Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

principles ring true. It’s 80 per cent of what the job is about, while 20 to 30 per cent is the detail of the sport.’ The issues at Fremantle were the same as those involved with the national hockey team he had been coaching, the things that influence players’ performance. Football wasn’t a complex game but the thing that makes it complicated is there are eighteen people on the field, not eleven. The actual skills are narrowly defined and nowhere near as complex as soccer or hockey. When a person makes a kicking error, very often it is not because of a technical flaw but because they get distracted by all sorts of other issues that are the same issues causing someone to miss a goal or make a good pass in hockey. There are some generic principles involved in teaching people to make better decisions on the field. One of the interesting things about the AFL was that no-one from overseas competes against us, so in some ways we are one-dimensional in terms of the way we play. If the Germans played this game the score at the end of a match would be 16 points to 12 [rather than points often above 100] That’s where we’re heading unless they change the rules. People are getting more serious about defending. For his part, Ric wasn’t getting serious about a career in football. His role at Fremantle was always to be a short-term experiment, pending the completion of his studies and his overseas sabbatical. He explained the role in ways that would have reinforced the uncertainty in the minds of the press and the public about why he had joined the Dockers: My reason for going there and the Club’s reason for getting me were probably slightly different. I think they were looking to add something to the coaches but my interest was curiosity as much as anything. I thought I could add something to the coaches but my concern was that the coaches had to actually want you there. … My concern with the Eagles was I thought there were rumblings indicating there was some infighting. I knew better what I was getting into at Fremantle, although they were a more difficult problem, if you like, which made them more interesting. 1993-2002 77