Tweet
Interesting for me to see that roosy likens himself to the Rocket of 96-97. Makes me wonder what happened to change Rocket's attitude as the years passed?
Also good to see that Roosy's view and expectations of the list and his goals haven't changed despite the success of this year. I guess we just need that superstar now!
I just hope he is still coaching us in 10 years though!!!
Swans coach Paul Roos speaks about life in Sydney, his star players, life after footy, the big clash against Collingwood, and more ...
Not a career coach: Paul Roos said he'd be surprised if he was still coaching in 10 years' time.
I'm here to do my penance. At the start of the year I thought you'd finish last. How did I ? we ? get it so wrong?
We made it pretty clear at the end of last year that we were rebuilding. I wasn't surprised that people would think that (we would finish at or near the bottom).
When you've got great players retiring, the natural thought is you are rebuilding. I didn't think we'd finish bottom, but I wasn't surprised others did.
Someone's got to be picked to finish top, someone's got to be picked to finish bottom. There's a little bit of out of sight, out of mind, too, with Sydney.
Thanks. I think what happens is most other teams have got players A, B, C and D who make you think their team will do OK. Barry Hall and Paul Williams were the only Swans in my top 50.
You always look at the top end of talent. You say Brisbane have got to finish close to the top because of their midfield brigade and their defence; Adelaide's got to be up there because of McLeod and Ricciuto and Goodwin and Edwards and Carey etc, etc; Collingwood ? Tarrant, Rocca, Buckley. So it's easy to line the teams up like that.
Sydney lost Lockett, Kelly, Dunkley, Schwass. We were of the opinion we needed to unearth the next superstar, so this was going to be very much an unknown year for us.
Where did you think the year would take you; what bracket?
It's probably hard for people to understand, but we've said all along our priority is not to win five games or 10 games or 12 games. Our priority has been to play younger players, to test younger players, to play (Jude) Bolton and (Nic) Fosdike in the midfield; give (Adam) Goodes a bit more responsibility. That was the main priority going into the season. We still believe we are that top-end talent short of being a premiership side.
It's going to have to come from (Adam) Schneider, LRT (Lewis Roberts-Thomson), (James) Meiklejohn, (Mark) Powell, (Jarrad) Sundqvist, the five we've introduced this year, plus the 19 to 23-year-olds.
We went into the year not really worrying too much about where we were going to finish.
How were you after the three losses (Rounds 2-4)?
Because we hadn't set ourselves a target, it was just a case of, "Maybe our list is not that good. That's fine, let's just keep playing the young guys, make sure we stay on the track and at the end of the year we'll make some tough decisions".
I believe, as a club, you need to give yourself a four-to-five year window of a chance to win a premiership. All the planets need to be aligned, but you need a good young list for four to five years.
Does a coach get four to five years?
Possibly not, but I'm not in it for the individual glory. I knew when I took on the job that this might have been a really tough year, but the board was 100 per cent behind me and I had three years. I'm not too fussed about four to five years down the track. If I'm not successful, I'll just move on.
I honestly believe the time's right for me to coach. I'm enjoying it. Along with the other guys, I think we did a pretty good job in getting six wins last year, but I'm not a person who is going to bite and scratch and hang on to keep the job.
If I'm no good at it, and I'm not successful, I'm happy to walk away. At the moment, I think I'm the right person to do it.
If, in two, three or four years' time, the club taps me on the shoulder and says, "Mate, you're not", well, fine, I'll walk.
I'm not going to trawl through the lead-up to your appointment, but I've been intrigued about what you would have done had they gone ahead with "Plough" (Terry Wallace).
I don't know. It's a difficult question to answer. I spoke to the Bulldogs and I spoke to the Kangaroos and I told them my priority was going to be the Sydney job.
The media, perhaps?
It's something I could see myself doing. I had a terrific time in America, working for Channel 7 and Triple M. Going to Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, hanging out with Pete Sampras in California (Roos' mate Brett Stephens was Sampras's conditioning coach). It was pretty flash, I tell you.
Tell me you weren't serious about full-time goal umpires.
(Big sigh) At the end of the interview about the goal-umpiring decision (in Adelaide), I was asked, "What about the standard of umpiring?" The goal-umpiring issue had been put aside.
Then people pick up half the story. I'm thinking, "Do they think I'm an idiot?"
What I said was it's difficult for the umpires if you've got coaches that are full-time, players that are full-time, umpires that are part-time. It's very hard for them to keep pace with other areas of the competition.
What did you learn from "Rocket" (Rodney Eade)?
There's not much that comes up in the box that we haven't seen before. Very few surprises with the rotations, releases and isolations and all those things that Rocket did from '96 through to last year. A lot of times we just say, "Hold your ground. We've been here before. We know what's going to happen".
What about man management, which is supposed to be the big difference between you two?
You take negatives and positives out of all the coaches. I still reckon Rocket in '96 was unquestionably the most positive coach I've ever had. Unquestionably. I was staggered how positive, how relaxed. I still remember a West Coast game here on a Friday night. It was first versus fourth, I think. It was a huge game for the club. We're just about to walk into the team meeting and he's laughing and saying, "How you going, mate? How you feeling, old champ?" A lot of what I take out of Rocket stems from '96-97.
My big thing is to be yourself. Almost dismiss the negatives. I'm not going to be Rodney Eade, I'm not going to be Robert Walls, my first coach, and I'm not going to be David Parkin.
They could all deliver a fierce bake, couldn't they?
I'm not having a go at anyone here, but my personal view is that players are different these days and there's no need . . . not many react to the good old-fashioned spray any more; they're real thinkers.
Now it's more a case of closed doors, pointing out things like, "This wasn't real flash at the weekend".
We point out errors and try to correct them rather than leave them fester.
Have you lost your cool this year? Three-quarter time against Freo, maybe?
A lot was made out of that. People were starting to think I'm Bjorn Borg up until then. I'm not Borg. I've given the players a couple of rev-ups, if you want to call them that, but there's always a message in what I'm trying to say. Sometimes you've got to get it across a bit louder and a bit clearer.
Have you said anything you've regretted?
What I'm careful of is not saying too much straight after a game. I'll speak to the players for a minute, two minutes. I think it's the most unproductive time in football because there's the chance to say things you'll regret the next morning.
When you watch the game, it's the real positives or the real negatives that stand out. You might say to a guy, "You were shocking", but then you go in on a Monday (after watching the tape) and say (to other coaches), "He was actually quite good. He only messed up twice".
There's nice balance in your football team. What about your private life?
I think living in Sydney helps you get the balance right. I've got a wife (Tammy) and two kids, Dylan, 9, Tyler, 7. One thing I've really been strong on here with the other coaches is getting away from the club.
I believe for us to do the job properly, you can't live here.
The moment I walk out the door from here, it's an outlet, whereas the coaches in Melbourne can't probably say that. (Roos plays basketball with friends and neighbours once a week, likes going to the beach, and watches his boys learn karate, and play football and tennis.)
You've said you don't believe in the notion of career coaches.
It just surprises me how someone would say, "I'm a career coach". It's not something where you can sit down and say, "I'm going to do this for 10-12 years". It can finish at any stage.
If I was still doing it in 10 years, I'd be pretty surprised.
Is there something you want to do with the rest of your life?
Not necessarily. I'm very much the here and the now. At the moment, this is what I want to do.
What were your thoughts when Jason Ball went down?
When you saw him go down like that holding his shoulder, I pretty well thought that might have have been it for the year.
Accuracy; are your blokes better than the rest, or are they taking their shots from close in and easier angles? (The Swans have kicked 294.203. Top team Port Adelaide has kicked 294.247.)
Generally, the boys we've got up there are pretty good kicks for goal: Hally, Mick (O'Loughlin), Davis, Schneider.
We do goalkicking practice once a week on a separate night from (normal) training. John Longmire and Brett Allison do that on a Tuesday night. I'd say we do work at it, but in a general sense, the guys are pretty good kicks.
Nick Davis said on the radio this week you have a formula. What did he mean?
The guys understand how we play good footy; I think they're pretty clear on that. The formula being that everyone needs to play really well; a couple of key things we look at week to week, we know we have to do those well. You would hope after 20 rounds that the guys would understand why we're winning games.
I think for us, it's probably not brain surgery; it's the fact we need everyone playing well.
Jason Akermanis and Leigh Matthews implied before the Brisbane game you were into mind games when you talked about your blokes being relaxed and enjoying their footy. Aker said it's not Swedish massage, it's league football.
I read a little bit about that. In a general sense, if you're not enjoying what you're doing, why do it? I'm sorry to hear that Aker doesn't enjoy his footy. It surprises me a little. I enjoy what I do and hopefully the players enjoy it, otherwise they should go and do something else.
Mind games?
I don't play mind games. I'm not interested in mind games. I just tell it the way I think it is.
Was the win in Brisbane your best performance?
You'd have to think so in terms of where they were then and the way they were looking at the game. A team that's won two premierships and clearly was playing for second spot ? I think they felt that if they beat us, they would be definitely second. I think the stakes were very, very high for them. When you're playing a super team and they've got an enormous amount to gain out of it, yeah, it was as good a win as we've had, definitely.
Are you excited about the Collingwood game?
Yeah, I think it's great. Great for the club, great for footy in New South Wales, great for the players to experience a big game like they did last week, great the way Collingwood has contributed; Eddie (McGuire) and Nathan (Buckley) coming up during the week, promoting the game. They've shown a real class side to them this week in terms of what they're trying to do for us in promoting the game; that's a positive.
What did you see in a roly-poly kid named Schneider from a place called Osborne?
Yeah, he has surprised us. When he came to the club at the start of last year, he wasn't ready to be drafted.
Then we went away at the end of the year, and, when he came back, it was like, "Now I'm a year older, I know what I'm going to do". We always knew he had skills. His pre-season was super.
He was very shaky in relation to the lifestyle required of a league footballer. He comes from Osborne; I've been there, there's a footy ground, that's it. He's been on the radar since he was about 11. Super kid, super talent. Dominated the competitions down there. Played senior footy when he was 15.
The thing that's surprised me is his pace; he's lightning quick. He's not your typical midfielder.
Daryn Cresswell's future?
I like to leave it up to the player to a certain degree. When he made the decision (to retire after 2003) and came to me pre-season, I said, "Mate, I think you've made the right decision".
Tadhg Kennelly. Do we fully appreciate his achievements?
Jim Stynes did it, too. I don't think we fully appreciate what Jim did, what Tadhg has been able to do. Both of them basically grew up in a game that didn't involve tackling, didn't involve marking, didn't involve an oval ball. Jim won a Brownlow Medal and Tadhg is probably ahead of where Jim was at the same point in their careers.
Do you think you can hang on to him?
Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised if, in his late 20s, he'd like to go back and get an All-Ireland championship or whatever they call it over there. I think we're safe until then.
Where will he be in two years?
People forget he's 6ft 3in (190cm,) lightning quick, super fit, and he reads the game. You don't want to put too much pressure on him, but if he can improve his marking, the sky's the limit.
Barry Hall has a big fan club. How good is he?
I think he's underrated in some areas and possibly overrated in other areas. His value to the team when he's not kicking goals is underrated; he leads hard, works hard, creates space, tackles, chases.
He's quite skilful. His ruckwork in the forward line has just been phenomenal; he's set up I don't know how many goals, but plenty.
It's been a good year for Micky O'Loughlin (35 goals from 14 games).
It's been a super year considering he missed a lot of training. Really pleased with the way Mick's gone.
I sensed when he came back at Christmas that he was going to have a good year. Unfortunately, he missed six or seven weeks of training. I've got no doubt if he hadn't missed the training and played every game 100 per cent fit, he'd be All-Australian.
Craig Bolton's been handy.
Look, I think, without attaching too much kudos to him, I worry where we'd be without him. He's done some terrific roles: Matty Richardson, Jonathan Brown, Brad Johnson, Peter Riccardi, Andrew Embley. He's been a real good find for us; probably just fits the mix of our team in terms of playing different roles. He's still learning; he's going to get better and better.
Who stumbled across him?
I think Andrew (Ireland) was the one who first mentioned him, then I sniffed around. The Brisbane Lions were terrific. I spoke to "Lynchy" (Alastair Lynch) and Craig Lambert about him.
They really rated him highly as a player and a person; they just couldn't fit him into their best 22. In a strange sort of way, I think they'd be happy to see him playing some really good footy.
Also good to see that Roosy's view and expectations of the list and his goals haven't changed despite the success of this year. I guess we just need that superstar now!
I just hope he is still coaching us in 10 years though!!!
Swans coach Paul Roos speaks about life in Sydney, his star players, life after footy, the big clash against Collingwood, and more ...
Not a career coach: Paul Roos said he'd be surprised if he was still coaching in 10 years' time.
I'm here to do my penance. At the start of the year I thought you'd finish last. How did I ? we ? get it so wrong?
We made it pretty clear at the end of last year that we were rebuilding. I wasn't surprised that people would think that (we would finish at or near the bottom).
When you've got great players retiring, the natural thought is you are rebuilding. I didn't think we'd finish bottom, but I wasn't surprised others did.
Someone's got to be picked to finish top, someone's got to be picked to finish bottom. There's a little bit of out of sight, out of mind, too, with Sydney.
Thanks. I think what happens is most other teams have got players A, B, C and D who make you think their team will do OK. Barry Hall and Paul Williams were the only Swans in my top 50.
You always look at the top end of talent. You say Brisbane have got to finish close to the top because of their midfield brigade and their defence; Adelaide's got to be up there because of McLeod and Ricciuto and Goodwin and Edwards and Carey etc, etc; Collingwood ? Tarrant, Rocca, Buckley. So it's easy to line the teams up like that.
Sydney lost Lockett, Kelly, Dunkley, Schwass. We were of the opinion we needed to unearth the next superstar, so this was going to be very much an unknown year for us.
Where did you think the year would take you; what bracket?
It's probably hard for people to understand, but we've said all along our priority is not to win five games or 10 games or 12 games. Our priority has been to play younger players, to test younger players, to play (Jude) Bolton and (Nic) Fosdike in the midfield; give (Adam) Goodes a bit more responsibility. That was the main priority going into the season. We still believe we are that top-end talent short of being a premiership side.
It's going to have to come from (Adam) Schneider, LRT (Lewis Roberts-Thomson), (James) Meiklejohn, (Mark) Powell, (Jarrad) Sundqvist, the five we've introduced this year, plus the 19 to 23-year-olds.
We went into the year not really worrying too much about where we were going to finish.
How were you after the three losses (Rounds 2-4)?
Because we hadn't set ourselves a target, it was just a case of, "Maybe our list is not that good. That's fine, let's just keep playing the young guys, make sure we stay on the track and at the end of the year we'll make some tough decisions".
I believe, as a club, you need to give yourself a four-to-five year window of a chance to win a premiership. All the planets need to be aligned, but you need a good young list for four to five years.
Does a coach get four to five years?
Possibly not, but I'm not in it for the individual glory. I knew when I took on the job that this might have been a really tough year, but the board was 100 per cent behind me and I had three years. I'm not too fussed about four to five years down the track. If I'm not successful, I'll just move on.
I honestly believe the time's right for me to coach. I'm enjoying it. Along with the other guys, I think we did a pretty good job in getting six wins last year, but I'm not a person who is going to bite and scratch and hang on to keep the job.
If I'm no good at it, and I'm not successful, I'm happy to walk away. At the moment, I think I'm the right person to do it.
If, in two, three or four years' time, the club taps me on the shoulder and says, "Mate, you're not", well, fine, I'll walk.
I'm not going to trawl through the lead-up to your appointment, but I've been intrigued about what you would have done had they gone ahead with "Plough" (Terry Wallace).
I don't know. It's a difficult question to answer. I spoke to the Bulldogs and I spoke to the Kangaroos and I told them my priority was going to be the Sydney job.
The media, perhaps?
It's something I could see myself doing. I had a terrific time in America, working for Channel 7 and Triple M. Going to Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, hanging out with Pete Sampras in California (Roos' mate Brett Stephens was Sampras's conditioning coach). It was pretty flash, I tell you.
Tell me you weren't serious about full-time goal umpires.
(Big sigh) At the end of the interview about the goal-umpiring decision (in Adelaide), I was asked, "What about the standard of umpiring?" The goal-umpiring issue had been put aside.
Then people pick up half the story. I'm thinking, "Do they think I'm an idiot?"
What I said was it's difficult for the umpires if you've got coaches that are full-time, players that are full-time, umpires that are part-time. It's very hard for them to keep pace with other areas of the competition.
What did you learn from "Rocket" (Rodney Eade)?
There's not much that comes up in the box that we haven't seen before. Very few surprises with the rotations, releases and isolations and all those things that Rocket did from '96 through to last year. A lot of times we just say, "Hold your ground. We've been here before. We know what's going to happen".
What about man management, which is supposed to be the big difference between you two?
You take negatives and positives out of all the coaches. I still reckon Rocket in '96 was unquestionably the most positive coach I've ever had. Unquestionably. I was staggered how positive, how relaxed. I still remember a West Coast game here on a Friday night. It was first versus fourth, I think. It was a huge game for the club. We're just about to walk into the team meeting and he's laughing and saying, "How you going, mate? How you feeling, old champ?" A lot of what I take out of Rocket stems from '96-97.
My big thing is to be yourself. Almost dismiss the negatives. I'm not going to be Rodney Eade, I'm not going to be Robert Walls, my first coach, and I'm not going to be David Parkin.
They could all deliver a fierce bake, couldn't they?
I'm not having a go at anyone here, but my personal view is that players are different these days and there's no need . . . not many react to the good old-fashioned spray any more; they're real thinkers.
Now it's more a case of closed doors, pointing out things like, "This wasn't real flash at the weekend".
We point out errors and try to correct them rather than leave them fester.
Have you lost your cool this year? Three-quarter time against Freo, maybe?
A lot was made out of that. People were starting to think I'm Bjorn Borg up until then. I'm not Borg. I've given the players a couple of rev-ups, if you want to call them that, but there's always a message in what I'm trying to say. Sometimes you've got to get it across a bit louder and a bit clearer.
Have you said anything you've regretted?
What I'm careful of is not saying too much straight after a game. I'll speak to the players for a minute, two minutes. I think it's the most unproductive time in football because there's the chance to say things you'll regret the next morning.
When you watch the game, it's the real positives or the real negatives that stand out. You might say to a guy, "You were shocking", but then you go in on a Monday (after watching the tape) and say (to other coaches), "He was actually quite good. He only messed up twice".
There's nice balance in your football team. What about your private life?
I think living in Sydney helps you get the balance right. I've got a wife (Tammy) and two kids, Dylan, 9, Tyler, 7. One thing I've really been strong on here with the other coaches is getting away from the club.
I believe for us to do the job properly, you can't live here.
The moment I walk out the door from here, it's an outlet, whereas the coaches in Melbourne can't probably say that. (Roos plays basketball with friends and neighbours once a week, likes going to the beach, and watches his boys learn karate, and play football and tennis.)
You've said you don't believe in the notion of career coaches.
It just surprises me how someone would say, "I'm a career coach". It's not something where you can sit down and say, "I'm going to do this for 10-12 years". It can finish at any stage.
If I was still doing it in 10 years, I'd be pretty surprised.
Is there something you want to do with the rest of your life?
Not necessarily. I'm very much the here and the now. At the moment, this is what I want to do.
What were your thoughts when Jason Ball went down?
When you saw him go down like that holding his shoulder, I pretty well thought that might have have been it for the year.
Accuracy; are your blokes better than the rest, or are they taking their shots from close in and easier angles? (The Swans have kicked 294.203. Top team Port Adelaide has kicked 294.247.)
Generally, the boys we've got up there are pretty good kicks for goal: Hally, Mick (O'Loughlin), Davis, Schneider.
We do goalkicking practice once a week on a separate night from (normal) training. John Longmire and Brett Allison do that on a Tuesday night. I'd say we do work at it, but in a general sense, the guys are pretty good kicks.
Nick Davis said on the radio this week you have a formula. What did he mean?
The guys understand how we play good footy; I think they're pretty clear on that. The formula being that everyone needs to play really well; a couple of key things we look at week to week, we know we have to do those well. You would hope after 20 rounds that the guys would understand why we're winning games.
I think for us, it's probably not brain surgery; it's the fact we need everyone playing well.
Jason Akermanis and Leigh Matthews implied before the Brisbane game you were into mind games when you talked about your blokes being relaxed and enjoying their footy. Aker said it's not Swedish massage, it's league football.
I read a little bit about that. In a general sense, if you're not enjoying what you're doing, why do it? I'm sorry to hear that Aker doesn't enjoy his footy. It surprises me a little. I enjoy what I do and hopefully the players enjoy it, otherwise they should go and do something else.
Mind games?
I don't play mind games. I'm not interested in mind games. I just tell it the way I think it is.
Was the win in Brisbane your best performance?
You'd have to think so in terms of where they were then and the way they were looking at the game. A team that's won two premierships and clearly was playing for second spot ? I think they felt that if they beat us, they would be definitely second. I think the stakes were very, very high for them. When you're playing a super team and they've got an enormous amount to gain out of it, yeah, it was as good a win as we've had, definitely.
Are you excited about the Collingwood game?
Yeah, I think it's great. Great for the club, great for footy in New South Wales, great for the players to experience a big game like they did last week, great the way Collingwood has contributed; Eddie (McGuire) and Nathan (Buckley) coming up during the week, promoting the game. They've shown a real class side to them this week in terms of what they're trying to do for us in promoting the game; that's a positive.
What did you see in a roly-poly kid named Schneider from a place called Osborne?
Yeah, he has surprised us. When he came to the club at the start of last year, he wasn't ready to be drafted.
Then we went away at the end of the year, and, when he came back, it was like, "Now I'm a year older, I know what I'm going to do". We always knew he had skills. His pre-season was super.
He was very shaky in relation to the lifestyle required of a league footballer. He comes from Osborne; I've been there, there's a footy ground, that's it. He's been on the radar since he was about 11. Super kid, super talent. Dominated the competitions down there. Played senior footy when he was 15.
The thing that's surprised me is his pace; he's lightning quick. He's not your typical midfielder.
Daryn Cresswell's future?
I like to leave it up to the player to a certain degree. When he made the decision (to retire after 2003) and came to me pre-season, I said, "Mate, I think you've made the right decision".
Tadhg Kennelly. Do we fully appreciate his achievements?
Jim Stynes did it, too. I don't think we fully appreciate what Jim did, what Tadhg has been able to do. Both of them basically grew up in a game that didn't involve tackling, didn't involve marking, didn't involve an oval ball. Jim won a Brownlow Medal and Tadhg is probably ahead of where Jim was at the same point in their careers.
Do you think you can hang on to him?
Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised if, in his late 20s, he'd like to go back and get an All-Ireland championship or whatever they call it over there. I think we're safe until then.
Where will he be in two years?
People forget he's 6ft 3in (190cm,) lightning quick, super fit, and he reads the game. You don't want to put too much pressure on him, but if he can improve his marking, the sky's the limit.
Barry Hall has a big fan club. How good is he?
I think he's underrated in some areas and possibly overrated in other areas. His value to the team when he's not kicking goals is underrated; he leads hard, works hard, creates space, tackles, chases.
He's quite skilful. His ruckwork in the forward line has just been phenomenal; he's set up I don't know how many goals, but plenty.
It's been a good year for Micky O'Loughlin (35 goals from 14 games).
It's been a super year considering he missed a lot of training. Really pleased with the way Mick's gone.
I sensed when he came back at Christmas that he was going to have a good year. Unfortunately, he missed six or seven weeks of training. I've got no doubt if he hadn't missed the training and played every game 100 per cent fit, he'd be All-Australian.
Craig Bolton's been handy.
Look, I think, without attaching too much kudos to him, I worry where we'd be without him. He's done some terrific roles: Matty Richardson, Jonathan Brown, Brad Johnson, Peter Riccardi, Andrew Embley. He's been a real good find for us; probably just fits the mix of our team in terms of playing different roles. He's still learning; he's going to get better and better.
Who stumbled across him?
I think Andrew (Ireland) was the one who first mentioned him, then I sniffed around. The Brisbane Lions were terrific. I spoke to "Lynchy" (Alastair Lynch) and Craig Lambert about him.
They really rated him highly as a player and a person; they just couldn't fit him into their best 22. In a strange sort of way, I think they'd be happy to see him playing some really good footy.
Comment