SACKED podcast: Jon Anderson and Bruce Eva on the biggest coaching changes of the past 25 years

Denis Pagan was the man floated to become Geelong coach as pressure mounted on Mark Thompson. In the final SACKED podcast of this series, we go inside the tumult which almost changed Geelong’s modern history.

Steve Johnson and Cameron Mooney celebrate Geelong’s 2009 Grand Final win with Mark Thompson.

Geelong powerbrokers considered replacing an out of favour Mark Thompson with two-time premiership coach Denis Pagan during the Cats’ 2006 controversial end of season review.

Long-time Herald Sun sports journalist Jon Anderson revealed on the season-ending episode of the Sacked podcast that at least one Cats board member was keen to bring the then Carlton coach to Kardinia Park and cast aside Thompson after the Cats tumbled out of the eight.

Geelong had played finals in the two previous seasons – making a preliminary final in 2004 and a semi-final in 2005 – but dropped out of finals contention in 2006 with only 10 wins.

The failure to play finals saw the Cats launch an extensive and at times confronting review of the club’s football department – and as a result Thompson’s position – which proved one of the most seismic moments in the history of the Geelong Football Club.

Pagan was under fire as Carlton coach at the time, but had brought together a talented North Melbourne group to win premierships in 1996 and 1999.

“He (Pagan) knew his time at Carlton was probably coming to an end … (and) there were people at Geelong agitating for Denis Pagan to become coach of Geelong,” Anderson said.

“Geelong missed the finals and there were some people … who wanted Pagan to come as coach and to get rid of Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson.

“That was 100 per cent true.

“I was at home when I was talking to (one of the agitators) at the time. He might have been on the board, and that’s where it was headed.

“Denis would have loved to have come (to Geelong).”

Denis Pagan takes charge at Carlton in 2006.

Mark Thompson went on to win two premierships as Geelong coach.

But Cats president Frank Costa and chief executive Brian Cook ultimately backed Thompson to coach into the 2007 season, quashing any push to install Pagan as his replacement.

It proved a massive sliding doors moment, with the review transforming the mood of the club, with the Cats going on to win the 2007 flag, breaking a 44-year premiership drought.

It was the first of three flags within five seasons – two of them coached by Thompson – as the Cats created a dynasty.

And Pagan was sacked by the Blues as coach after round 16 in 2007.

Anderson and journalist/broadcaster Bruce Eva came together for the Sacked podcast to discuss the biggest coaching sackings of the past 25 years, including Pagan’s axing at Carlton, Mick Malthouse’s departures from Collingwood and Carlton, and Malcolm Blight’s shock sacking from St Kilda midway through 2001.

Eva, a passionate Saints supporter and keen history buff, believes St Kilda’s premiership drought – dating back to 1966 – could have been quenched if not for the tragic death of Trevor Barker at 39 from cancer in 1996.

He remains convinced Barker would have been the man to break that hoodoo.

“I think it (Barker’s death) changed the history of the St Kilda Football Club,” Eva said. “He was going to be a magnificent (senior) coach.

“I would have been staggered if he hadn’t coached my beloved Saints to a premiership.”

Eva said Barker, who coached two VFA premierships at Sandringham, was being groomed as the Saints’ next senior coach following Stan Alves.

“He came back to St Kilda in 1995 as the reserves coach and he took basically a bunch of kids into the finals,” he said.