O’Sullivan had drawn on his recollections of some five seasons past, to when he chased the leather across town at Punt Road.
“I was lucky enough to train at Richmond in 1978/79 and sometimes something sticks in the back of your head the way people go about things. At that time, Mick and Neil Balme stood out as the guys who looked after people coming in and making them feel welcome,” said O’Sullivan, thesedays Carlton’s Football Administration Manager.
O’Sullivan’s gut feel for Malthouse as Hampshire’s successor won the support of both the Footscray director Nick Columb and, crucially, the chairman of selectors Wayne Walsh, who had also been part of the fold with the Tiger of old. As Shane said: “We spoke to a few other people, but Michael was certainly the one we wanted to get. We thought we had a good young group and we wanted a strong, young up-and-coming coach to take charge and lead the team and the club in the right direction”.
Mick Malthouse in the late 1980s.
To be doubly sure, O’Sullivan also sounded out the late Alan Schwab. For peace of mind as much as anything else, he wanted to glean the long-serving football administrator’s thoughts on Mick and whether he considered Mick the right fit for Footscray.
“For a young footy administrator at the time, Alan was the guru and confidante who you could go to for advice and when I spoke to him about Mick he simply said ‘Go with your gut feeling - give it a go’,” O’Sullivan said.
“Once he said that I was really convinced in terms of what my feelings were.”
At Footscray then (as with Carlton now), Malthouse inherited a group of greenhorns - the likes of Steve Wallis, Brian Royal and Steve MacPherson. To that mix he added experienced “outsiders” who’d savoured team successes elsewhere and within 24 months the Bulldogs played off in a prelim because of the winning culture that he’d crafted.
Mick Malthouse addresses his players in 1987.
“The thing I’ll never forget about Mick was his strength of character to implement what he wanted. I remember him dropping the captain, Jim Edmond, in his first year because he wasn’t playing well, and anyone who has the strength to do those things is going places,” O’Sullivan said.
“Having since watched on from afar, not much has really changed - Mick’s strong and he’s tough, but he’s also really fair.”
Fast forward to 2012 and O’Sullivan and Malthouse have again been reunited in football, this time at Visy Park, and according to the former, not much has changed.
“I saw him (Malthouse) for a little while on Tuesday and he’s just as keen now as he was the first day I talked to him about coaching. He’s got the fire in the belly that’s for sure,” O’Sullivan observed.
“I think we’ve got enough talent here and I also think the boys will jump in behind Mick and listen to what he’s got to say. He’s tough and firm and while he doesn’t literally put his arm around his players he makes them feel pretty good about themselves because he believes in them . . . and I really think the players will enjoy the way he goes about it.”
