Dreamtime dreaming: Xavier Clarke wants to buck the coaching trend
Xavier Clarke was several beers deep one night in San Diego when he got the call.
It was late 2016, and he was in the US as part of a study tour organised by the AFL Coaches Association. He’d been in Melbourne for grand final week and had teed up a coffee with new Richmond football boss Neil Balme, who he’d kept in touch with while coaching the NEAFL’s NT Thunder.
Balme brought along Tigers coach Damien Hardwick, and the three men discussed coaching philosophies and general thoughts on the game. Clarke had been keen to join an AFL club’s coaching panel for some time, but the catch-up wasn’t a job interview per se. But Balme saw something in Clarke, because that night in San Diego the former Saint and Lion was offered a job at Punt Road as a development coach.
“I got a phone call from Balmey, it was about 11 o’clock at night, and he said, ‘Mate, we want to offer you a role to come work with us as a development coach’. I said to him, ‘Mate, I’ve had a few beers, mind if I call you back in the morning?’ He had a bit of a giggle about it, so I called him back the next day and then we went from there,” Clarke told Fairfax Media this week, ahead of the Dreamtime clash with Essendon.
Clarke had two years to run on his contract with Thunder but they weren’t going to stand in his way from taking a coveted AFL club job. So the one-time boy from St Mary’s, who grew up idolising Michael Long and Cyril Rioli’s father, Cyril snr, joined the Tigers, increasing the AFL’s Indigenous coaching ranks from two to three.
Roger Hayden at Fremantle at Andy Lovell at Gold Coast are the two others. Clarke, 34, knows it’s not enough. He acknowledges that coaching isn’t for everyone, but appreciates that the disproportionate dearth of Indigenous coaches compared to players in the AFL needs to be addressed.
Jason Mifsud, the former AFL official Indigenous leader and a coach during Clarke’s playing days at St Kilda, is a mentor of Clarke’s, but there are too few Indigenous coaching role models.
Of the AFL’s scores of Indigenous players over the decades, only Barry Cable and Graham “Polly” Farmer have coached a senior VFL-AFL side. Clarke wants to be number three. He says the AFL and its clubs have come a long way in terms of nurturing and understanding Indigenous players even since he started playing for the Saints more than 16 years ago.
A trip of several players and coaches to the Tiwi Islands to visit Daniel Rioli’s home is but one example. However coaching is the next frontier.
“It’s a dream,” he said.
“One day you’d like to think about it. It’s probably one of the most ruthless jobs in the country. Eighteen jobs. If you’re an accountant or a mechanic, you can go anywhere in Australia or in the world to work. But coaching is ruthless. You’ve got to be in the right place, and you’ve got to be good at it.
“I’ve got a long, long way to go.”
At the Tigers he’s learned plenty, in particular from Craig McRae, Blake Caracella and former Saints teammate Andrew McQualter, all of whom are on Hardwick’s panel.
Clarke is a people person, and says coaching came naturally to him.
“The last four or five years of my playing contracts, I was injured half the time,” he said, laughing.
“So I watched a lot of footy while I was playing. I think sort of for me, I like building relationships with people. That’s one of my biggest strengths. Then from there, my love for the game, coaching, came off the back of that. Understanding what helps players play to their strengths, that type of thing, and really using that.
“I fell in love with coaching because I just love the game. I love helping people, and I love building relationships with people, that’s the reason why I love coaching.”
He suggests more can be done to help prospective Indigenous coaches.
“100 per cent, the AFL can do more, clubs can do more. There’s diversity coaching programs now, so the pathway’s now starting to get built. I think clubs have the responsibility to create opportunities, which I think they do, some better than others,” he said.
He agrees he can be a role model.
It just so happens that as development coach, Clarke works with several of the club’s Indigenous youngsters. Not long ago, Shane Edwards was something of a lone ranger in Richmond’s Indigenous ranks. Now they have Rioli, Shai Bolton, Tyson Stengle, Nathan Drummond and Derek Eggmolesse-Smith.
“For me, being a club that takes pride in that is special,” Clarke said.
“All those boys have got individual strengths in their own and weaknesses they need to work on. I think the beauty about our club, the way we’re set up, it’s not just me looking after the Indigenous boys, Shai Bolton and Tyson Stengle are working with [Justin] Leppitsch and McRae as their forwards coaches.
“I love seeing growth in them, that’s what I get the most out of.”
Clarke relishes a week that has become a highlight and mainstay on the football calendar, in which Indigenous greats are recognised.
The Riolis remain great family friends of the Clarkes. And Clarke still speaks in glowing terms about Cyril’s old man.
“I was lucky enough as a 15-year-old to play with [Cyril snr] in the seniors for St Mary’s.
“I always say he’s the best footballer I’ve seen, but I’m a bit biased because he was my favourite player. He was a gun. What Cyril is doing at Hawthorn, his dad was doing up in the NT, similar sort of stuff. Funnily enough, his dad played a little bit of half-back though as a small running defender. But he would do things on the footy field that I would just marvel at as a 14, 15-year-old kid watching.”