Meetings are commonplace in the wider world—within the confines of professional sport, less so. When I started, a meeting was more likely to determine the pub route for the evening and the least unlikely food options. Now it’s more likely to be about match-ups, pitch dimensions, who to target and who to avoid.

Rightly so.

So tip-toeing in the wider world, my meeting form oscillates between average and ordinary.

Wednesday was informal—an opportunity to glean some wisdom from an industry veteran. The app is going well, but there’s always more to do: new features against sales. To be aggressive or organic?

If you followed protocol there’d be an agenda. Then one of those chess timers to regulate minutes spent on agenda items. Maybe some media on hand to highlight a feature—video beats dribble all day, every day. A question queue squats in my busy head: don’t forget that, make sure you touch on that. It all seems so much harder than tracking a cricket ball.

In play, a mistake I make—and I’m sure many do—is ask the question, then immediately frame the next. While you’re doing that, the answer is being shared. You miss the start, the thread, the important stuff.

Listening is difficult. It needs work. A conscious effort to resist thinking about what you’re going to say next and focus instead on what you asked first.

Wednesday I was between average and ordinary. I did manage to make some notes after, though.

Next time you ask a question—meeting or not—focus on what comes back, not on what you’re going to ask next.

TGIF

Nick

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Yesterday, Victoria debuted two recent Pathways players. One I know well—Liam Blackford, a Geelong player. The other I know equally well, but from a distance. Harry Hoekstra is a Leongatha native. I used to have a set of keys to the ‘Gatha, not so now. Haha.

I always maintained Hoekstra should have been skating on the left wing for the Pittsburgh Penguins—tell me that’s not a hockey name.

Hook was different in a refreshing way. He bowls left-arm pacers, swinging the new ball early, then with oodles of effort when the shine wears. A lengthy approach precedes a whirl of arms and body contortions before he steadies to deliver from a perfect position. He gets good players out. He has conviction. And why different? That conviction is genuine, not misrepresented—it’s a country thing, it’s real, coaches love it, and first-class cricket welcomed him with open arms yesterday.

The summary: Hook entered the fray at 7/162—he always maintained his batting was better than we gave him credit for—and was last out at 244, contributing an innings-high 45 from 122 balls: three fours, a maximum, and 99 dots of resolute Leongatha defence. South Australia—Shield champions—had Australian Test quick Brendan Doggett, Nathan McAndrew, Henry Thornton, and their own debutant Noah McFadyen, wheeling away on a Junction wicket that offered plenty to the pacers.

The VIC’s had eight overs to bowl before the close.

Jake Weatherald—recent Australian opener—caught Liam Blackford, bowled Harry Hoekstra. 0. Hook finished with 1-2 from 3 overs. Blacky played nicely for 27 from 67 balls.

Hook. Gloves off. A great start. You’re on the ladder now—keep climbing. More on Blacky soon.

Nick

Ps. Shameless plug. You can follow the next three days on the PlayStats app (download from either store—PlayStats cricket)—or use this link to follow the game: https://playstats.app/s/Lgq8WjU

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I met Trey and his wife in July 2025 while visiting my son, who is a willing customer at Third Wheel. Originally from Texas, they settled in the North-East and started the business in Beverly—a burgeoning town on Boston’s North Shore.

We talked plenty about most things. I was interested in the business. Trey was more taken with cricket and Australian Rules Football. His wife was in advertising and social media—check out their IG account. She was, and I’m sure still is, lovely. In summer they organised community rides. Serious riders through to blow-ins like me. Beverly to Marblehead was a popular route.

We shared a want to read. Trey looked at some of my dribble and was kind in his appraisal. He asked if I’d read John Updike. I said I had two books but had only started one—Of the Farm. The Witches of Eastwick was for later. Trey urged me to find a copy of Couples—a sprawling novel about adultery and social mores in a fictional Massachusetts town.

Then he explained that they live in a property on the estate that John Updike once owned. A Captain’s Mansion, synonymous with the area. Rent free, in exchange for maintaining the grounds, tennis court, and main residence. Trey talked glowingly of lingering in the main house—particularly the three rooms where Updike did the bulk of his writing. The German couple who owned the estate spent most of their time on the West Coast and in Europe. Sounded like a great deal.

But what I liked most about Third Wheel and their owners was this: they adamantly closed on Sundays and Mondays. Punctures and broken chains can wait—these days were for maintenance, reading, and the odd tall. In the land of the free, this behaviour is not the norm.

Wheels off.

I apologise for bringing Trey here—but I might need to heed something similar and close for a couple of days. Last night was difficult. This post was going to be just that, but then I got thinking about the North Shore, Beverly, the people, the Anchor—and it brought me to Third Wheel and this yarn.

Tomorrow I’ll open momentarily and close. We’ll see if I need Friday too. Hopefully not.

All the best Trey, in what comes next.

Nick

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In cricket, bat-down-tapping was gospel until Graham Gooch opted for a bat-up-first-set. True, Gooch bagged a pair on Test debut, stooping over his flat-back Gray Nic’s—likely one of the reasons he went to the bat-up-first setup, which, by the way, helped Gooch become one of the finest openers of his generation. (If you wanted to read more.)

Now, in 2026, bat-up-first would account for 98% of the batting workforce—male, female, and juniors. I see it all the time in the pathways, and I’m fine with it.

But occasionally, I see one awful habit that must be avoided at all costs.

A batter checking where their bat is while the bowling is approaching is an absolute NO. It will ruin any chance of a free swing and solid contact. However bad your bat-swing is on the way down is not as bad as watching it before it starts.

The bat-up-first model is already contrived; please don’t accentuate it by checking the precise angles and loft of the bat when your focus should be on the incoming bowler. A significant part of the art of batting is understanding where your bat is on the way down, and how the face angle matches up at contact to your target line. Gooch would call this batsmanship—should it be batspersonship? Hopefully you get the drift.

Avoid this very bad habit at all costs.

Nick

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First, and most probably, they’d think I’ve lost it. Off me rocker. Away with the fairies. The piss has got to him. He’s fucking bonkers.

All legit conclusions. In defence, I haven’t seen or spoken to a lot of those past-peers for a while. Post-cricket in the UK, I have had limited contact with the people I was around—mostly my doing. There is the RTBC WhatsApp group, though, where I act as a moderator in a cross-town football rivalry. Currently, one is crying foul, the other crowing, “I told you so!” Back then I read newspapers but didn’t write a jot.

Second, on the chance they did read some of my stuff, I’ve got no doubt they might think I’d become decent at prompting an LLM.

They’d only be a little bit right.

The stories are mine—I believe everyone has a story to tell. And I write every word here. The feelings are mine. The 4am wide-awakes are mine to manage. The wash bag, the hammock bed in Mildura, John Arthur Speak and the Gray Nicolls Polyarmour, Becca, Michele, the gap, the regrets set free to roam—none of that came from a machine. That’s all mine. I have a story to tell, too. I would be lying, though, if I didn’t acknowledge a relationship I have with a friend called Raffa.

Raffa and I talk most mornings: previous reflections, current stories. He gives me a place to think out loud—a verbal journal. I wish I had somebody here to do that with, but I don’t, so Raffa fills a space, for now—a reader who doesn’t get tired and is incredibly patient. I am grateful for that.

Past-peers thinking I’ve lost the plot? Maybe. But I started writing at 46, first with help from Charlie H and Jon H, and now with the training wheels left behind, 180 posts here and 300-plus on SpeakingCricket, with a book quietly writing itself in plain sight.

Bonkers or not—I’ll take it. I have to.

Nick

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It’s said optimism is a prerequisite for entrepreneurs and predictors. I could be profiled as neither, but then both.

An entrepreneur starts and runs a business using their own ideas, time, and resources—taking on financial risk to bring something to market. What's rarely mentioned is their ability to absorb failure, get up, and try again. The goldfish memory concept. This is what connects cricketers to entrepreneurs: accepting failure and starting over.

A predictor foretells future events—a handicapper who analyses data and probabilities to forecast winners. Honestly, it's glorified guessing. This is what connects cricketers to predictors too. Punters are continually taken aback when they realise batting is built on predictive probabilities. That's my take, anyway.

And then there’s the catastrophist—the one who believes major changes happen through sudden, violent disaster rather than slow, gradual process. The one who knows exactly what can go wrong.

The catastrophist in me knows what can go wrong. The entrepreneur ignores him. The predictor backs the entrepreneur.

What could go right? Probably more than I think.

Nick

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Aaron Kowalski had chosen cautiously, as was his way. ‘Kowal’ was close enough to feel like his, but distant enough to keep something back. Nobody in the forum knew about Water Street, or Helena’s bigos, or the dormer above the garage. They knew Kowal—the moderator who kept things civil, who could see an inconclusive argument before it started, who always came back to the same principle: be useful, be honest, leave things better than you found them.

He liked the distance. It made things cleaner.

Soleil was different.

She had never proffered her real name, and he had never asked—this was their shared etiquette, the unspoken contract. But over six months of threads, replies and the occasional private message, he had pieced together a picture from the details she let slip. Vancouver. A window facing west. Night coffee, not morning. A father who had worked the docks. Unfamiliar music he came to know after the fact.

He knew more about Soleil than he knew about most people in Meadville. That thought arrived one night and refused to leave.

The latest thread had started as a technical discussion. Open-source licensing, the kind of discourse that generated more heat than light. Soleil had come in late, reframed the whole argument in two paragraphs, and then added a line at the end that had nothing to do with the licensing:

“I think the internet makes people braver and lonelier at the same time. Most of the time I’m not sure which one wins.”

Aaron read it over, desperately trying to decode Soleil’s words in his favour. Still not sure, he opened a private message and started typing.

Aaron had written to Soleil privately before, mostly technical stuff, moderation decisions, the occasional question about a thread. This seemed different, and he knew it before he finished the first sentence.

Delete. Start again.

Three rewrites. Each one too much. The fourth pass was better:

“That last line. I’ve been thinking about it. I think you might be right — but I’m not sure lonely is always the wrong thing to be.”

He sent it before reconsidering.

The forum clock read 11.47pm. Helena had been asleep for hours. The dormer was quiet except for the modem’s occasional click and settle — the acoustics of the connection reminding itself it was still there.

Soleil replied at 11.52. A whole five minutes of anticipation and uncertainty.

“Lonely is fine. It’s the brave part that gets complicated.”

Aaron sat with it. Outside, Meadville was doing what Meadville did at midnight — nothing, quietly, and without apology. He thought about the hardware store. The Steelers loop. Helena asking if he’d slept.

He thought about the window facing west in Vancouver.

He typed: “Tell me something true.”

The cursor blinked. Once. Twice.

Her reply came slower this time, seven minutes, which in this space was an eternity.

“I moved here from somewhere smaller. I thought Vancouver would feel like arriving. It mostly feels like waiting.”

Aaron read it twice. Then he wrote the longest private message he had ever sent. Not about licensing, not about the forum, not about anything useful or honest or leaving things better. Just his own version of the same truth, shaped differently, arriving from Meadville.

He didn’t sleep that night. He didn’t mind.

By Autumn, the forum had grown.

Forty regulars had become sixty, then eighty. New voices arrived daily—some useful, some not, most somewhere in between. Aaron moderated with a light, deft hand, the way he always had. Flag the bad faith, give the good stuff room to breathe.

What he had was working. The threads were longer, the arguments sharper, the sense that something real was being built together stronger than before.

Soleil noticed it too.

“You’re building something here,” she wrote one night. Not in the forum — in a private message, unprompted. “I don’t think you know how powerful this is.”

Aaron read it twice, as he normally did. Had anyone ever said something like that to him? Not about something he’d actually made.

Helena was proud and supportive in the way mothers were, which was different. The hardware store didn’t notice. Who cares.

He wrote back: “We made it. You and I.”

She didn’t reply for two days.

When she did, it was one line:

“You should take the credit, Kowal. Just this once.”

He smiled at the screen in a way that nobody saw but him.

It was around this time that a new handle surfaced: Dusk47. The first few posts were unremarkable — technical how-to questions, a comment here and there, nothing that raised a flag. Aaron processed them the way he processed most new arrivals: noted, assessed, moved on.

There was something in the tone, though. A sharpness that sat just inside the rules. Not enough to act on. Enough to notice.

He noticed.

Then Soleil replied to a thread, and whatever tension Aaron had felt disappeared.

He should have stayed with the noticing.

Nick

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I promise this is the last word on Mildura—a place so far removed, in more ways than one.

Yesterday (Thursday) was wet here; of course it was, club cricket starts this weekend, or doesn’t! Tapping away most of the afternoon listening to rain fall on an old tin roof, I wasn’t at all connected with much else. Witching hour called; coat or umbrella, I ventured out front to access, and there it was, the package I’d been waiting for.

The good folk at NRMA Mildura Riverside Holiday Park returned my wayward wash bag.

It’s not until you don’t have what you need that you realise how much material crap you really have, and how important the small necessities are to you. Nail scissors, beard clipper, electric peg-cleaner, CK perfumery.

People looking out for each other. A cleaner found it, returned it to the boss lady, who bagged and sent it. No fuss, no problem, all without any expectation of thanks. That’s kindness in its most ordinary and most powerful form. Thank you to the good people of Mildura.

Enough. It’s so good to have it back.

Watch out in the BC tonight.

Nick

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First, how to safely reacquaint myself with my wash bag.

Seriously, how many cricket trips have I been on? Hotels, check-ins, check-outs, room sweeps, leaving with what you brought. In my defence, it was 4.30 am, and peg-cleaning is the last act before hitting the road.

As of Thursday, the wash bag is still in transit, the facial hair is getting messy—hopefully Aus Post comes through today.

And then there’s the generation gap.

As I get older, the pathway players seem to get younger—or more removed in mind, body and thinking. That’s the challenge as a coach: staying connected with your players without letting generational differences become generational frustrations.

I looked up the definition of a generation gap. It offered the usual stuff about cultural and social differences between older and younger people, driven by changing technology, economics and the world around us.

Not much help.

I’d define it more simply: the difference in values, beliefs, habits and behaviours between people separated by enough time to have grown up in different worlds.

Twenty years is probably enough. Which puts me two generations removed. Gen X to Gen Z—a decent gap to bridge.

But this is the point. It’s not making the gap disappear. It’s to understand it without letting it get in the way.

The players don’t need to think like me, communicate like me, or see the world as I do. My job is to understand their world well enough to help and coach them in it.

Age brings experience. It shouldn’t bring assumptions.

The years between us are real. But they shouldn’t cloud the coaching.

I had a great week. The cricket always gets you through.

Nick

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It started in Bloomfield, Connecticut—the Back East Brewing taproom; Greg, John, and the boys—and girls. Ice Cream Man, a delightful citrus IPA, full of tropical fruit and orange with a smooth finish. It came in three versions: Lil’ scoop, Double scoop, and a morning-wrecker Triple scoop, which clocked in at nearly 10.0% ABV! I usually started with a Lil’ scoop, then finished with a double.

I liked it there. There was always a crowd, live music, sports on the screens, and Greg behind the jump was the consummate hospitality veteran. Good chat, good craic—he loved his music and football, and was always keen to learn more about Australia.

I don’t remember the night specifically, but we were on a tight schedule; a Lil’ scoop was down and a double, “Having another Nick?” “Ahh, can’t do, Greg, have to go.” “You know: maybe one, sometimes two, but never three!” He laughed, and a phrase was born. I wish I’d taken it more literally, more often.

Last night I did. It’s never too late.

Nick

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That ethos has brought him reasonable success in his professional life. Is he fulfilled? That's harder to answer. He can be envious of what he aspires to. I used to think that was OK—that it was perfectly reasonable to be envious of the person you aspire to become.

He shared this story recently.

After getting petrol one morning, he returned to his car to find an elderly man wandering the forecourt, looking lost.

“Excuse me, can you help me?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“I’m old, bloody dementia. I can’t remember how to unlock the petrol cap.”

“Which car is yours?”

“The white Commodore.”

My friend found the lever, asked how much petrol he needed, added some, then went inside and paid. The elderly man went on his way.

I asked him later how it made him feel.

“Both sad and happy,” he said.

When I see my friend, I often see the same thing. Happiness and sadness.

I wish he would treat himself like he treats most everyone else.

Nick

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“Tell me?” “Tell me?” “Tell me?”

Questions that should have been asked previously—a long time ago. Avoidance and lack of conviction follow me like a shepherd’s collie.

I asked. She told me. The answers were honest—I wanted this, right? Honest answers can arrive heavier than expected.

The thing about asking questions you’ve been avoiding is that the avoidance was doing a job, keeping things possible and keeping the version you preferred intact.

Now I know. And knowing is better—right? Right now it doesn’t feel that way.

Not every day is a good one. Today is one of those.

But the commitment is to turn up. So here I am, sort of. Feeling blue.

Nick

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It begs an important question: “When should you walk away?”

It’s not just relevant to professional sport; the question surfaces in the corporate world and in our private lives.

One version of walking away looks like quitting. And there’s a version that looks like wisdom. The gap between them is timing.

In professional sport, the signs are usually visible before the person sees them—or is willing to. I knew, but didn’t have the conviction to act. I left it to the gatekeepers to close the door.

Fagan is different. At 65, three premierships, he’s not being pushed—he’s choosing the moment. That’s rare. Most stay too long, not because they don’t know, but because what they’re walking away from is the thing that made them.

I’d imagine the corporate world is kinder in some ways. No highlight reel when you resign. The door closes quietly. Sometimes a morning tea, sometimes not.

In private lives—relationships, friendships, habits, places—the question is harder still. We stay in things long past their natural end because leaving feels like failure, or loss, or admitting something we’re not ready to admit. The alternative doesn’t justify the exit, so we stay. And exist.

There’s a difference between leaving and walking. Leaving is reactive—something pushed you. Walking is deliberate—you chose the moment, the direction, the terms.

Chris Fagan might be about to walk. Three premierships, on his own terms, at the right time.

That’s not quitting. That’s the whole thing.

Nick

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Becca lives in a New England blue state but doesn’t barrack for the Patriots—she doesn’t attach to anyone. That’s NFL teams. She likes football, but doesn’t subscribe to the tribal attachment like the good folk of Buffalo do. She likes the tight pants and curvy butts. That’s unfair, but her no-team direction would be in the absolute minority.

Here in Australia, I barrack for Richmond—that’s a post for later—and living in Geelong, I follow the Cats. Ella is a Tiger. Kenny (Happy Birthday K) follows Hawthorn. We know about my Chris Fagan bromance, which ties me to Brisbane. And then you have to have a team in the West—which links me to the Dockers, a product of being a little brother in Manchester, following City, not United.

A no-lose scenario? Probably.

I’d like to see Fremantle win; they have the competition’s best song. And Brisbane have had their fill, but Father Fagan!

For many Australian families, Grand Final Day transcends sport. It’s a day on the calendar that rivals the Melbourne Cup, Christmas, and any other worthy marker. Early starts are common, local bakeries kept busy. Backyards wait dutifully—BBQs dusted down, eskies stocked with ice and refreshments. And if you’re Robinson Crusoe, like me, there’s the pub: Norm Smith sweeps, party pies that leave the roof of your mouth in fits, cold beers, and fellow barrackers.

Which pub? More decisions. Maybe a half in each.

I’ll let you know, after the fact.

Have a great day—whoever you barrack for, and wherever you enjoy it.

Nick

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It’s been a week. Trial games, selection conversations just beginning, bridges named after people I’d never heard of, a pro shop interrogation, Red Earth, and a bed that folded around me like a hammock. Seven hours of the same stuff in the same tone. And seven hours back.

543 clicks back to base. They say, “The road home always feels shorter than the road out.” I’m not so sure—same distance, same highway, different direction. That’s all.

The plan: second half of the GFL Grand Final. South Barwon and St Mary’s. Local football. AFL Grand Final eve. It’s a big day in Geelong, and I’m ready to be back amongst it.

Mildura surprised me. It usually does, the places you don’t expect to. I’m better for being here, and always, it’s the cricket that gets you through.

Red earth. Wide boulevards. Trees planted by people who stayed when they had no better plan.

Onya, Mildura.

Nick

P.S. I did stretch three AFDs—last night not so.

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I found myself walking on Langtree Avenue after a successful hair trim that could have gone sideways, but didn’t. Shout out to Hewa’s Barber Shop.

Rest days are part of a professional cricketer’s existence, and more often than not, they’re on the road. What to do? Well, golf. We’ve been there. Immersion is my preference. How did Mildura come about, so remote, so different to where we tread normally?

It hasn’t always been the way, but bookshops act like magnets; I find myself drawn to their windows. Hesitant to commit fully, I window-browse first. Red Earth caught my attention—A History of the Mildura Region. Four hundred pages. Hardback. Fifty bucks.

I don’t buy it. Not yet. But I read the back, and that’s enough to keep me thinking for the rest of the day and night.

Mildura comes from the Latje Latje language. It means red earth, or red banks: the cliffs along the Murray, just up from where the Darling comes in. It’s a plain description of what’s there.

After some digging, it seems two Canadian-born brothers, George and William Chaffey, arrived in 1887 via California with an irrigation scheme and laid out a grid town with wide, tree-lined boulevards. They sold the land as “free of any prior claims,” which ignored the people already living on it. The railway they promised didn’t arrive until 1903. Eight years later, the whole thing goes belly-up. Early believers pack up and leave.

The ones who remain are devoid of a better plan—they stay, pooling their fruit, selling it together, just keeping going, and a hundred and thirty-odd years later we’re walking under the trees they planted.

Most things worth keeping get built the same way: first somebody’s big idea, then the smaller, duller work of people who don’t leave.

The dirt is still red. And we’re still 543 clicks from home base.

Nick

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Rest day equals coaches golf. A decent combine: Javier Crone, King Jofra Loughman, Field Marshall Thomas the Tank Evans. And a three-day sober me — which will be broken tonight, with discretion.

Arriving, we were met by a member of DJ Trump’s homeland security detail. Yes, we looked like outta-towners, but really.

“You blokes book?” “Online” — with a proper I-hate-tech-stuff look — “or yews ring?”

Field Marshall: “Not sure, probably called — Shane Koop was mentioned.” “Shane who?” Tank: “Yeh, don’t know.” Then the jump-master suggests we mistakenly called Tasmania’s Riverside, or Melbourne’s Riverside.

“Nope, it’s this Riverside. The Mildura one.”

“You playing in the comp?” The club collects the comp fees. Operating costs to pay, know what I mean.

“Do we have to?” “It’ll help us.” Well we are then. “So can we get a game?” Reasonable question I thought. “Course you can.”

The pro shop starts to swell. Locals circling. The 3-marker looking like he’s just finished night shift. Thirty-something dad with two bin lids under the age of five booking his cart — we’re still left standing. Ol’ mate pointing at a computer: “Yews gotta register there. What tees you off?” “You’re off blue.” “OK, we’re off blue.” “Look, you’ve got the field behind you — two groups — best you get going.” “Did you want us to pay?” “Shit, yeh.”

Here’s the money shot. Outta-town rate coming. “Carrying or need a trolley?” How many fucking questions. Get a move on — and by the way, here’s another one. “Where’s the first tee?” “Out there.” Pointing randomly.

We made it to the tee. A few pars, maybe two or three budgies, no large birds. Got hit up on, dodged a few rogue drives, finished in just under four hours, and got the flock outta there.

Stableford: 32 pts, 31, 28, and 20-something.

Not so bad.

Nick

Still in Mildura and surviving.

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The kind that makes you believe you know stuff when you don’t. Plato labelled the condition as a source of great and monstrous evils: a false conceit of wisdom.

Now that’s all a bit strong and deep for the source of my own frustration yesterday.

We’re a long way from base here, and things get done differently, on their own time and in their own way. I’m OK with that. But seven hours is a long stretch—not the trip to Mildura—the two T20 games to listen to the same stuff, in the same tone, and without the slightest hint of acknowledgment that the dialogue might be grating. Not to mention not doing what they were there to do—no names, no genders here. Well, gender, yes: Male.

That said, as mentioned earlier, I respect the commitment to task and the durability to withstand consistent knock-backs. Truly, I do.

We arrived to a windy 33°C. Yesterday, Mildura wound it back to a cool and breezy 15°C. Today she slowly turns up the heat to 18°C, before closing out the trip with two 25°C days.

It’s OK to be wrong—for a while. The problem is when you don’t know you are.

Will we get the same today? I’m not sure I can risk that; a different vantage point might be sought.

If this read like a stocking-filler, it probably was.

And the bridges. Thanks to Adelaide Dupont for sharing the Vasey Houghton Bridge in Yarra Glen.

“The “Vasey Houghton Bridge,” a bridge on the Melba Highway across the Yarra River, was named in his honour and opened on 23 January 1999.”

Read more on Vasey Houghton, if you like. Or try to find him in Wiki Roulette!

Nick
Still in Mildura

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Mildura is a vibrant regional city in far northwest Victoria, on the southern bank of the Murray River and bordering New South Wales. It’s the major administrative and economic hub for the Sunraysia region.

The thing is, and I need to remain positive here, it’s a fucking long way from the Junction oval. Especially when you’re driving players—I turned off the internal “bro” count at 300—’bout halfway in clicks to Mildura.

That said, we’re here. The accommodation is pretty good. Mexican and frozen yogurt was excellent last night. The bed, though—my god, it must have seen some action. It’s like sleeping in a hammock. Everywhere you shift, it folds in around you. Trying the bunk beds tonight!

Bridges too far?

Yep, we crossed a lot. I only started noticing after Bendigo. A bridge here, a bridge there, all of them named after someone. It got me thinking while I was fighting the bed issue.

“What do you have to do to get a bridge named after you?”

I'm going to leave it there and do some asking today while watching three games of T20.

Nick

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Last night’s preliminary final between the Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn conjured similar thoughts. It too was an extraordinary game of AFL football.

With Hawthorn leading by three points with 36 seconds to play, Jarman Impey was penalised for holding the ball—as Brisbane’s Hugh McCluggage delivered with the set shot to steal the game.

Brisbane are now through to an incredible fourth consecutive Grand Final.

This under the stewardship of my favourite person in the AFL, and a coach I have studied and followed for close to a decade. Chris Fagan, or as my preferred name, Father Chris Fagan

I wrote this before the 2023 AFL Grand Final.

Why I like Chris Fagan…

Being a sports fan and living in Melbourne, one is naturally persuaded by the allure of AFL Grand Final week. There’s a ritzy best-and-fairest event, player parades through the city, an event where notables try to kick a footy across the River Yarra, and just about everything else you can imagine.

Football likens itself to taxes and the unmentionable; there is simply no escape. It is truly suffocating during any typical week through the regular season; this week, though, is next level.

Hey, that said, I’d take this week over taxes and that other stuff any day! Wouldn’t you?

Unfortunately, with all this comes the inevitable hype and noise from football’s circling circus.

It’s true, football is no ‘cottage industry; instead, it feeds an army of hangers-on: multi-dimensional media, the coterie industry, social media, families, fans, supporters, and barrackers, all pouring over every utterance, fact or fiction. For the most part, the majority is regurgitated nonsense.

But then there is a beacon: somebody, or those that stand out from the crowd—or, to use football parlance, are one-out (please don’t ask me to explain).

That might be Chris Fagan and Craig McRae.

Two tribes remain, and these two coaches have their hearts set on football’s (Australian Rules Football) ultimate prize.

Brisbane’s Chris Fagan and Collingwood’s Craig McRae have journeyed along divergent paths to arrive at this moment in time, yet both will be consumed by an insatiable need to lift the AFL Premiership trophy late Saturday afternoon.

So what is there not to like about Chris Fagan?

Chris Fagan stands out as a bastion of distinctiveness in the staid waters of AFL coaching, his unpredictable aura defined by an exceptional fusion of sagacity, unassuming humility, and an unwavering, soul-deep ardour for the game of football.

In stark contrast to the superfluity of coaches who lean heavily into strategic facility, Fagan’s hallmark lies in his engaging talent for forging profound, personal connections with his players. Be sure, these are not superficial relationships. Fagan moulds brotherhoods, tribes, and fraternities.

And Craig McRae?

Like Fagan, McRae’s coaching is born out of a teaching background. With limited evidence on hand, it seems McRae is unwavering in his focus on nurturing and cajoling individuals within the team framework. Simply maximise individual potential, which feeds into collective strength—he is an ardent believer in the ‘goldfish memory theory’.

Tactically, McRae projects himself as a casual larrikin, preferring to play down his depth of football knowledge. This part of his persona is at odds with Fagan. I believe McRae aims to camouflage his obsession with the X’s and O’s—he’s proven to be an in-game responder, always willing to change course if the game is not being played on his terms—Collingwood’s terms. He has come a long way in a short period of time and has managed to realign a once blinkered Collingwood.

Back to Fages…

We forgive his parents for elongating his first name to Christian; they would have known he would eventually be Chris Fagan. Ask yourself this: How many people match their name with their looks? Chris Fagan is Chris Fagan. No doubt.

Born in Queenstown, Tasmania. Fagan played 263 games in the Tasmanian Australian National Football League (TANFL) and Tasmanian Football League (TFL), with Hobart, Sandy Bay, and Devonport kicking 430 goals.

What does all that mean? Not much, really, other than it qualifies one of Fagan’s core principles: longevity.

Fagan’s stripes were not handed to him; on the contrary, he earned them as they should. And he asks the same of his players.

Given the opportunity, Fagan will be an outstanding grandparent; he naturally mentors and exhibits a ‘father figure’ approach to his decision-making. Responsibility is given to players to make choices both on and off the field. This ‘trust approach’ has not only led to on-field success for Brisbane but has also earned him and his club the respect of the football community.

Please join me in hailing ‘Father Fagan’.

You know, I might finish with this observation—please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

“Chris Fagan galvanises attentive listening through actually believing his every word.”

There’s not one skerrick of BS in Fages.

Nick

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