Sacked AFL podcast 2022: Every episode and story
A decade after one of the AFL’s biggest scandals a former league boss revealed his regrets from the whole saga. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
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They are the remarkable true stories of the day the axe fell.
The Sacked podcast in 2022 again delivered rare insights into the reality of life in the AFL, from shock dumpings to stunning decisions, all told by those who experienced them.
From Trent Croad opening up on his sensational Hawthorn split to Brenton Sanderson’s sliding doors moment as Adelaide coach, these are the stories that had us gripped in 2022.
MARCH 10
Former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou called the decision to strip Jobe Watson of his 2012 Brownlow Medal “terribly sad” and said the Bombers star deserved to retain the award.
In an extraordinary admission, the man who led the AFL’s response to the Essendon drugs scandal also stated the 34 players were “hard done by”.
While he has no regrets about pursuing the Bombers for their conduct, Demetriou said that while he left the AFL in 2014 he would have done everything in his power for Watson to retain the award.
“I think he’s been one of the great contributors of the game. The Watson family has been period,” Demetriou said.
“I have got a lot of time for Tim and Jobe. He carried himself superbly well through that whole predicament.
“I was terribly sad to see him lose the Brownlow. And you know, I wasn’t there when the decision was taken.
“But I would have fought very hard for him not to lose the Brownlow.”
MARCH 17
It was the sliding doors moment that changed Brenton Sanderson’s AFL trajectory.
With five minutes to play in the 2012 preliminary final against Hawthorn, the Crows led by a point before relinquishing the lead.
Not even a late goal from a young Taylor Walker with 16 seconds left was enough.
“I was shattered,” Sanderson said in his most revealing interview since his tumultuous three-season term as Adelaide’s senior coach ended in late 2014.
“(The players) were obviously distressed. We lost the game, but by God, we went down swinging. As heartbreaking as it was, I had enormous pride in what those boys had done.”
Within weeks Sanderson’s hopes of becoming a long-term senior coach were on a downward spiral.
Star forward Kurt Tippett ultimately sought a trade and it unravelled a salary cap scandal that rocked the club and brought on crippling draft sanctions.
MARCH 24
More than 25 years on and Neil Balme remains the answer to the ultimate trivia question.
Picture this: Half-time at Waverley Park in Round 6, 1997 and while Balme is addressing his Demons side, club president Joe Gutnick took part in an explosive radio interview forecasting the demise of the popular coach.
St Kilda led the league cellar-dwellers by 45 points at the long break, leading to Gutnick telling Triple M’s Eddie McGuire that “unpopular decisions” had to be made.
The meaning was clear, effectively making Balme the first coach in AFL history to be axed at halftime.
“Mike Sheahan wrote something in Friday’s (Herald Sun), saying whoever coaches the losing team today needs to get the sack,” Balme said.
“Joe must have read it and he spoke to Ed … at halftime, (saying) ‘we are going to sack the coach’.”
Balme still shakes his head at what the then-mining magnate and footy novice Gutnick said.
“After the game someone came in and said it had happened,” Balme recalled.
“I wouldn’t expect anything more from him (Gutnick), he had no idea of what he was doing.”
APRIL 1
Flag predictions, especially those made in February, can make or break any coach.
Just ask Peter Schwab.
The Hawthorn mentor stepped up to the stage at Chadstone Shopping Centre and in front of players, sponsors, staffers and media stated why his fifth season at the helm would deliver grand final glory.
Speaking 18 years on from that moment, Schwab conceded: “That was an error of judgment by me, and for a few different reasons.”
“One, because I hadn’t really discussed it with the playing list. So that probably took them by surprise. I tried to make a statement that we would win the premiership, then I wanted to qualify it by saying, ‘Well, that’s what we should be aiming for if we are in a competition’.
“I should have worded it better.
“I tried to be a bit smart and it hung around my neck and it was always going to come back and whack me, which it did when we started the season poorly.”
APRIL 8
He took a winding road to premiership success and ruckman John Barnes revealed just how his dream was realised.
After starting his career at the Bombers, a bust-up with coach Kevin Sheedy led to a switch to Geelong and three doomed grand final appearances in the 1990s.
Heading towards the end of the 1996 season, Barnes overcame an impasse with the club – and his larrikin reputation – to earn a new deal.
“That contract was for ’97, ’98, ’99 … I pulled my finger out. I trained super hard, ate all the healthy food, and got super fit,” Barnes said.
It was deja vu in 1999 but this time he wasn’t so lucky.
“‘Bomber’ (coach Mark Thompson) came over to the house and said, ‘Johnny, it’s out of my hands mate, you have to look elsewhere’,” Barnes said.
“I said, ‘Mate, you are the coach!’. He said: ‘Trust me, it’s out of my hands’.”
Barnes would return to Essendon and help claim the flag in 2000.
APRIL 15
Former North Melbourne chief executive Greg Miller dropped a bombshell when claiming the AFL “lied” over the failed Kangaroos-Fitzroy merger in 1996.
At the time the Kangaroos knew their financial plight was so perilous they agreed to merge with Fitzroy in a deal meant to include more than $6 million as well as extra draft, list and fixture incentives.
Within a year Brisbane and Fitzroy instead merged and the Roos would go on to win two of the next four premierships.
Miller said the AFL – led by Ross Oakley – changed the rules of the merger in those fateful weeks leading up to a July decision.
“It is an amazing story. They had a meeting with all the clubs at Leonda (function centre) in Kew there, and they handed around a paper. They said merging is the No.1 priority of the AFL and here is what we are going to offer you,” he told Sacked.
Miller said after the merger clubs worked through “a few little hiccups”, his side started winning which generated fears of a “super club”.
“So there was a famous meeting in Fitzroy when we refused to give ground. We had been offered (the deal) on paper and we were asked to dilute it,” he said.
“You can’t do that. The AFL wanted less players, less salary cap. We said, ‘No this is the deal’.”
APRIL 22
It was Robert Shaw’s love of family that ended one of the chapters of his footy journey.
After an injury-hit playing career, Shaw coached Fitzroy in the early 1990s before winning 17 of 44 matches at the helm of the Crows across 1995 and 1996.
“I wasn’t hopeless … but I didn’t get them into finals,” he said.
The end, though, came after the strain of coaching in footy-mad Adelaide started to impact his family.
The Shaw family home had a security guard allocated to it for a period of time.
There was also talk of a bomb threat and on one occasion manure was “smeared around my house … I was asleep. I have got a game that day and my wife must have got up and gone out and cleaned the house before I got up.”
It came to a head after the Crows were overrun by Melbourne by 51 points in Round 13.
Shaw was booed around the boundary line and was shocked when he got to the family area in the rooms and his own family wasn’t there.
“(I was like) ‘Where’s my family? I can’t find my family’,” Shaw said.
“Eventually we found them. The little ones are in tears; my wife was trying to hold it together.”
Shaw coached out the season but told the Crows to “do what you have to do”.
APRIL 29
“I should have retired.”
Dual premiership star Corey McKernan offered a blunt assessment when quizzed about the Denis Pagan’s appointment as Carlton’s coach.
Pagan was famously tough on his players and it wore McKernan down over the years, with the ruck-forward moving from Kangaroos to Carlton in 2002, only to be followed a year later by Pagan.
“There was an enormous amount of respect for Denis Pagan but at the end of the day it wasn’t getting the best out of one another,” McKernan said.
“So that’s why I made the change.”
Then came a bombshell soon after he had won the Blues’ 2002 best and fairest.
“I was overseas and landed at Tullamarine Airport and there were no phones allowed so I have got no idea Denis is going to be coach at Carlton and I walked up to the gentleman at customs,” he said.
“And he actually took a look at my passport and looked at me and he said, ‘Gee, you’ll be happy with the new coach’.
“That’s when I found out Denis was going to be coaching at Carlton. So I remember I got on the phone to Stephen Kernahan straight away and I wasn’t overly enthused with it.
“It’s not as if we had a toxic relationship or anything like that. It just doesn’t work.
“... And truth be known, after that first season I should have retired.”
MAY 6
Rodney Eade’s worst and best moments in his playing career came in the same week a year apart.
On the eve of the 1985 VFL premiership playoff, the wingman was preparing for a Hawthorn team meeting at Glenferrie Oval when coach Alan Jeans delivered a bombshell.
“I got votes in the preliminary final in the best and fairest (count) and the media,” he said. “We (went) to the Grand Final parade and we got back to a meeting at Hawthorn. Then Yabby pulled me aside and said ‘We’re not going to go with you, son’?
“I was just stunned. I was in complete shock.”
Eade went on to play in the Hawks’ reserves premiership side the next day, elevated to the captaincy as “a token gesture”, as the Bombers destroyed the Hawthorn senior side 102-62.
“I went through a whole range of emotions,” he said. “I got angry, I got shitty and said bugger them ‘I am not going to turn up’. Fortunately my dad was pragmatic and said you are the only one who is going to lose out.’
“I will be really honest, I was hoping they wouldn’t win.”
The next year Eade played one of the most significant matches of his career, winning 26 disposals and restricting his Carlton opponent Craig Bradley to only nine in the Hawks’ 1986 victory.
MAY 13
After 10 seasons and 180 games with St Kilda, Peter “Spida” Everitt knew he had to leave.
The destination seemed simple enough, before five minutes of mayhem changed it all.
“I was going to Collingwood. I met with Mick Malthouse and Neil Balme … but the (St Kilda) footy club wouldn’t deal with Collingwood,” he said.
“Hawthorn came into play late. There was around five minutes to go when the deadline was two o’clock. They said: ‘You’ve got five minutes (to make up your mind). Are you happy to go to Hawthorn?’ They had come into play a day earlier. I said: ‘Absolutely’.”
Everitt knew his future at St Kilda would be limited as long as Grant Thomas remained coach. He knew Thomas was “best mates” with the club’s president Rod Butterss.
“There was a perception out there that I wasn’t fully committed,” Everitt said.
“I thought if I went to a different club, I was hopeful I could change that perception.
“The other reason was myself and Thommo didn’t see eye-to-eye. I challenged him and he challenged me.
“I knew he was going to be there for a long time as his best mate Butterss was at the top of the tree.”
Everitt ended up at Hawthorn, a move that lasted four seasons and 72 games.
MAY 27
Twelve months prior to his Norm Smith Medal moment, Brian Lake was at the MCG, drinking frothies with mates from Adelaide, barracking against Hawthorn in the 2012 Grand Final against Sydney.
Under strict orders from his manager, Lake was not allowed to disclose the fact he would soon make the switch from the Bulldogs to the Hawks.
The only catch could be a Hawthorn victory which could turn a simple trade into a messy one – hence his support of Sydney that day.
“A part of me wanted Hawthorn to lose because I thought it would have been an easier trade to happen if they lost to Sydney,” he reflected.
The Swans upset the Hawks, baring Alastair Clarkson’s need for a power defender even more stark. Lake was willing and able, having already had a clandestine meeting with the Hawthorn footy hierarchy and been ticked off from a medical perspective.
The move, while it included hurdles, would ultimately deliver Lake his finest moment – a 2013 flag and Norm Smith Medal.
JUNE 3
Trent Croad lifted the lid on the dramatic toll of the bombshell trade that sent the Hawthorn favourite to Fremantle, revealing his mother took part in the protest rallies that tried to keep him at Glenferrie Oval.
Croad was traded against his will only weeks after his long late shot against Essendon in the 2001 preliminary final faded to hit the post in a nailbiting affair.
Croad said he was “shattered” by the trade that saw Hawthorn secretly plotting to ship him to secure the No.1 pick from Fremantle.
Croad returned to the Hawks after two tough years and played in the 2008 Grand Final victory.
The club’s 2001 coach Peter Schwab told Sacked the club knew it needed to secure one of the top three picks (Luke Hodge, Luke Ball, Chris Judd) but admitted it butchered the execution with Croad only finding out on the first day of the annual trade talks.
“I was shattered,” Croad said.
“I was a bit naive. I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Trading wasn’t huge. Players ask to be traded now but back then loyalty was really strong and we had just come out of a prelim and there was this tubby bloke from Colac (Hodge) that they are looking at.
“They wouldn’t trade for anyone else.”
JUNE 10
It was a “gut feel” decision that ended one career and kickstarted another.
Cameron Mooney admitted Geelong coach Chris Scott still cannot explain the remarkable call that saw him select Tom Hawkins for his three-goal 2011 premiership performance against Collingwood.
Mooney said it was a brilliant coaching call from Scott, even if it sidelined him from a bid for three flags at Geelong and four across his entire career.
“I got to the end of 2010 and my knee was really cooked. And I thought, ‘I‘ve got at least one more year’,” Mooney said.
After an early injury Mooney admitted “I probably should have retired then and there”.
“I went back to the reserves for a little bit, and got fit. Came back into the side against Melbourne that day, we kicked 200-odd points. I thought ‘I’m on my way. I’m feeling good’,” he said.
“But we played Adelaide and my body was playing up and I got suspended and to Scotty’s credit it was between Tom Hawkins and myself, Pods (James Podsiadly) was the No.1 forward and I was coming back from suspension and Hawkins didn’t play well and I thought, ‘Well, I’m back in here’.
“I sat down with Scotty during the week. And he basically just said, ‘Man, I can’t give you a reason why but I’m gonna go with the young bloke’.
“And he ended up going with Hawkins. It was the best decision that he ever made.”
JUNE 17
Gold Coast Suns supremo Tony Cochrane opened up on the epic knock-back that led to one of Australia’s biggest show business coups.
Cochrane was in his early 30s when engaged by resort developer Mike Gore to find a standout act for the $16 million, five-day Sanctuary Cove opening, “The Ultimate Event” in 1988.
“He (Gore) really wanted Neil Diamond, which I singularly failed to achieve for him,” Cochrane said.
“I had a serious crack … (but) I simply got nowhere.”
Thinking on the fly, he said to Gore: “Let me try for the ‘Chairman of the Board’, Frank Sinatra!”
Given Sinatra had left an Australian tour 14 years earlier vowing to never return, calling the media “pimps and hookers” and getting into a slanging match with then ACTU secretary Bob Hawke, it was going to take some of Cochrane’s finest negotiation skills.
He tried initially through Sinatra’s LA management office before flying to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to chase a meeting with Sinatra’s manager Eliot Weisman.
“I fronted there at nine o’clock on Monday morning to have a meeting only to be politely told that there would be no such meeting,” he said.
Cochrane stayed the entire week in the foyer, returning to his own hotel only to sleep.
“Eventually on Friday, out of sheer frustration, they granted me a five-minute meeting.”
Two hours later, Cochrane exited the meeting having sealed the deal.
JUNE 24
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett insisted the club would have allowed Alastair Clarkson to depart having paid him the $900,000 salary owed to him if he had made clear the Sam Mitchell succession plan was unworkable.
Kennett said that despite the bruising nature of Clarkson’s departure in 2021, the results of Mitchell’s first season meant it was worth the pain.
The club paid Clarkson’s salary over two seasons in a deal that allows them to minimise their exposure under the AFL’s football department soft cap.
But Kennett said he did not foresee the issues that ultimately tore apart a succession plan he believed in.
“Once he (Clarkson) decided that he was better for the club that he leave we entered into negotiations with he and his manager. We would never not going to pay him,” Kennett said.
“The man had given us four premierships, it was never a question. Never ever a question we wouldn’t pay out his contract.
“If he’d just come to us and said, ‘Look, I’m tired. I need to change. I’ve got to go’, we’d say, ‘OK Clarko, we will pay you out until the end of 2022’.”
JULY 8
Richmond’s 1980 premiership coach Tony Jewell detailed the extraordinary sliding doors moment that saw him briefly anointed as Bob Rose’s heir apparent at Collingwood ahead of an untried Leigh Matthews.
Jewell said he had verbally agreed to join the Magpies – the club he had beaten as coach in the 1980 grand final – after being approached by Rose at the end of the 1985 season.
But on the same morning he told Rose he would accept the Magpies role, a shock phone call from the Tigers caused Jewell to change his mind – and ultimately it changed the course of football history.
“Bobby Rose rang and told me (players) David Cloke and Geoff Raines had given me a (good) rap,” Jewell said.
“He said, ‘Look, I don’t want to coach anymore. When I’ve had enough, I think you know enough about the club and the players, you will come in to replace me as coach’.
“He (Rose) had already told me: ‘I have been talking to Leigh Matthews but we are not keen to go with Leigh as he has never coached before. We don’t want an inexperienced coach.’”
But after agreeing to Collingwood’s offer club loyalty got the better of Jewell as Richnmond pleaded for his return to the club that sacked him at the end of 1981.
His second stint at the Tigers lasted two years before being sacked again.
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