“I don’t think you really consider it (him becoming a senior coach) that much at the time – you are more interested in finding out whether he will make the team. In actual fact he was zoned to Melbourne but they didn’t want him, they didn’t think he would make it. How wrong were they?” Hafey said.
“I don’t know when Kevin first thought about coaching but once you had him there you could see that he was so focussed on being a good player and doing the right things – he was very coachable. If you had 40 players on the training list like Kevin Sheedy you couldn’t go wrong.
“He had a very good understanding of the game and he trained very hard. He would always do the extra work and was terrific with the younger players later in his career – a great role model. Some people might have seen him as being a bit over the top – they found it hard to handle his terrific dedication and attitude.”
“He has been a success – no doubt. There have been coaches who have been around a long time and never coached Premiership sides. He has been marvelous for Essendon and I couldn’t imagine them ever wanting to get rid of him although I keep on hoping he might go back to TigerLand one day.”
People management has been one of the defining reasons behind the success of Kevin Sheedy, according to Tom Hafey. On the playing side AFL coaches have to deal with many different characters. Off the field they have to deal with changing boards and administrators. Hafey says Sheedy’s resilience has been remarkable.
“He is good in so many different areas. He is a one-man cheersquad and marketing manager and he sells his club wherever he goes. It is not just the games he wins and the Premierships he has taken the club to – he has just been a terrific success around the place and also for Australian Rules Football,” Hafey said.
“I can only really talk about him as a player and what we see on match day – I don’t know how the players’ perceive him behind closed doors. You will always get players who will be critical of a coach – you will get four or five players in the team who think they should be getting more recognition or played in a more prominent position. On top of that you have four kids in the reserves that reckon they should be in the seniors. So if you have 40 players at the club, almost 25% who aren’t totally happy. You could roll Winston Churchill, Vince Lombardi and Norm Smith into one and it will be the same. They are the most important people to handle and Kevin obviously does that well.”
“I don’t agree with a lot of things he does on match day – sometimes I think people go over the top about winning statistics rather than winning the game and that goes for all coaches.
“I think he might have learned his hard work ethic at Richmond along with his strong discipline and character – you couldn’t question any of those.
“The fact he has been there that long – his resilience. He has had many different people, boards, presidents and the like to deal with and some that were critical of him. But he has outlasted them all.”
“Well he is only 56 so I think he could go for quite some time yet – he might even be looking at Jock McHale’s record … he probably would be knowing him and I don’t think it is beyond him as long as he keeps fit. I reckon he should have been back at Richmond 12 years ago – we had opportunities, and by that I mean he was out of contract - and Richmond didn’t get him. I always hoped his career would end there.”
