The Cellar Dwellers' Countdown To The Sun: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, At Last Off!

The Age

Saturday July 31, 2004

TIM PEKIN

There were times towards the end of a lowly and inglorious year when I knew it was not me out there playing. I would project myself five weeks ahead, into holidaying, resting and relaxing, leaving a clone to participate on my behalf. Sure, I gave 100 per cent - of what was left.

One day, just to get through the match, I pictured a warm sunrise over mist-shrouded hills instead of the infinite drizzle clamouring over the concrete of Waverley Park. I didn't get warm at all that day, especially when sat on the bench.

It is this time of a football year when players whose teams have not lived up to expectations yearn for the season to end. Perhaps not as consciously as I saw it, but it will be in their minds somewhere. They still train as hard and prepare as well for game day, but a prolonged period of under-performance can sap anyone's soul.

Add to that a coach under siege (or sacked), supporter anger and abandonment, faction fighting and media scrutiny, and a player can find himself under enormous stress. Put some of life's "normal" dramas on top - university grades are dropping, the girlfriend's left because she can't get enough time, you've just bought a house but could be traded or put into the draft, mates are leaving messages about how good the surf is off the coast of Mexico - and the end of the season can't come fast enough.

An old Fitzroy teammate, the laconic left-footer Gary Keane, would count the season down each Tuesday night. After what was traditionally the hardest training run of the week, he would tell those around him how many more Tuesday training sessions were left. It wasn't uncommon near the end of an unsuccessful year to look forward to the countdown.

If coach David Parkin had known, I imagine he would have inundated us with sheets of notes regarding the importance of staying positive. We were, but not in the way he would have liked.

Changing from Robert Walls as coach to Parkin was akin to switching from a game of poker to 500. Walls bluffed and shuffled to get the right hand, whereas Parkin was concentration, obsession and knowing the game inside out.

After we'd lost a game we should have won near the end of one year, Parko asked me: "What the hell were you thinking out there?" I faced two problems: I couldn't recall the incident he was talking about, and he needed an answer.

We stood locked together, him seething and waiting, me frantically trying to grasp any remnant of the game that hadn't disappeared from my mind. As the other players started shifting uncomfortably, looking everywhere but at Parkin, he barked at me to write it down and get it to him on Monday.

I racked my head for the rest of the weekend and finally decided to make something up that he might like to hear. I wrote in detail my thoughts and feelings, gave it to him on the Monday, and avoided him for the rest of the week. Just as I started to think I might have got away with it, Parkin asked me if I had actually written it.

Before I knew it, he had organised a psychological appraisal for me - he must have thought I was mad.

In the latter part of my first year at St Kilda, Tony Lockett surprised me in the showers one night after training. I was still unsure of "Plugger". With a raw glint in his eye, he looked around as if some conspiracy was at hand, and in an undertone said: "Only 15 training sessions to go now!" Then he grinned, like he knew I thought he was a big dummy. I told him I didn't know that but I was counting down the weeks, and could he please stop smiling because he was becoming unrecognisable.

Nearing the end of a season also brought the amusement of seeing players doing different weights programs. At St Kilda, the consistently man-boobed Sean Ralphsmith coerced Justin Peckett, a gym nomad, into "beach biceps" curls and chest-enhancing exercises, which Pecko's bad back normally found problematic. But he was young and the holidays were coming; after all, a break meant more than rest and recuperation.

The season's end was far more tangible than "playing for your future", although as you got older, the future could settle around you like a neck brace and mediocre form could drive you into wails of despair. You could forget that others in the team were feeling the same way, or had been in your position before. Somebody says your holiday may become permanent; the pressure mounts.

That's why clubs finishing in five weeks will be mixing up training activities, trying to get players to loosen up, putting them in different positions on the field, bringing in youth to boost enthusiasm, getting players to think about why they are playing, and acting that out at training. It might be as simple as practising taking speccies, kicking goals from the boundary, launching into some torpedoes, even kicking drop kicks.

It is amazing that, as clubs reintroduce some fun and get back some laughter, players' minds can be refreshed and the rest of the season need not end up a drudgery. Unexpected wins can be uncovered, and for clubs suffering lowly and inglorious times, a win can be like a sunny day. And a sunny day can make all the difference.

© 2004 The Age

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