IN April, Phil Walsh told Mark Robinson that he was trying to "reconnect" with his son after his obsession with football made family life difficult at times. Read his in-depth interview below.

IT’S 6am and the coach has been at the club for an hour.

He greets with a hand shake-up and a smile and straight away you know Phil Walsh has two faces.

There’s the footy face, all earnest and genuine. And there’s the other face, the fun face, where a lot of the time he’s just the boy from Hamilton, the youngest of seven siblings, who laughs at his own jokes and who happened to grow to love a game so much it both rewarded him and consumed him.

In many ways his love became a destructive obsession.

He’s 55 now and his work-life balance is reasonably normal, that’s if you think going to bed at 8.30pm and waking any time between 2am and 5am to do his work is normal.

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“You know, more people laugh at me now that I’m senior coach,’’ he laughs.

“Tex has been good to me. He said, “Your only problem is you’re actually not too bad with the first joke, but when they laugh at you, you always try to go with another one and that one ain’t that good.’’

The coach laughs again.

But when it comes to actual football, there’s little room for laughter.

News_Image_File: Phil Walsh with defender Daniel Talia at training. Photo Sarah Reed

“At training and on game day, I’m a hard arse,’’ he said.

“I believe and demand high standards. I don’t believe in the heat of the battle that you rise to the occasion, I believe you actually sink to the level of your training.

“We have this romantic idea that here it is, the game was on the line, and one of the stars rose to the occasion and did something extraordinary.

“I have the other view that if you don’t train hard and have elite standards, then you sink to your level of training and when that happens you have a disconnect with the game and you’re gone.

“I try to get them to understand this competition is so hard and so ruthless and that’s what I’m preparing them for.’’

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WALSH walks through the Crows foyer. On his right are the two premiership cups and a bunch of photos in a cabinet. He can’t ignore the cups, but doesn’t look at the photos.

“If you go the New York Giants, all they have are their Superbowl trophies, no faces,’’ he said.

“It’s all great what these people have done for the club, but at the end of the day, the club is for the fans and we move on.’’

His work station is in an open-office plan. No walls. Walls restrict communication between coaches. There’s no door, either. The players need ready access.

“I’m saying to everyone, you don’t have to knock on the door, look there’s no door. In my second interview for the position, I told them I’m an open-plan coach, I don’t want coaches having their own offices. I want them out with the players to be a resource.’’

He wants his coaches to engage the players.

“Without keeping a dossier on the players, when I engage with a player, I know what’s going on. Mum and dad have split up, he’s trying to do that business course and he hasn’t done it, he’s got a girlfriend and she’s doing nursing, I try to touch on something not footy straight away,” he said.

“I don’t do it to tick a box, I do it because I care about him as a person.’’

News_Image_File: Phil Walsh during his Port Adelaide coaching days in 2006.

On a wall beside Walsh’s desk are two ladders and neither of them is the conventional ladder.

“That’s what I believe in,’’ he said.

Pointing to one, he says: That’s your ability to go from the back 50 to inside 50. That’s where it is at Round 2. But the more important ladder is on the right, that’s your ability to stop the opposition doing it. Last year we were ranked 16th going from the back 50 to inside 50, and right now we’re 8th.

“I have these ladders all year. They tell me who’s got good ball movement and who stops good ball movement.’’

Already, Walsh is a whirlwind of energy and footy philosophies.

So, what does a coach do at 5am?

Usually for Walsh it’s a workout. This morning, he says, he’s planned the day and has determined what demeanour he will have with his players.

“We trained yesterday and I’ve watched training again and got a really clear view,’’ he said.

Oddly, he also studied up on the Western Bulldogs, their opponent in Round 4. He proceeded to show a clip from behind the goals, where the Bulldogs moved the ball and spread the Richmond defence in their Round 2 match at the MCG.

“We’ve got them next week,’’ he said. “We all talk a week at a time, but I’m three weeks out. Port is ticking away in my head, but I want you to have a look at this clip from the Bulldogs.’’

His screen saver is a photograph of the street in Peru where he was struck and almost killed by a bus in October, 2012.

“That’s my wake up call every day, as soon as I turn my computer on. Don’t get too angry, Phil.’’

“But watch this bit, this is what I really like,’’ he said. “The Bulldogs stretch the field, the width, so it’s harder to defend. And this next bit is really hard to defend.’’

He points to match-ups all over the field.

“They have space to hit up and space out over the back. They make you defend the whole ground, not just certain parts of the ground. I don’t want to come across as being disrespectful to Melbourne, but this time last week I was already into Melbourne. And I watched their game (against GWS) on Monday.’’

COME on, he says, I’ll show you around.

He’s excited like a new homeowner showing off the new house.

Off the open-plan office, there are three rooms for line meetings for the forwards, backs and midfielders. They are full of bean bags and couches. It has a loungeroom feel.

“It’s relaxing, the boys can stretch out, we want to relax them.’’

Come on, up here, he says. He leads into the players room, a vast space with tables, couches, TVs and a kitchen.

“We have school tables so we all sit together and all face each other,’’ he said.

“We can have NBA on one screen and NFL on the other. I’ve banned horse races on them. I’ve taken gambling out as much as possible. It’s a problem, an industry problem and it’s insidious. Let’s all have a multi, let’s have a punters club, and then all of a sudden one of the kids has dropped 30k just like that. It’s ridiculous.’’

He takes the stairs again and it’s into the change room area. On the walls are photographs of groups of players.

“I’m big on team-type pictures,’’ he said. “And I’m big on this as well.’’ It is the players’ locker room and it has bathings as doors and a prominent sign which says: Players Only.

“No-one goes in there, it’s a place where they can go. I never go in there. I’ll put my head over and say let’s have chat, but I’ll never go in there.’’

Keep coming, he says. Up stairs he leads into a huge expanse, a smaller replica of an oval and a weights area off to the right. It used to be called The Shed and fans and players used to drink there after games at AAMI Stadium.

“This is what I’m really proud of,’’ he said. “Everyone’s together.’’

Asked about the importance of togetherness, Walsh recalls a conversation with an SAS leader when he was at West Coast.

“Only three things determine a battle. 1) Field position. 2) Fire power and 3) The morale of the troops. Often, you can’t do anything about field position because you are where you are. You can’t do much about fire power because you’ve either got Buddy Franklin or you haven’t got Buddy Franklin. But you can do a lot about the morale of the troops, so spend as much time into the morale of the players as you can. And that resonated so much with me.’’

WALSH is a quirky, intense football nerd.

This is his resume: Born and raised in rural Hamilton, he played at Collingwood in 1983 and then with Richmond and the Brisbane Lions before retiring in 1990.

He became Geelong’s strength and conditioning coach in 1995, joined Port Adelaide as an assistant coach in 1999 and joined West Coast in 2009 as an assistant coach. In 2014, he returned to Port Adelaide under Ken Hinkley and then applied for the Crows job and won it.

“I’m 54 years old and it’s probably not going to come around again,” he said at the time. “I tell my kids to chase their dreams, so I probably don’t want to look back at 70 years old and think what might have been. So here I am.”

News_Image_File: Phil Walsh speaks to his players. Photo: Sarah Reed

His family has had its dramas.

Both his parents are dead. Mum passing in 2009 and his dad in 2011.

“Mum was everything to me,’’ he said. “One of my great regrets, and because I just couldn’t get it together, was not to speak at her funeral. Dad died two years later and I spoke at his funeral and I felt so much better that I was able to do that.’’

What would mum think of him coaching his own side?

“You know, which ever club I went to, and she was tragic Essendon growing up, but wherever I went she would barrack for the team, including when I was at Geelong,’’ he said.

“I’m one of seven, I was the youngest and mum and dad were battlers. Mum gave us the world and if they made mum treasurer of Australia we wouldn’t have this deficit.’’

And Dad?

“Dad went to World War II, saw some action and never spoke about it, but his mates tell me he was never the same bloke.

“I talk about man conversations and I never had a real man conversation with my dad. There’s a bit of me in him. I’ve been a bit of a lad over the days and he was bit of a lad. He liked a drink.

“I had a crack at him once in my only real man conversation with him. And he said to me, ‘I’ve made a promise to my mates who aren’t here, I’d never go thirsty, son. You don’t know what it’s like to go to war, so don’t judge me’. I said fair enough.

“He was always proud of me. I don’t know what your parents are like, but their view of the world was, all they wanted was their kids to do better than them. They were simple people. They wanted their kids to do well and as long as we were happy they were happy. It was a simpler life.’’

His own family life hasn’t been as simple.

His obsession with football at times drove a wedge. At West Coast, after the game was played on a Saturday, Walsh the next day would fly to Melbourne and back, 10 hours all up, just to watch two hours of live footy. He reckons it got even worse when he was Port Adelaide.

Asked if he was a good father, he said: “That’s a really hard question.

“The bonus of me taking the Crows job is my son is 26 and my daughter is 22, so the collateral damage isn’t so big.

“But have I been a good father? To my son, I had a disconnect because of footy.

“I just immersed myself, got consumed and was selfish with as much time I committed to footy. I’m basically talking about my 10 years at Port Adelaide, just the desperation to win a premiership and I thought it was all about me, when it’s all about the players.

“I lost that connection and I’m trying to reconnect with my son, which I have done.

“In a selfish way, I taught my daughter to surf, and that’s my release, so when I go surfing, I take her. Now I’ve got my son into it as well and that’s what I should’ve done a long time ago.

“A couple of months ago, we all went surfing together at Middleton and it was almost the best day I’ve had ... ever. We all got a wave, went to the bakery on the way home, we smiled, and laughed and there was none of this stuff, that I’ve got Melbourne, then the Bulldogs, then Port. Just none of that.’’

Those days with the kids remind him that coaching is a lonely job.

“It is really lonely, this is lonely,’’ he says waving a hand around the empty office.

“I used to shut down all relationships because it was too hard to be in the moment with people, hard to be in their moment if you know what I mean.’’

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After his appointment at the Crows, and by pure chance, he sought advice from an unlikely source, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, at a coaches association meeting.

Why Bucks? ‘We were talking and I asked because I wanted to know and he’s been in the caper for four years. He said do your exercises but use that to keep your friendships, which I thought was a pretty good idea. So when you go for a run, try to do it with your friends at the same time. But it’s a bit hard to get someone here at 5am. But it was great advice.’’

He’s vowed to make friendships and family and footy a workable triumvirate, even though his friends will have to work harder than him to keep it together.

“Listen to this story,’’ he says.

It’s Round 1 versus North Melboune and his best mate who he went through teacher’s college with, Frankie Scarce from Bendigo, was at the Byron Bay Blues Festival, when Frankie decided to fly over for game day. When the game was played and won Frankie walked into the Crows rooms.

“I said mate, ‘How did you get in here?’ And just jumped the fence, walked down the race and came straight up. It was a beautiful moment.

“He said, ‘Well done,’ and I thought how good is this, just two battlers, hey, two battlers and have a look at us. It was a magic moment. He’s coming back for the Showdown he liked it that much.’’

PHIL WALSH'S SON CHARGED

TRIBUTES FLOW FOR PHIL WALSH

ADELAIDE-GEELONG CLASH IN DOUBT

THE AFL'S MOST FASCINATING COACH