At the weekend, I had the experience you can’t buy. I spent Saturday morning at Carlton training, out in the middle, talking to players, coaches and staff.

I sat in team meetings in strategy meetings and on Sunday I arrived at the ground to sit in the players room during the address, talked to coaches and players and went out in the middle during the warm up.

I stood there with Mick Malthouse – just the two of us – to talk about his feelings as Collingwood ran on to the ground to a huge roar.

Then I sat in the box, went to the debrief - Mick’s private speech to the players after the game. There were no restrictions.

It was an incredible experience. Not just a football experience, it was an experience in people watching.

Mick puts himself under extraordinary pressure. You can see it sap his energy. He is a detail freak and he is across everything. In the box, he is tense and passionate. Information is shouted at him from all angles. He acts and absorbs.

He wasn’t obsessed by Collingwood - everybody else was. He told the players that he obviously had information on Collingwood players because he knew them well, but he didn’t dwell on his history with Collingwood. There was none of the ‘win it for me’ sort of stuff. It was methodical, detailed and analytical. His speeches get fiery, but he takes the players with him.

When they lost, he didn’t berate them. He said the obvious: they had matched it with the best.

They are up-and-comers and they will be a very good side, he told them. He taught them where they had failed.

In the box there was fury at times - none of that with the players. I don’t know why he does it, it must be immensely draining.

And then on the edge of it, the media.

I am afraid Mick is a target. They have decided he is grumpy and difficult, and he can be. But it is also unfair.

On Saturday, he left a press conference after taking three or four more questions than the minders wanted. They were trying to wind it up, he was running late and finally he ended it and left.

Channel Seven reported several times he had walked out in anger. Absolute and total nonsense.

They were fitting the stereotype, not the reality. Mick is passionate and he can be prickly, but at the weekend he did not deserve the belting he was given.

He didn’t complain. I did. And he was duded.

Some observations of the players: they are a quiet lot. Brock McLean, former Melbourne player, an exception. The young bloke, Sam Rowe, played his first game After fighting testicular cancer. He has the chemo curls and they laugh about them - his hair was straight and isn’t now, but he likes it that way.

And in the box, the rotations absorb so much of the energy. Players timed almost to the second to get maximum energy out of them.

The technology, red lights flash warnings, computers run out statistics. You sense in the box when momentum is changing in a game, before it actually happens.

The tension steps up a notch, the messages are shouted endlessly. I have no idea how Mick absorbs it all.

The emotion is palpable; the coach is running a war machine, a huge corporation and a psychology unit.

He has to coax and allow for players individual issues. He is across them. He is a general, a chief executive, a psychologist, a doctor, a mathematician and a speech maker.

And that is where Mick stood out to me wthat his speeches – no notes – were well-structured, riveting, sensible and a mixture of passion and logic. Fire and fact.

And he would talk for thirty minutes off the top without repeating himself.

I was privileged to be there and I thank Carlton for allowing it.

He loves it, obviously. He is very good at it, obviously. And I reckon he has the makings of a very good team there.

When he worked here at 3AW last year, Mick used to ask how we could do it. The pressure, the different issues, the research, the performance and the passion. Well, we’ve got it easy.

I have seen inside his life, I can see why he loves it, but I can’t see how he keeps doing it. By the time I said goodbye after seven o’clock last night, he was totally exhausted and getting ready to start again.