Realfooty article on Wayne Brittain

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Blues, fresh starts and the battles of Brittain
February 06 2003

Richmond's new assistant coach, Wayne Brittain, at training in Traralgon with senior coach Danny Frawley yesterday.
Picture: Sebastian Costanzo

Axed Carlton coach Wayne Brittain may be starting season 2003 in a new role at a new club but his attitude towards football hasn't changed. Rohan Connolly reports.

Such was the toll taken by Carlton Football Club's annus horribilis last year that in its aftermath, even the seemingly indestructible ego of former president John Elliott was left battered and bruised beyond recognition, let alone the spirits of everyone else connected with the place.

Well, almost everyone. While the Blues lick their collective wounds, the man who paid the highest price for Carlton's year from hell couldn't be happier or more enthusiastic about the season ahead. Even if it is in a lesser role at another club.

New Richmond assistant coach Wayne Brittain tackled the Tigers' training session at Traralgon yesterday the same way he's always tackled his football, and indeed life; head-on, full of ideas, and with a determination to look forward, not back.

For Brittain, the essentials of having responsibility over a group of young men's football development haven't really changed. Everything else, be it profile, status or kudos, is secondary.

"You don't fit in in 10 minutes. You have to win the respect of the players, and you do that by working hard for them and help them understand that you're trying to help them go forward and reach their goals," Brittain says. "I'll have to go back, as a player does, get my head down and bum up and work hard and win the people over again, and I'm looking forward to that."

But talking to people at Punt Road, you get the impression his first battle has already been won. "When you see him out on the track, you can tell how much he loves the game, and that's infectious," says another new arrival at Punt Road, football director Greg Miller. "He has a good understanding of the human mind and what makes players, he's got strong morals himself, which comes through in his teaching, and he's got a very strong competitive nature, which comes out on the track with the players."

Perhaps the biggest impression, however, has been left on senior coach Danny Frawley. "You hate talking about yourself, but I probably see a lot of myself in him. I see a guy who is really energetic, who is first and foremost a terrific family man and a hard worker. It's been hard for him coming through, but he's got in there and got his hands dirty, and he's made the transition really well."

And Frawley is happy to concede Brittain's arrival at Punt Road may have sharpened his own radar as well. "We have a senior coach from an opposition team last year at our club, so it's really made me get on my toes and think we've got to do it a little better, because that's only human nature."

 

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But Frawley need not worry about a potential coup. In fact, says Brittain, it was the level of support for Frawley that he found to be one of the most impressive aspects of the club when he started in October, support which Brittain himself couldn't count on from his board last year.

"Had a premiership come Carlton's way in 1999, 2000 or 2001, when they were a genuine chance, perhaps that would have put the club in a better position to be able to support me a bit stronger," he says. "That's what impresses me about Richmond. They had an average year last year, and their reaction as a club has been to strongly support Danny, to strengthen the football department and help him get through this trying time as a young footy coach. He'll come out of it a far better coach and better organiser of people around him. Richmond's response is going to give Danny a chance to be able to get his just desserts in the coaching caper."

Desserts which, but for a couple of untimely injuries in 2000, Brittain may well have tasted, and which he now realises he may never taste at all.

"It will be pretty tough to get that opportunity again," he concedes. "They don't come up too often, and when you've had one shot already . . . I'd be a lot more confident if I'd been able to help Carlton win a premiership. They were pretty close, but it just didn't fall into place. I suppose from a coaching point of view, there was a window of opportunity that I was unable to capitalise on, and that's not going to help.

"I just want to do a good job with Danny, and whatever happens after that happens. Now I just want to get back to where I'm really enjoying my footy."

Brittain had to coach Carlton last season against a backdrop of injuries to key players, and an administration and board unravelling around him. He barely flinched, winning him more admirers still, but even he admits things got pretty tough towards the end.

"I remember one game walking out behind the team as they ran out on to the ground. All these injured blokes in a Carlton uniform were walking up to the grandstand. I looked at them and thought: 'There's 15 or 16 blokes who would have been in the best 18. There's my team; who has just run out out there?' That was the first time I thought: 'This is going to be a tough day.'

"What's happened at Carlton in the last few months is obviously what's needed to happen. A bomb needed to go through the place and alert people that things weren't as well as everyone seemed to think.

"It will give the player group a chance to really bond together again.

"There's been a perception, especially in the last six months, of them as being a bit selfish, and I've never seen the group that way.

"A lot of them have spilled a lot of blood for that club, and have played a brand of footy that's been pretty taxing."

Then again, was any player more taxed emotionally than the coach after having survived a proud club's worst year, only to be publicly hung out to dry while the club openly courted his successor, Denis Pagan? The answer to the speed of Brittain's resurrection lies in his unbridled love of the game.

"I suppose it's the competition which helps keep you alive," he says. "While you're competing, you're alert. As someone who didn't play AFL, it's good to be able to get into the coach's box and compete, like you're on the horse, and you're riding it.

"I just want to do my job, help us have success, and my ego gets fed enough just doing a good job. I think the game is about the players. I'd prefer to see you people doing more stories on them rather than coaches. The game is good enough for you guys to write enough stories without having Wayne Brittain in too many of them."

Sorry, Wayne, but you're important, too.