There was talk you were seeking a three year deal?
Dean Brogan: Oh you always try to get what you can. There is a clause in that second year that if I do play a certain about of games, I’ll get that third year, and I was happy with that – keeps me on my toes. I’m just thrilled to be part of it. It’s been a crap year, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s a lot of positives. It would have been easy to turn my back on the club and go to a different team but it was an important contract for my family and my future, that’s why it took so long, there was a lot of stuff to sort out, but I’m more than happy. As you can see the last two weeks we’ve shown some good signs, and I want to be around and get us back up to the top.
Is it your best year personally?
Yeah I think so. First off, I’ve played 21 games, it’s the first time I’ve done that in three or four years. Personally it has been a really good year but at the end of the day it’s all about team results. This year it hasn’t gone our way, we’ve lost a lot of close games, but I feel we’re not far away from it at all.
You seem to have taken a step forward in your leadership, is that something you want to take forward into next year as well?
Absolutely, when you start out you aspire to be a leader of the club. I feel it’s my duty. I’ve been there eight years now, I’m 29 years old and I feel comfortable with it. we’ve got some great leaders at the club and it should be exciting times in the future.
Mark Williams: I should acknowledge Peter Rohde’s role. It’s always a tough task being a football manager and having to negotiate with the players. One day you’re best mates and the next day they think you hate them. Peter’s trying to do the best thing for our club as well. When the players get up in age, we have to limit our liabilities in regard to their injuries. To give Dean the opportunity, we see no reason that he’s not going to play three or four more years. His number one asset is his running ability and that’s definitely still there. He can still jump and he’s even worked on his goal kicking this year – a lot straighter this year. There’s a real feeling at Port Adelaide (that) we continually try to work and make players better so whatever he shows this year we hope to be a lot better next year and the year after.
Which other teams came knocking?
Dean Brogan: Oh look, some clubs that obviously need ruckmen are very interested but no-one offers contracts or anything like that during the season, there’s a lot of interest. A lot of clubs are going through their list now if they’re not going to make finals but I didn’t want it to come to that and luckily my manager and Peter Rohde and the club, we agreed on it Thursday and I verbally agreed to it yesterday and it was just good to get it out of the way before Round 22. I’m very happy I’m staying at Port Adelaide – great club, lots of things going on next year and I’m very excited.
Would you have considered playing in Melbourne?
Absolutely, you don’t shut the door on anything. Like I said it was a very important contract for the future of my family. I’m very happy staying in Adelaide, I was born and bred in Adelaide, and it looks like I’ll finish my career off at Port Adelaide and become a Life Member and be part of the club forever and that’s what every player aspires to do.
That was your best performance of the year. Where did that come from?
Mark Williams: Since the break we’ve been working on some different things, trying them out and sometimes they don’t work so we probably threw them out the last couple of weeks and went back to some things we actually think might work for next year and we beat Melbourne by a lot but everyone discounted that as (not being) a credible win so we wanted to march in to having a crack at one of the top four sides and see if what we were working on would hold up. Today it did and it gives us a lot to think of in the pre-season. Players know what we’re about and how we want to play, the last couple of weeks it has been a combination of what we’ve done in the past and certainly what we’ve worked on in the eight weeks and we’re feeling we’ll be much more equipped to beat most sides and certainly to play a couple of different styles that we weren’t equipped with before. We could have had all the time over pre-season working on it but we’ve had some in-game practices and our players are playing much more different positions and had different roles and the way we played has been different even though most people wouldn’t know, but we know.
Did you play for yourselves or were you out there to shape the finals?
Honestly we couldn’t care less about shaping the finals. We’re just playing for ourselves and playing well. I know that the people in Adelaide will be thrilled that we’ve helped the Adelaide Football Club so I’m sure they’ll send something over to us.
What did you change of the game style?
Yeah that would probably be giving away too much wouldn’t it Dean? Next year we will roll out what we think is the best of what we’ve looked at. Not to say it’s foolproof but we feel a lot better that we’re better prepared to be a very credible side next year.
Fair to say the work around stoppages has something to do with it?
Yeah look stoppages has a lot to do with it. It involves the kick outs, it involves the zone, working the ball, there’s a lot of aspects. Footy’s not as easy as you might think it is and it takes a lot of effort, and the players a lot of work. Our coaches do a lot of investigation. Phil Walsh with his strategy and watching a whole lot of games and a whole lot of clubs. We have a lot of wonderful people in our back office with our video editing and right now it’s head down bum up to pick the best out of everything and come up with a solid plan that it won’t work every week but gee whiz it will be better than what it was at the start of the year anyway.
Your goal scoring from stoppage was an absolute highlight.
It has been a feature of our game over a long time and it hasn’t worked particularly well this year. Look, the free kick count was just a disaster for us again. If you have a look at the whole year it has been an absolute disaster for us. I took some notice of it, if you want to watch the first quarter have a look at where the goals come from, how many times it was a free kick today for North. I think it was 3.1 in the first quarter from free kicks. It might not have been straight away that free kick but it was a free kick that someone was out free and went to an easy shot on goal. That has happened continuously from stoppage all year. We have got absolutely smashed. A free kick happens and our players are going that way and the umpire calls a free kick and we’re caught off side. We’re not blaming anyone, we’re just saying that’s a fact and we need to spend some time with the umpiring department because I think we are about 90 free kicks the wrong way this year. It’s just ridiculous.
Why did you wait until now to speak your mind about the umpires?
People have got the opportunity to look at the stats, I don’t make them, you can investigate that as easy as anyone. It’s not in our interest to upset anyone. We’ll wait until the end of the year, then we’ll go and talk to them.
As good as today was, is it frustrating you haven’t been able to produce that before?
No, the reality of it is we weren’t good enough his year. We probably got three or four of our best players not playing today as well. We look forward to getting them back from injury. It’s exciting for young players, Marlon Motlop and Matthew Westhoff. I think Alipate Carlile has been overlooked. Unfortunately we get one game to play at the MCG which is a hell of a long time to wait for a club that finished second last year but that’s the draw. Alipate has been outstanding this year and I look forward to the last week of the year to see if he can get his Rising Star nomination because he thoroughly deserves it.
What about Peter Burgoyne? 45 possessions. Are you surprised by those numbers?
Well Dean gave him most of them. No, I’m not surprised at all, Peter is an outstanding footballer. We were criticised pretty widely and pretty loudly in regards to giving him opportunities to show what he can do but we stuck with him and I’m sure he’s appreciative of the coaching staff not bending and not yielding to outside pressures to say no you’ve done some wonderful things for our club and we’re going to give you the opportunity to show you can still do it and you still want to do it and its been great to see that he’s shown that.
Mark how many list changes do you make next year?
Quite a few but I’m not sure. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday we’ll be talking through with the players but we won’t be making any firm decisions until after the trade period. It’s a really important time. I saw the information that was leaked from the AFL last week in regards to what is going on with the QLD team and it’s really important to find out those details before you work out what you’re going to do
Get as many draft picks as you can and make the most of them?
I’m not sure, it’s all hearsay at the moment unless some of you people know. It’s all hearsay isn’t it?
It sounds pretty legitimate.
Sounds legitimate? Mmmm. So we’ll have to take some time to analyse what it all means and the ramifications for everyone’s list around Australia.
Are you in the market for a big name player? There’s talk around Kerr, Didak, Cousins and Carr coming to Alberton. Are you in the market for one of those blokes?
Yes, we certainly are. And we’re allowed to talk to them now aren’t we?
Do you think you’re in a position to get one of them?
Yes because Dean didn’t take all the money, we’ve got some money left now.
What’s the word on Josh Carr?
Well I don’t know what Josh is doing really. He’s been a wonderful player for us. He went back for family reasons over to Perth but he’s 28 now and our side if you have a look at it today it’s built on young players so I really doubt that he’s in our age group to be a viable option.
Would you give up a first round draft pick for a big name player?
Yeah, Jonathan Brown if you want to come no doubt about it. They can pick any number we’ve got and they can have the number.
What happened before the game with Ricky Nixon?
What happened. Well I’ll tell you what happened before the game. Ricky does my contracts and I haven’t spoken to him for, hmm, I don’t know, maybe once for the year so we had an opportunity to see each other. So he’d just returned fm Ireland so I was talking to him about what is going on in Ireland. It’s pretty exciting some of the stuff. Unfortunately our club is one of those clubs that doesn’t ha ethe finances that might be able to send people to Ireland. So I was just asking him how that was going. He was just talking about opportunities that may or may not exist and I was just chatgting to him about how it is going at our club. He’s trying to catch up, as all people would do in management, about what is happening at our club. Obviously we’ve had a lot of people leave so I was just assuring him that everything was on track and in a month or two time everything will be back and we’ll all be working towards us getting up the ladder next year.
So you were assuring him or he was assuring you?
About what?
About the future.
He was asking me what was going on and I was just telling him. The Triple M people started talking about having a blue. It’s just the most bizarre thing that could ever be said. Not one bit of that was true. So, I don’t know, it’s probably good press, is it a slow news day or something in the radio world or something but could not possibly be true.
You intimated that you had spoken to your manager once this year, that’s a surprise to you and to us.
Why is that?
Well because he’s your manager and if there’s opportunities that may or may not exist…
No, see, I don’t have a manager like you might think. Mine is ‘how you going’, that’s about it. I don’t need to talk to managers, he doesn’t need to worry about managing me too much. I’m in contract, he does his job. When I need a contract we talk.
Are there opportunities in Melbourne?
Oh look I’m not sure, we didn’t cover that at all. We were talking about what’s happening at Port Adelaide. He was interested in our club and he had some young players he might be looking to draft there so he was talking through that stuff so to me making something out of nothing.
Is it a concern to you and the club that so many people have left?
Well, honestly, if you spend some time and are interested, our CEO left to get a probably million dollar job in the US and he’s been there (at the club) for three years. Our media manager was at our club for ten years, did a wonderful job, and she’s working for the government now in Adelaide. When you look around your work place I’m sure there are people who leave at different times. Our finance man, I think he was there probably eight years and he’s gone to Dubai to get tax free dollars and try something new with his family. These aren’t leaving for no reason. Our marketing man left last week. That was probably a little surprising (although) he was overlooked for our CEO job, and he’s got a fantastic job with I think it’s called Direct Mail Group, which owns Daily Mail in London and he works in radio and did prior to being at our club. He was there three and a half years, and did a wonderful job setting it up. There’s been some great success stories of people going through our business and there will be in the future. When Dean Bailey and Alastair Clarkson left, everyone was saying what is going on? Well Alastair Clarkson is a big chance to play off in the grand final this year, I’m not sure it has been a disaster for him, it has been a great opportunity that we gave him at our club and he’s moved on. The timing is not terrific, I can tell you. Peter and I are sitting there looking at the walls a couple of times when it’s a management meeting. We’ve got Brett Duncanson in now as our new President-elect and he has been taking over the CEO role until he gets on board but the CEO has been appointed. And Greg Boulton has been outstanding for us. Most people here wouldn’t know but to consider you tried to start a team in the AFL and got knocked back and then actually got one off the ground with an (actual) club. To understand that our club is the least financial interstate club and runs on the basis of a tradition and a creed that was created years and years ago – 1962 – by my father. It has been a fantastic journey for Greg and our club so far and it has set us up and we look forward to it continuing and being better and better.
Mark do you expect Warren Tredrea to be captain next year?
I’m not sure, I probably didn’t expect him to be captain this year actually given his injuries so he surprises us more and more each time. He probably had his best year in hmmm I don’t know, three or four, this year so he’s a possibility to be but he’ll never stand in the way of us developing our next captain. And we have some wonderful (leaders), Dean included. (Also) Shaun and Kane and Dom, even with Travis Boak and Steven Salopek and Troy Chaplin, they’re all coming along in leaps and bounds and we spend a lot of time and effort and money in our leadership program and we’re seeing it coming through. It doesn’t come through as quickly as everyone would like and everyone’s frustrated with it at some stages but it’s good value.
Mick Malthouse wrote a column that said if you’re going to miss the finals, you’re better off finishing 12th, 13th, 14th, as opposed to 9th or 10th because you get better draft picks and better players to flow onto next season. Do you think that is the way to go?
I know there’s no point going into the season not knowing the possibilities of where your players might play. There’s certainly no point going in finishing ninth or tenth if you have injured players who have just struggled to get over the line and then miss the next and then miss the first six weeks of pre-season so strategically you have to be mindful of setting your club up. If you exist to win premierships and you want to have a crack at the top. It’s been difficult for our club, we’ve been finalists a lot of times, and we haven’t been eighth, ninth or tenth either, we’ve been up where you don’t get too many good draft picks but we’ve managed to be up there pretty often and I think our supporters are pretty supportive of us. They’re not happy where we finished don’t worry about that, but they understand that there’s a fair chance that we’ll be back their again and giving it a sniff and that’s what it’s about. It’s a really hard competition, the way it’s set up. If you look at Hawthorn they finished bottom, I don’t know, I’m not having a go at Hawthorn, you can tell me the numbers but there’s a fair swag of times they finished close to the bottom and same with Carlton. You have a look at their list now they’ve just got megastars. Pretty soon that’ll hit, they’ll have to pay them pretty good money to keep them there and that will open it up for someone else to pinch one of their players maybe but in the meantime they’ve got a good chance of having a crack at the top.
