SACKED podcast 2024: David Noble remembers the moment he heard Crows coach Phil Walsh had been stabbed to death

In the latest SACKED AFL podcast episode, former Crows football manager David Noble recalls the 3am phone call when he learned of coach Phil Walsh’s violent death. LISTEN NOW.

AFL - Adelaide Football Club announce their new coach - former Port Adelaide assistant Phil Walsh. Walsh at the press conference today with new CEO Andrew Fagan. PHOTO SARAH REED

Former Adelaide football boss David Noble has detailed the emotional aftermath of Phil Walsh’s death as he was woken with a 3am phone call from chief executive Andrew Fagan who stated: “Our coach has been murdered.”

The former Crows and Brisbane Lions football boss and North Melbourne senior coach believes Walsh would have won at least one premiership at Adelaide given his extraordinary coaching gifts.

Noble believes if he had stayed at Adelaide he would have prevented the disastrous leadership camp fiasco of early 2018 that brought down the club, having knocked back the same group (Collective Mind) when it presented a proposal to Brisbane at the same time.

LISTEN: Press play below to listen to the David Noble ‘Sacked’ podcast

READ MORE: John Noble was ‘devastated’ at missing Pies 2023 finals campaign.

Walsh was stabbed to death in July 2015 by his son Cy Walsh, who was later found to have undiagnosed schizophrenia, in one of footy’s saddest and most tragic stories.

Walsh was only 12 matches into his first season at Adelaide and had already wowed his players and fellow staff with his emotional intelligence, forward-thinking strategies and tactical acumen.

His coaching career was cut short just when it was about to blossom at the age of 55 after assistant coaching stints at Geelong, West Coast and Port Adelaide.

Noble told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast he will never forget being woken with that shock phone call – or the way the club subsequently banded together to support its staff and players.

“I got a call from the CEO (Fagan) about three in the morning. I am thinking, ‘Not one of those ones (about a player behaving badly).’ Or it might have been a pocket dial.

Phil Walsh at his announcement as new Coach of the Adelaide Football Club. Picture: Stephen Laffer

“Fages rang again and I picked up the phone and walked out of the bedroom and he said, ‘Our coach has been murdered’.

“And I distinctly remember I had the phone in my left hand to my ear. I didn’t have a stitch (of clothing) on, and I had my hand over my mouth, and my wife walked out, and she said, ‘What’s happened?’

“And I reckon I just stood there for about 10 seconds, and Fages said, ‘Are you there?’ And I went, ‘Yeah’. I just froze. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was like I was in a dream.

“I don’t know if scary is the right word but it’s as awful as it gets. No one can prepare you for it. It’s as horrendous as it gets. I was in the car at about half past three or 4am driving into Adelaide. It was myself, Fages, (chairman) Rob Chapman and Emma Barr, our PDM (player development manager) at the time. It was like, ‘How do we handle this?’

“The club was unbelievable. We kept the players together, as difficult as it was. We did a reflection piece. We went through all of Walshy’s famous quotes and we had a laugh and a cry and it was bloody tough. It was awful.

“It was probably myself and Emma Barr after a couple of days, there was a point where we bumped into each other in the hallway and we just basically grabbed each other and bawled our eyes out.”

David Noble early in his tenure at the Crows, as assistant coach in 2004.

Noble said Walsh had the list and the coaching genius to win premierships if he had been allowed the time to realise his talent.

“We ran a scenario (in his coaching interview) where we had a five-minute segment of tape (of a game),” Noble said. “We played it live then they had to coach that for five minutes like they were in the box. He was phenomenal. Making moves and what information he would want and the data he needed, he had the whole picture. You would nearly offer him the job on the spot. That’s how good he was.

“He saw things in people they didn’t see in themselves. He was the first with ‘Tex’ (Taylor Walker) to see leadership, the first to really challenge him in that space.

“You couldn’t have had a more positive coach at training. Like I have never seen before.

“He would work from 4am in the morning and be in bed at 7pm, he’d just be exhausted. He had a clear methodology as to how he planned his feedback for everyone. He would write two key points for every player and hand that to every coach on Monday morning and they were reinforcement points for everyone so there were no mixed messages.

Crows fans pay tribute to Phil Walsh after his violent death.

“He was straight, you knew where you stood. It wasn’t in a nasty dictatorial way, and was just honest. ‘This is where I see you.’ And the players loved it.”

The Adelaide camp in the 2018 pre-season was run by Queensland consultancy group Collective Mind. Many Crows players, including Eddie Betts, were critical of its methods in a sour aftermath that lasted for several seasons. Former Crow Josh Jenkins said his opposition to the camp led to him being ostracised, while Bryce Gibbs said in 2022 it fractured the playing group. By then Noble had moved on to be head of football at Brisbane but said he quickly knocked back Collective Mind when it pitched its vision to the Lions.

“It’s probably too easy for me to say, no, I wouldn’t have done it, but only in the sense that I had that experience with a couple of conversations with those guys and I said no up there. I told them that I didn’t have the money to spend on the program.”

Originally published as SACKED podcast 2024: David Noble remembers the moment he heard Crows coach Phil Walsh had been stabbed to death