The three phases of Terry Wallace’s AFL career (from left): The player, the senior coach, and media commentator.
We won’t see the brilliance of Gary Ablett junior again … unless we delve in real estate and property development.
We will not marvel at how such a skinny bloke as Justin Westhoff can adapt to five demanding roles – including ruck duties – often in one game at Port Adelaide. And in every zone – attack, midfield and defence.
We are no longer to watch Geelong defender Harry Taylor hobble deceptively to a team huddle but move with the perfect balance and timing of a Japanese bullet train when he needs to cover an opponent.
But we would like an explanation on the “ham handshake” with then Adelaide key forward (and eventual Cats teammate) Josh Jenkins in 2017 at the end of a week that began with Jenkins battling food poisoning.
We won’t watch midfielders scramble to take advantage of Carlton/Adelaide/Greater Western Sydney ruckman Sam Jacobs while he stretches an arm to eagerly win a tap as if the game rested on his hit-out.
We are not going to mark another opportunist goal in our “AFL Record” at Hawthorn games from small forward Paul Puopolo – and be reminded not every piece of a premiership puzzle needs to be a top 10 draftee (Puopolo, pick No.66 in 2010 at age 23).
We won’t hold our breath while Port Adelaide utility Brad Ebert bounces out of a collision holding his bandaged or helmet-covered head. Some players do indeed redefine “courage”.
And we will not hear the distinctive voice of Terry Wallace crackling on our radio sets again … the miner birds in the garden will feel abandoned.
For the first time since 1978, Wallace – an Australian Football Hall of Famer – will not make a mark on VFL or AFL senior football as a player, coach or media commentator. He has signed off, leaving us to again understand how true appreciation of his work will be more obvious during Wallace’s absence.
There have been many tributes for all those grand players who will not be part of AFL football in season 2021.
Ablett’s long walk-off to a guard of honour including victorious Richmond players – showing great decency by covering their AFL premiership medals – at the Gabba in Brisbane after the grand final will remain one of the indelible moments of a Covid-stained season many will want to quickly forget.
Ebert stepped out of a preliminary final having put his head at risk (again) in a marking contest against Richmond key forward Jack Riewoldt at the southern end of Adelaide Oval … a symbolic exit. South Australian Puopolo kicked a season-high three goals in his farewell at Adelaide Oval, closing his AFL career at 196 games and 185 goals (and 89 behinds).
This week – while AFL player lists are restocked during the various draft processes – it is appropriate to salute Wallace. More so when his absence as the “list manager” will be noted while many find it difficult to fill Wallace’s shoes in assessing the strength and weaknesses of the 18 AFL club squads for a new season.
Even though every club leaves the AFL national draft with the well-rehearsed line of having “found a player for all our needs”, it needs men of Wallace’s experience and knowledge to make a forensic assessment of how the recruiting managers have plugged holes in their team lists.
Wallace fashioned the game as a courageous and determined player, tactically savvy coach and deep-thinking and well-prepared media commentator.
And now – during his absence while he travels Australia and later across a Covid-free world – the silence during list reviews on draft night will make Wallace’s absence more notable. His significant influence on the game is worth measuring with greater reflection.
Wallace leaves the sport as one of its more fascinating men during Australian football’s transition from suburban leagues to live up to the image of “Australia’s game” with a truly national competition (all apologies to Tasmania).
His induction to the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2018 appropriately acknowledged his noteworthy and wide-ranging contribution to the game – to advance the sport – was well beyond one club, generally seen as Hawthorn.
The resume is significant. First, as a player, 254 games (174 at Hawthorn from 1978-1986; 11 with Richmond in 1987 and 69 at Footscray while the VFL expanded to become the AFL from 1988-1991).
As a coach, 247 matches (148 with the Western Bulldogs from 1996 to a contentious exit before the end of 2002; and 99 in that infamous five-year plan at Richmond from 2005 to 2009).
And then more than a decade as a newspaper columnist and radio commentator. For the record, Wallace says he preferred to write, where he was allowed “to get your teeth into a topic, while sometimes on radio you can start but you can’t evolve it to where you want it. Writing allowed you to fully explain to the footy followers exactly what you meant”.
Three premierships, as a player at Hawthorn; four best-and-fairests, two each at Hawthorn and Footscray quickly earning him the nickname of “Plough” while proving on the field that he would indeed run through proverbial brick walls. Or dig deep for possession, as teammate Russell Greene declared on a Tuesday night at Glenferrie Oval as he watched Wallace dig into the mud for the ball.
And there always will be that infamous line – “I’ll spew up” – from the 1997 documentary “Year of the Dogs” based on Footscray’s 1996 season.
Wallace had taken over from Alan Joyce as senior coach and the Bulldogs fell agonisingly short of beating Collingwood on a Sunday afternoon at the MCG. Beaten by six points after making a six-goal charge against a 29-point deficit at three quarter-time, Wallace stood before his crestfallen Bulldogs players.
“I don’t know about you blokes, but I can’t bear f…ing losing a game like that!” he said. “Look, fantastic effort, but what does a f…ing fantastic effort mean? It doesn’t get us anything! We don’t get diddly squat! We don’t get a point. They don’t just give us something for just f…ing getting close! It means nothing.
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“If you think that I’m going to be happy walking into this room when we get beaten still, we can’t be! We just can’t accept it! I don’t know about you guys, but if I see one bloke walk out of here, getting a pat on the back from people out there for a good effort, I’ll spew up!
“Because it’s just not acceptable! We were a rabble in that first quarter, absolutely bloody disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. Yeah, for three quarters we were worked our arses off, we worked our backsides off to get back into the game, but the game is about 120 minutes of footy, and that was the most winnable one that we get for a long time, and we just pissed it down the drain. We absolutely pissed that game down the drain.
“Don’t any one of you forget about it. Take away one thing from this game. You have the ability to play in this competition and to play it very, very, very well. We cannot get from that which we’ve displayed right in the three quarters, back to what we displayed in the first quarter ever again. Ever again. Go and have your showers, we’ll see you back at the social club.”
Everyone seeks a legacy to show they have marked the game and see their influence roll on, even after they have left. Wallace would have preferred his moment to have unfolded at premiership reunions with those ambitious Western Bulldogs teams that ultimately could not get past Malcolm Blight’s Adelaide teams in the 1997 and 1998 preliminary finals at the MCG. Or a drought-breaking flag at Richmond.
Everyone will remember Wallace differently – either as a player, a coach or as a media man. Anyone who survived in the game for five ever-changing decades will leave more than one mark or one legacy.
The flooding defensive tactics? The round 21 win against Essendon at the Docklands that denied Kevin Sheedy’s Bombers the perfect season to close the 20th century in 2000?
Wallace proving he was not stubborn in the coach’s box by having an ally sift through the expert commentary on radio during Western Bulldogs matches in case there was a bright spark outside his own bubble.
And one of Wallace’s progressive concepts at the Western Bulldogs still lives on before every game with every AFL club today … the pre-game warm-up, on the field rather than in cramped changerooms. And where did this “game changer” come from, a lightbulb moment while Wallace put his head down in the infamous solarium?
“Although the Bulldogs were only a small club,” says Wallace, “we were one of the first to venture overseas and study other sports.
“We sent a fact-finding team to the (National Football League teams) Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars. It was pre-game in Florida where I witnessed first-hand the team all preparing on the field.
“We were not a particularly strong-starting team and we were regularly having blokes do hamstrings early in games, so I took the idea home and structured it to our game.
“The AFL were not going to allow it with reserves games still happening, but they came around. Players were sceptical at first, but we gained a decisive advantage. Most opposition teams scoffed at us early, but then realised it was an advantage. They all played follow the leader within 12 months.”
And the pre-game warm-up lives on. It is not the biggest mark Wallace leaves on the game. But it is one of the many interesting concepts that live on beyond his time from the hottest seat in the AFL game – that of the senior coach.
Wallace has many “what if” moments … just those as an AFL coach are enough to fill a book.
What if that Tony Liberatore shot at goal was indeed registered as a goal – rather than as a behind – in the frenetic final stages of the 1997 preliminary final against Adelaide? What if Wallace had taken over as Sydney coach – rather than interim mentor Paul Roos – at the end of the 2002 season?
That book would be handy for finally settling if Wallace was indeed compensated – more so by the Swans’ lone owner, the AFL, in particular then league chief executive Wayne Jackson, rather than Sydney – for being promised and the denied the Sydney job.
Wallace did break tradition and convention as a coach by pulling down barriers on where the cameras, microphones and notebooks could venture within an AFL game.
Interview a coach before and during a game? Why not, reasoned Wallace while giving his Bulldogs more – and much-needed – media exposure.
His out-of-football experience as the Victorian sales manager at GTV9 for Sky television also spared him from seeing “media street” as a dimly-lit alley with hit men lurking in the shadows.
His Saturday afternoon “fifth quarters” were with men and women he knew from after-work drinks on Friday nights.
Wallace rarely missed an opportunity. During an era when AFL coaches sought to avoid being quoted, Wallace became a “media darling” by offering more than expected.
Today, there will be many AFL coaches judged – rightly or wrongly – by what they say in the fifth quarter. Indeed, there are players who become nervous when the message from the media conference strays widely from what is said inside the bubble.
Wallace’s media work in recent years during the AFL trade period – in particular, his assessment of each club’s list and its trade plays – was must-listen commentary that paved the way for Matt Rendell and Steve Silvagni on digital radio during the recent exchange session. To be replaced by two men clearly shows Wallace left big shoes to fill.
And now there is silence. It will be tough (actually, impossible) at Kardinia Park for someone to follow Gary junior. Port Adelaide cannot replace “Westy” … and many will be asked to be as insightful as Terry was behind the microphone. Beware cheap imitations.
