DEVELOPMENT and strategy coach Brendan McCartney speaks publicly for the first time since joining Melbourne. He speaks with Matt Burgan about how he finds Melbourne to be a resilient club, how Tom McDonald has impressed him and how he is adamant the Demons are on the right track in the second of a two-part series on melbournefc.com.au …
MB: Since coming to Melbourne, what’s really stood out to you? What’s really caught your eye and what are the differences you’ve noticed compared to the clubs you’ve been at?
BM: This is a resilient club. They go down the ladder a little bit and they get pushed down but it’s a resilient club because they keep coming to work. The leaders are resilient people and the supporters are a resilient bunch. Maybe that’s been forced upon them over a period of time but when it’s all said and done, where you are on the ladder is for a certain reason. [That’s] either through your recruiting, your development, your coaching, your ability to condition people or the decisions you make on your list. At the moment, I can vouch that we’re well down the path to building a really good footy program and a very strong, united footy department. Is it perfect? No. But is it improving daily and weekly? Yes, because I’m here and I am part of it all the time. This is a resilient club, which people might find strange – they might find that word doesn’t often get attached to Melbourne, but it is because they’ve been through a lot. I enjoy talking to Melbourne people because they actually appreciate the difficulty of success and the lure of success – they crave it. It’s a good place to be because when it gets closer, you end up with a ground swell. I’ve always been much more comfortable in an environment where your backs are against the wall and you’ve got to build something. It’s a good journey.
MB: Did it come as a surprise that you thought Melbourne was a resilient club? What were you expecting it to be?
BM: I was expecting a lot of players that needed to learn a fair bit about the game and that was pretty close, but after that, not too much. I was very comfortable with [chief executive] Peter Jackson, both as a person and a leader, having spent some time with him. I was very comfortable with Simon Goodwin as a prospective senior coach. There’s a strong attachment to him and a strong respect. I looked at Ben Mathews and what he achieved as a player and how he went about what he did. I looked at David Misson, who is respected in the industry and I had a healthy, high respect for the senior coach, Paul. I then looked at the recruiters and what Todd Viney and the recruiting team had been doing. Kelly O’Donnell had told me that there’s something pretty good building. The beauty of this industry is that if you do it right for long enough, you hold your nerve, you’re patient and you believe in yourselves and still find that balance between high demands, yet empathetic understanding, it can turn. It can turn quite quickly and it will, provided that we stay to the course and are committed to working our backsides off to bring the right young talent into the club and then work exceptionally hard and efficiently to develop them.
MB: People talk about premiership clocks or windows. Do you believe in that theory and if so where do you see Melbourne at the moment?
BM: A lot of the groundwork has been done. The players understand that contest is critical and that what happens around the ball is critical. It cues so many decisions that are made away from the ball – either to attack or defend – so that’s been embedded. We’ve still got a long way to go, where it’s at the point now that when it’s not there, it’s stark. We don’t have anything to back it up. It’s a good starting point and why it’s a good starting point is there’s been games this year where we’ve moved the ball brilliantly well, we’ve defended brilliantly well and we’ve had the contest right. When the contest is not right, they tend to fall apart either side. I’m not too much on premiership windows. I think teams mature when they mature. But what does work is irrespective of who the coach is, who the senior assistant coach is and who the recruiting people are – far too much gets attributed to certain people in a footy club when success comes. Great clubs have a way of doing things no matter who is in that position.
MB: Ultimately, how far off do you see the club in terms of it being capable of winning a premiership?
BM: Our recruiting model should stay in place for a long time – how we develop our young talent should never change, how we coach and teach the game, the methods and the strategy will evolve, but the fundamentals should never change. How we project ourselves as a club that is consistent and honest shouldn’t change. Do it for long enough, where people want to attach to us and love us for what our soul is, it doesn’t matter which of us is here, in the journey, this is how Melbourne does things – this is their strategy, this is their process, this is their DNA. When you come to the club to work or play, you fit it and you become part of that. I’ve seen it happen and I’ve been part of it and it’s a breathtaking experience. You don’t often get it in your working life to be part of a build from the floor up and go through losses that take you to depths of despair and then get a little snippet of the future with great wins. Then it disappears again and then it comes back. You see young people fall apart physically and mentally at the end of a long year, because they’re not ready to deal with it yet. You see young players get pushed and beaten in their positions because they’re trying to compete in their workforce for 10 years and they’ve been in it for 10 months. I’m really confident this football club will stay the course with the right people and the right systems and we’ll get there – we’ll get there.
MB: Which players have impressed you the most in your first year at Melbourne?
BM: Tom McDonald adding a different dimension to his game [has been impressive]. We can certainly see him playing different positions – all within the space of 30 minutes. We can see him run around in the ruck and contribute and play as a tall midfielder and back and forward. Our young people – relative to their ability and physical strength – all of them have come in and shown they belong at the level. They’ve shown that physically they’ll be able to compete and they’ve got enough talent. They’ve got a clear headspace when they play and the game doesn’t fry them. They relax out there. They don’t play well every week but they belong. Also seeing them come through the Casey program and having Justin Plapp work with them, along with Brett Allison and Brad Miller and all of those boys – they’re starting to learn their position at that level and then they come up to the MCG and look like they belong. I’ve certainly been really impressed with all of the young boys here and they’ll mature differently as they go. I’ve also been impressed with some of the older boys that have been here for a while with their passion and love for the club. They don’t get everything they want every week because the team isn’t strong enough to do that every week, but they have a fierce love and protection of their club and I respect that.
MB: We’ve spoken about Paul Roos and Simon Goodwin earlier on, but can you also offer an insight into the rest of the coaching group and your role with them?
BM: It’s not formal at the moment, but it will become a little more formal next season and the season after that. It’s almost a one-to-one now. Be around them at meetings or game day and maybe just offer one or two things that I see. I’m quite passionate about coach education, along with player education. It’s a career that’s learned. It’s a craft that’s learned. It takes a long time. It’s like any career out in society. When I do functions for the club and speak to groups, I get people to put their hands up and ask them: how long did it take to get their university degree, then enter the work place and then how long [did it take] to learn their jobs? It always ends up at about 12 or 13 years combined, where you’re actually out in the workforce feeling comfortable about what you’re doing and knowing where you’re at and where you want to go. That’ll get more formal, but they’re a youngish coaching group. They’re a very energetic coaching group and they’re a passionate coaching group. They care about our players and they’ve got a nice mix of strong demand, strong expectation of effort, intensity and performance – mixed with real decency and understanding of the person, so that they can still have a friendly conversation and a solid conversation. They’re on the path or being a really good coaching group.
MB: There is one more round to go, but already an eye is already towards pre-season and next year. What are you hoping to achieve over the pre-season?
BM: There’s a tremendous amount of energy from the staff right now about ‘righto, let’s go to battle again on Sunday against GWS, let’s go as far as we can with Casey in the finals and support those guys’. But around that there is also, ‘who’s doing what, where does our training go to and what are the things that we’re going to add to our game?’ We’ve built some good basics and there’s clearly another four or five things that we need to solidify in how we play and that just comes with coaching, meetings, explanation, walk-throughs, practice, training and reinforcement to the point where it becomes instinctive behaviour. We still have a lot of work to do with what I call ‘player craft’, which is all of the little tricks which help them to play their position. So, if they’re out of position, how do they get back into position or if they’re in a dominant position, how do they protect that? [We need to] educate our defenders about the offensive part of their game and how to really challenge the opposition. Also [we need to] really pick the eyes out of things that really caused us grief this year, which other teams did to us and put that in front of the playing group again and show them how to deal with it. But I think that this group is also ready to take ownership of how we play too and incorporate a lot of their ideas with how we play too – and that’ll happen too.
MB: It’s early I know, but how do you think Melbourne will fare next year?
BM: The team will keep improving because the team has been taught some terrific things that don’t come out all of the time yet. They don’t appear under pressure against more mature teams all the time – and sometimes against less mature teams. That’ll be the test for us. Inevitably lists change every year. People come and people go. Coaches come and coaches go. It’s doing it one bit at a time and it’s [saying] ‘righto, let’s finish this year strongly, let’s review and plan really efficiently about how we’re going to tackle the pre-season to give us a fighting chance next year’. Let’s respect every pick at the draft and every place on our list to its nth [degree], so we get the type of person and player we want with that pick – whether it’s pick [number] five or six, 23 or 70. Value pick 70 and find a good young player with it or give a person from another club an opportunity to maybe play in a position that he can’t have at his previous club. So it’s doing things bit by bit – get them a bit faster, get them a bit fitter, a bit stronger and a bit smarter in their position and add a layer to their game.
MB: Is there one thing that can make a team successful?
BM: [You’ve] still got to keep the footy department vibrant, fun and enjoy what we’re doing and believe in people’s strengths and keep pushing each other, but supporting each other. And just keep doing it consistently. There’s not too many secrets to it. A lot gets written about secrets and one thing’s been added, a coach is different or a player group is different. More than often, when a team really evolves, it’s the combination of a really good build and a systematic approach and there are a couple of really good examples right now that are going to play in the finals that have been built from the floor up.
MB: Macca, it’s been fantastic chatting to you. Thanks for your time. All the best for the final round and for 2016 and beyond.
BM: Pleasure mate, cheers.
