Farewell Buddha: How outgoing coach Garry Hocking has led Leopold to three grand finals in three years

Geelong great Garry Hocking has motivated his players with TV show themes, but he has also wowed players and coaches with in-game moves. Here’s how the outgoing coach has turned Leopold into a powerhouse.

Marcus Thompson and coach Garry Hocking with the 2023 premiership cup. Picture: Mark Wilson

An incredible ability to instil belief and a phenomenal football brain.

They are the two things that stand out most about outgoing Leopold coach Garry ‘Buddha’ Hocking during his glittering stint at the Lions.

The Geelong great will bow out after his third Geelong Football Netball League grand final in three years — a win on Friday to make it back-to-back premierships.

A man who captain Marcus Thompson was warned could deliver a mean spray has only delivered one over his time at Leopold, and it proved extremely effective.

Five goals down to Colac at halftime on their home deck, Hocking told then football director and now vice-president Matt Aston to get Leopold’s 2016 premiership cup.

Garry Hocking addresses his troops. Picture: Alan Barber

“Buddha actually grabbed the 2016 cup from the trophy cabinet without us knowing and he just shook it in front of us and said, ‘boys, this is slipping away. Yours is slipping away’,” Thompson recalls.

“That was round 13 and we came out and didn’t win that game, played pretty poorly but that was certainly a moment that lasts for a lot of us that were in the room and I guess the rest is history what happened at the end of last year.”

Leopold was well beaten the next week by St Mary’s again at Memorial Park, but the Lions went on to win their next eight games after that en route to the 2023 premiership.

Themes have been a big part of Hocking’s coaching method, and the mantra of American crime drama series Sons of Anarchy was used to motivate the players.

“It was just around the way he wanted to play, to create a bit of mayhem and havoc and like some of the bikie clubs that you see throughout that series,” Aston said.

“The players really gravitate to things like that but the personal relationships that he has built has been massive in helping develop players, not only on the ground but off the ground as well.”

Football GFL Grand Final: South Barwon v Leopold Leopold winners with coach Garry Hocking Picture: Mark Wilson

TURNING POINT

This season the Leopold faced a similar challenge to last year.

The Lions found themselves 4-3 by round seven, with Hocking feeling a round three brawl with Colac had spooked them a touch.

Ahead of an important clash with South Barwon away from home in round 11, Hocking decided to take a leaf out of Essendon coach Brad Scott’s book.

He turning the ‘Essendon Edge’ the Bombers had adopted into the ‘Leopold Edge’, or ‘Ledge’ for short, and the Lions ran out 47-point winners in a result eerily similar to last year’s grand final.

“Two things we wanted to work on was the energy of the group, and also just getting a bit harder edge about us,” Hocking told this publication after their win over South Barwon.

“It is just going back to being us again. I think we had a bit of a dust-up in the game against Colac and I think that may have possibly spooked us a little bit.

“I think since then we hadn’t tried to be as hot around the contest and as competitive.”

Thompson said the Bell Park loss was a wake-up call for him and his players that changed their season.

“We sort of come back to our training standards, where we doing every we did in 2023 to try and get there, a bit of complacency might’ve crept in,” Thompson said.

“And we were able to sort of able to rectify that through a lot of hard work and honest conversations, so it’s up to the individual to best prepare each and every week and as a collective group making sure we are all buying into the same standards in which were the year before that got us to where we were. It was certainly a bit of a turning point of the season for us.

Since the Dragons defeat, the Lions have dropped just one game to St Mary’s back in round 13. In their next meeting, they drew at the final siren before winning by a solitary point in golden point in one of the most thrilling local finals you will see.

There have been countless other themes and dress-ups that have both relaxed and driven the playing group - the most recent being the ‘Believe’ message of fictional soccer coach Ted Lasso.

“There is certain things within that that I won’t go too much into, but it is just about relaxing the playing group and just making us feel on gameday like, at the end of the day, it is just a game,” Thompson said.

“And we love being around each other and playing for each other, and I guess the main messaging is just belief in each other and what are trying to achieve, and that’s a premiership.”

Garry Hocking reinforces his Ted Lasso message after their win over St Joseph’s. Picture: Alan Barber

FOOTY BRAIN

‘Buddha’ is not just an actor. Far from it.

Thompson and Aston have been left flabbergasted by Hocking’s ability to pull a lever out of nowhere and make it work.

Think throwing Harris Jennings into the ruck or Tevan Nofi up forward.

It should come as no surprise given he has performed senior and assistant roles all across the country at Peel Thunder, Port Adelaide – where he was interim AFL coach for four matches - South Adelaide and Collingwood.

But his wizardry in the coaches box never ceases to amaze.

“He would move someone to a really peculiar type of position and then all of a sudden the ball would end up in their hands and you would go, ‘oh wow’,” Aston said.

Thompson could see it out on the field as well.

“He’s a bit of a freak, sometimes in a game he will see something happen and he’ll move a player half a metre and the ball will just go to that player,” Thompson said.

“He is just got an incredible knack of reading the game, even from the coaches box. His ability to read the game is as good as anyone I have ever seen.”

Football Netball GFNL - Geelong West v Leopold Leopold coach Garry Hocking Picture: Mark Wilson

HOW IT BEGAN

It was a Leopold connection that helped secure Hocking, they deserve some credit for a helping hand that could deliver the club two premierships.

With former coach Jason Tom relocating to Cairns, Leopold was on the lookout for a new coach and saw that Hocking was back in the region lending a hand with St Joseph’s.

Aston gave former Leopold coach Aaron Greaves – currently coaching and performance manager at Carlton who had worked alongside Hocking at Port Adelaide - a call to assess his interest.

“He rang me back half an hour later and he said ‘give him a ring, tell him you want him and I reckon you’ll get him’,” Aston said.

Within a couple of weeks the highly experienced coach was signed, sealed and delivered.

From the get-go he set about turning Leopold into a club that competes for premierships, having finished ninth in the Covid-stricken season of 2021.

Garry Hocking and Ken Hickley in 2016. Picture: Calum Robertson

“He really looked into how we’d been performing and really put it on the group that we need to go from one of the bottom sides to try and compete with the top sides.

“So he put it on the group that we are not here to just make up the numbers, we want to compete week after week and year after year.”

Hocking and the playing group have certainly walked the talk.

FAREWELL BUDDHA

A premiership will give Hocking a fitting send-off and he will be sorely missed.

“There is some sadness to it. He gives so much as a person and as a coach, but at the same time we are so understanding of his decision and the reasons why and I couldn’t be more supportive of him in those decisions,” Thompson said.

“He has given so much to football, not just to local obviously with us but South Australia, Western Australia, his time in the AFL, his family has had to take on a bit of that weight of expectation and I guess those commitments that Buddha has had to do.”

But Aston is sure he will see ‘Buddha’ around at Memorial Park into the future.

“The impact he has had just in three years, I don’t think he will be lost to the club,” Aston said.

“Speaking to him now he is still going to be pretty keen, he won’t be able to live without footy. It’s been obviously a massive part of his life but he might get out and watch a few games or come to a number of training sessions just to check in.”

Originally published as Farewell Buddha: How outgoing coach Garry Hocking has led Leopold to three grand finals in three years