Dennis Cometti goes one-on-one with Fremantle’s inaugural coach, Gerard Neesham, about 25 years of the Dockers, Andrew McLeod, and an unsuccessful injury clause attempt.

DC: Fremantle have begun the celebration of their 25th season in fine style with an 82-point win over the Kangaroos last Sunday. Does it seem like 25 years to you?

GN: In one sense it does, because of the things that have happened in my own life that mark the passage of time, but at the same time it feels like it all started just yesterday. I was very happy for the boys last weekend, they had a great win and kicked a big score. You couldn’t ask for a better start to the season.

A lot of people like to tell me how the Dockers have been, quote, “unsuccessful from the start”, but that’s just not right. The truth is the club made an unexpected and outstanding start in 1995. What was it, three wins from the first six games? One of those wins was over Geelong, who would go on to play in the grand final. The three losses were to sides (Richmond, Essendon and Footscray) that all played finals that year. I recall I was one of the optimistic ones when I suggested two wins for the season. Yet going into the first western derby in round seven you already had three wins (by a combined margin of 120 points) and the three losses were by a grand total of 16 points. Fremantle began by exceeding all expectations.

We had a bunch of very young players, a lot of whom had only played at State level and were playing at AFL level for the first time. Geelong were in the previous year’s grand final against West Coast and Essendon had won the premiership the year before that. I thought that we started very well. Round seven was a tough assignment when we took on the fellows up the road, they were probably the best-assembled set of players I have ever seen grace a footy oval. They had two premierships already and had played finals for the previous seven or eight years, they weren’t keen on letting us skinny little new kids get a look in. We were very poor in our first game against them, very poor. But things got better. After all, they were the benchmark for every club. We had eight cracks against the Eagles in my time in charge but unfortunately we couldn’t get over the line.

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Would that Eagles squad of the early 90s beat last year’s premiers?

I think the early 90s Eagles was comprehensively better than last year’s team. It is easy to say ‘how can you compare’ but that side had A-grade players playing in forward pockets, who in any other team in the competition would have been playing in the centre. Their depth was incredible. A lot of that started with John Todd who trained them really hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I was coaching in the State league at that time which was in a fabulous stage — Subiaco was an up-and-coming club, Claremont was producing great players year in, year out. In 1991 there was a State of Origin game, WA v Victoria, which was effectively the Eagles line-up at the time versus a full-strength squad of Victoria’s best players. Fifteen of the starting 18 were West Coast boys and they beat Victoria by 76 points in the wet.

Camera Icon Inaugural Fremantle coach Gerard Neesham during a clash with Essendon in 1998. Credit: Iain Gillespie

Ironically key injuries from that game might have cost the Eagles a premiership in ‘91. Certainly Michael Malthouse felt it did. He and I were doing a radio breakfast show at the time and I got the impression he always thought it was ‘the one that got away’.

I think I remember that radio show. ‘Cometti and the Coach’ wasn’t it? How come you got top billing?

Well, Mick hadn’t won a premiership and he was a Victorian. Mind you, had the show lasted to late 94 it would have been known as ‘Malthouse and Friend’. But let’s talk more about you. All those old Eagles will be delirious with the rap you’ve given them. For your part Fremantle went eight wins, seven wins, 10 wins and seven wins in your four years in charge. And it’s worth remembering that in the third year had the Dockers won their last qualifying game against Melbourne in Melbourne, you would have been playing finals.

If we had won that game Dennis, I would have had to play the next week, we had no one left. We had used all 42 players, we’d lost five of them to knee reconstructions, Stephen O’Reilly had torn his hamstring off the bone. Dale Kickett went down in the second quarter of that last match. As much as we’d have loved to make the eight, we wouldn’t have really been able to go on from there. It was a great year though, we showed that we were establishing the style of footy we wanted to play.

Of course the irony here is that with virtually no concessions the Dockers’ record in those first three seasons is considerably better than the club’s most recent three seasons. This is an unfair question on you — given that record do you think you were a bit stiff only being there for four seasons?

The one thing that is consistent about Aussie Rules is that the less players you use in a season the higher up the ladder you go. That has been consistent since I’ve been tracking the lists. We were somewhat unlucky with injuries. I had tried to put a clause in my contract that would take into account the number of injuries incurred. We lost 224 games through injury in that last season and beat five of the top eight sides including Adelaide who were the reigning premiers. But there’s no complaint from me, it was a fabulous four years.

I’ve heard quite a few stories over the years about your candour with potential draftees, including Andrew McLeod. Did you chase him away? That’s how the legend goes.

It’s a good legend too. Tell me this Dennis, a ball-carrying, bouncing, goal-kicking half-back flank who also happens to be Aboriginal. Do you think that fitted into my wish list?

I think you would have given it a big tick!

Mate, top of the tree. We had no staff, I was put on in May, we didn’t have any recruiting staff until October. I was struggling trying to convince players to come to us, which was largely unsuccessful and was an all-consuming task. If I’d known anything about Andrew McLeod in regard to his playing, he would definitely have been a choice of ours. The thing not many people remember is that Andrew McLeod had nominated for the draft the year before but was overlooked by everyone.

Camera Icon Andrew McLeod went on to become a Crows legend. Credit: Getty Images

The style of play you coached was certainly radical for the time. In fact, after the rule changes for this season had been announced one current AFL coach suggested to me “this could be the biggest change since Gerard Neesham”. It was clearly meant as a compliment.

It’s nice of you to pass that on. What I did fundamentally as a coach, not just at Fremantle but right back to the 80s when I first started coaching, was to make all training game-orientated. Even in the off-season. There wasn’t any long-distance running or things like that. It worked well at Claremont and reasonably well at Freo. We set up for the best defender to take marks which meant we took control of the ball. It was one of the things we did trying to become a great counterattack team. We also focused on quite a bit of run and carry. The game has certainly progressed, it is far more sophisticated.

Finally, how would you describe your ties to Fremantle these days?

I was born in the same street as your first love, the East Fremantle footy club. I went to school there and have lived in Fremantle for the last 35 years. I barrack for the club and hope they do really well.