Mick Malthouse talks to his team at 1/4 time during the AFL Round 03 match between St Kilda Saints and the Collingwood Magpies at Etihad Stadium, Melbourne. Slattery Images
As Fred Weatherley wrote in that 1913 folk classic, is it possible that the final resting place – in coaching terms at least – could be the Republic Of Ireland?
I wrote for another publication back in November last year that one of the main reasons the International Rules Test series got back on track after a number of violence-related disaster tours was Mick Malthouse, Australia’s coach.
Ignore the convincing Aussie victory in those Tests for the Cormac McAnallen Trophy. The quality of the matches was courtesy of the coaches – Ant Tohill of Ireland, and Malthouse. It was nothing but smooth, easy Malt, as it were. A man who genuinely cared about the IRF concept and treated it with respect rather than disdain.
Footy fans should be proud of him for doing so. He’s ensured the survival of the concept for at least another year or two. No-one else seems to be nicer to the IRF idea than Malthouse. He calls it taking the best bits of both sports and producing something special. Malthouse told The Irish Times’ Sean Moran that the gaelic connection would only improve Aussie Rules in the long term.
“Too many people think our game is complete… That’s the death of any sport. You’ve got to keep expanding and looking outside,” Malthouse said at the time.
Anyway, Mick is scheduled to apparently at least hang around Collingwood until 2014 as a coaching director – presumably that means he’ll have a hotline earpiece to new boss Nathan Buckley and toss him morsels of football fortune-cookie wisdom every afternoon. But what about after all that is done?
As Herald Sun writer John Ralph put it on February 12: “At 57, and with grandchildren multiplying, a less-taxing future makes sense – but even an hour with Malthouse give the unmistakable vibe he is not prepared to wander off into the sunset.” Ralph added that the Pies coach “is at the peak of his powers”.
“It might take a messy departure at season’s end, but surely he will coach on elsewhere?” he wrote.
Why not in the Emerald Isle? Malthouse could return to Ireland and complete his career coaching an All-Ireland GAA side – Dublin, Kerry, Cork, etc… It would be a fascinating finish to his life in the game, and I have no doubt he’d make a terrific manager over there, too.
I know of at least one district footy player from Victoria – Wedderburn’s Ro McHugh – who has just begun a two-year stint at Clontarf in the Dublin regional league. His father reckoned it would only be the start of a flood of footballing traffic in the Australia-Ireland direction, a reversal of the common theme in recent years of the AFL seemingly “poaching” the best GAA talent. Would Mick be willing to be gladly nabbed by an Irish club?
I emphasize here that, while I do enjoy my footy, I am not a specific Collingwood-lover or hater – just someone interested in where Mick might go next, although I don’t agree with Ralph that he’s the AFL’s equivalent of Sir Alex Ferguson (I’ve always thought of Kevin Sheedy in that role, but that’s a debate for another day).
Still, whether he’s a proto-Fergie or not (Sir Michael Malthouse, anyone?), any gaelic club would definitely be in safe hands if Malthouse was at the helm. To be sure.
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