda and Ross Lyon
Steven Baker once told a coach he didn’t need to learn how to baulk. He just ran through blokes. His fiery nature meant he was suspended for a total of 28 weeks across his career. But was the tribunal out to get him?
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Steven Baker says he was victimised by the AFL tribunal which found loopholes to punish him for his aggressive tagging tactics.
But Baker has finally admitted hitting Jeff Farmer in the controversial “rough conduct” suspension that saw him handed a seven-match ban.
Baker and Steve Johnson conducted one of footy’s fiercest rivalries that saw Baker beat Johnson in the 2009 Grand Final loss.
The rematch saw Johnson break his hand on Baker’s head before Baker was handed a nine-match suspension for three separate incidents against the Cats champion.
Baker says by that stage his reputation preceded him, with the AFL’s system also handing him 40 per cent loadings and carry-over points under the system of that time.
Baker and Johnson are now mates after catching up several times with mutual friend Lenny Hayes, but says at the time he didn’t deserve all of his 28 games of suspension from 15 separate charges.
In 2007 Baker was suspended for seven weeks for his hit on Farmer, and while there was no vision of the incident the tribunal said he was guilty of causing Farmer’s concussion.
They suspended him for rough conduct rather than striking, finding a way to penalise him even though they could not uphold the striking charge.
“Every time I went into the tribunal I knew I was going to be found guilty no matter what. I joked about it even if I went in there with no pants on and said the same thing there would be the same outcome,” he said.
“I played on Stevie J in the Grand Final and did pretty well and the next game we went to town on each other, punching each other all game. Stevie J broke his hand on me. He says otherwise but he broke his hand on my head early in the game so I gave him a little cheap shot back, a little uppercut. That was one suspension but the four incidents were pretty minor.
“He gave me the best elbow I had ever received in my whole career, eight stitches and I saw stars. And after the game I said no hard feelings. He went into bat for me and got three weeks but (I got eight).
“Even the Jeff Farmer incident shows the bull**** of the tribunal. We were both sprinting on the other side of the wing and I did wallop him a ripper but they didn’t catch it on camera and I went in there and said I just stopped but he hit me in the back and they said, ‘Because you caused the contact it’s seven weeks’.
“I am just thinking that’s horse s***. If that’s Gary Ablett or Chris Judd, people they want to see play, he would have got off in a second but because it was Steven Baker they found a loophole in the law and he stopped.
“(It was) Baker doing the same old thing, this is a waste of time. I am already going to be guilty.
“I had 15 tribunal appearances and they were all guilty. I didn’t get let off once so and there were a few of them where I didn’t think I was guilty.”
‘WHAT JUST HAPPENED?’: WILD TIMES UNDER BLIGHT
St Kilda’s former stars have lifted the lid on months of chaos and confusion under Malcolm Blight’s short and turbulent reign at the club.
Coaching master Blight arrived at St Kilda only two years after winning the 1999 premiership at Adelaide but was sacked by Round 15 of 2001.
St Kilda stars Stephen Milne and Steven Baker admit they were in awe of Blight when he arrived at the club on a million-dollar-a-year deal.
But as Milne told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast, Blight was never truly engaged and was more of a part-time coach with methods not conducive to the modern game.
“His desk was (clean). A couple of pieces of paper on it and that was it. It was a strange time. Obviously he signed a contract on a napkin and he was kind of pushed into doing it and I don’t think his heart was in it.
“His heart was more into golf at the time. Nothing against Blighty but he wanted to choose different paths.
“In the pre-season he wasn’t there much. He was here Monday, Wednesday and Fridays and he had Tuesday and Thursdays off. We didn’t touch the footies until after Christmas which was weird for a professional AFL footy club not to touch the balls until after Christmas.
“We had to do five 1km time trials and we had to get within five or ten seconds of your (best time) for each 1km. Until you did that you couldn’t touch the footy. He was late to team meetings and stuff like that. It was my first year and I had no idea. I thought Blighty was a back-to-back premiership coach.”
Baker said Blight’s old-school methods took time for players to get used to as they questioned his style of teaching.
“He was playing golf in the pre-season. He was going up for golf trips to the Gold Coast. It was like, ‘He’s not here again this weekend, we will slack off then’.
“He would call guys out and belittle them in front of the group and I wasn’t a fan of that.
“He called me out in front of the group and tried to teach me to baulk, and I said, ‘Mate I just run people over, I don’t need to baulk, stick the elbow up and run through’.
He sort of embarrassed people in front of the group, I know a few people he called out in meetings and the like. A few things I didn’t want in a coach.”
After one loss at Docklands he made all 22 players come together for a stern lecture in the middle of the centre circle.
“He made us sit inside the centre circle, all of us 22 players,” Baker said.
“I thought we were going to do another training session because we just got pumped. That was another weird kind of thing, we all had to be inside that white line, 22 of us sitting there just listening to s***. You remember walking off going, ‘What just happened?’
“In the showers and on the way home, we were thinking did that just happen. You look back on it now and just laugh and think, did that really happen?”
CLUBS WOULD BE MAD NOT TO CHASE ROSS THE BOSS
St Kilda great Stephen Milne says clubs would be mad not to consider Ross Lyon as a future senior coach given his extraordinary AFL record.
Lyon will spend the season in the media this year after being sacked by Fremantle and at least publicly continues to say he might not coach again.
Milne said St Kilda’s decision not to offer Lyon an early extension meant he had been more upset with the club than his senior coach for walking to Fremantle on a lucrative deal.
But while Lyon has been painted as an overly defensive coach at the Dockers, Milne told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast his advice for clubs would be not to overlook him.
“I would say sign him straight away. Great coach, great person, great family man,” he said.
“He knows what he wants but I am not sure if he’s keen at the moment.
“I caught up with him a couple of weeks ago in Sydney and he is loving time off with the family and kids and he is going to put his foot into the media this year and that will get a lot of viewers watching on what he has to say.
“(Him leaving) hit us between the ears. No one saw it coming. I just remember getting the call to go down to Seaford and all of a sudden Rossy got the (boot).
“I think it was my sixth coach by then. It was amazing because we had had a couple of good years and then a little bit lean in 2011, but still had a good core group of experienced players.
MORE SACKED
Stephen Milne was set to be traded to Essendon or Port Adelaide until Grant Thomas was sacked
“And a few young guys coming through and all of a sudden for some reason the Saints didn’t give him a contract and Freo came knocking and once they came knocking and said write your own cheque, I would leave as well.
“Until we found out the truth behind the whole story, it was what are you going for, what is the go?”
Lyon revealed this year that St Kilda’s determination to only offer him a three-month payout if it sacked him in 2012 instead of a full season meant he had to consider his financial future.
But at this point Lyon says he is less likely to coach again.
“I’ve had no thought to coaching. (Adelaide football director) Mark Ricciuto reached out just to have a chat … that was ages ago, around September, and I said ‘Look I’m not interested’.
“It was very informal. As we sit here today I think it is more unlikely than likely.”
