Shane O’Sullivan, knowing Kevin Sheedy, expects a phonecall from the Greater Western Sydney Coach sometime between now and Saturday afternoon when the first footy is bounced in anger at Etihad Stadium.

“He only rings me when he wants to find something out,” O’Sullivan dryly suggested this week. “It’d be something along the lines of ‘Is Jamison going to play on Cameron?’. It’d be something like that.”

Carlton supporters can rest easy here, for O’Sullivan has always played the proverbial straight bat. But in the lead-up to the Carlton-GWS contest, the club’s Football Administration Manager was more than happy to talk of his enduring friendships with both Sheedy and Mick Malthouse, who take their places in the box for a record 47^th time as opposing coaches.

“Kevin is one of the people who helped get me into footy . . . I’m indebted to him,” said O’Sullivan, who sources his first dealings with Sheedy to 1973.

“It all came about through an uncle of mine who worked with Graham Richmond in the hotel game. At the time I was playing footy in Queensland and was involved in footy promotions there, and because I got to know him I got him to come to Queensland and conduct clinics.

“When I came back to Melbourne I got really friendly with him and I trained at Richmond. At the time he used to take me out to clinics and get me to run a session, which was pretty embarrassing, but good experience.

“When I started working at Carlton and Richmond actually retired him, Wes Lofts got me to go and see him about playing here - but I think the Richmond-Carlton hatred was too great.

“Later, in my Bears days (as Brisbane General Manager) he would bring Essendon up to play practice matches when they probably didn’t have to.”

O’Sullivan added that while he had never been privy to Sheedy the coach at club level, he understood and appreciated the man’s capacity to think outside the square - just as he did Malthouse in his maiden season as Footscray coach back in 1984.

“With Mick I was lucky enough (as Bulldogs’ General Manager) to see him coach for a year and there’s no doubt that his strength of character and belief in himself from day one stood out,” O’Sullivan said.

“He wasn’t frightened as a young coach to make hard decisions which were good for the footy club and the footy team.”

Saturday’s contest pits Sheedy, in his second and final season at the helm for the Giants, with Malthouse in his first season as Carlton Senior Coach.

Both men have their respective clubs to the collective tally of 15 Grand Finals, with Sheedy laying claim to four Premierships and Malthouse three. But of the 1339 League matches in which they’ve collectively coached, Mick holds sway with 391 wins to Kev’s 388.

Though O’Sullivan’s relationships with both men can be sourced to their playing days “when both preferred a scrap to a feed”, it’s of no real surprise to him that the names Malthouse and Sheedy have endured within the AFL coaching fraternity.

As he said: “They both care about the game and they’ve given it so much”.

“Gosh, they’re two of the biggest names ever in the game I reckon,” O’Sullivan said. “They’ve both done a lot for footy, in different ways admittedly, but they’ve both got the passion for the game and the passion to see people succeed and I think a lot of people have benefitted for being coached by them and for working alongside them as assistant coaches.”

In closing, O’Sullivan was asked whether he believed Malthouse and Sheedy actually got on.

“They’re pleasant,” came the reply. “They’ve been coaching adversaries for a long time and of course there’s a respect there, but they’re hardly next door neighbours.”

And if he had to emerge from the trench with one of them, whose name would he volunteer?

“Mick would go down scratching and fighting for a yard I reckon,” O’Sullivan said.