I did a press conference after arriving at Melbourne Airport at which I apologised to the AFL and the Carlton Football Club for causing such a fuss, adding: ‘All the kids that look up to me as a role model, I’ve disappointed them too, so hopefully I can play some good footy next year and win back some respect I’ve lost over this little incident.’ With that, I was whisked away in a car that Carlton had organised for me.
Despite my jet lag, I went to training the next day. Denis was pleased to see me. He told me to turn my mind back to footy and that everything would work out OK. Thankfully, the club didn’t fine me. They knew I had been punished enough by not playing for Australia. In fact, hardly anyone at the club said much about it at all, and once the media circus had died down, I turned my attention to pre-season training and tried to forget the whole sorry saga.
I’ve still got my Australian jumper. All the other boys signed it for me. I might just tell my grandkids that I played for Australia. If they ask me how I went, I’ll say I can’t remember!
The saga in Ireland ruined my chances of captaining Carlton, which also made me sad. That was another way in which I was punished. With me out of the running for the captaincy, Kouta thought about staying on as skipper. However, he knew that his battered body was going to make it tough for him to play most of our games in 2007. In the end, Lance Whitnall was handed the job, and as he became the public face of the club, I began the task of rebuilding my reputation all over again.
12 ANOTHER FALSE DAWN
I managed to patch things up with Alex during the early months of 2007, and down at the footy club, things were moving in a positive direction as well. We had used pick 1 in the 2006 national draft to recruit another gun youngster, South Australian Bryce Gibbs. Bryce, whose father had been a great player in the South Australian and West Australian leagues, looked a million dollars from the minute he ran out for his first training session. He made me confident we were assembling a brilliant midfield that would be putting plenty of kicks down my throat in the years to come.
The other great thing that happened during the lead-up to the 2007 season was the board takeover by billionaire businessman Richard Pratt, owner of the massive Visy packaging and recycling operation. Richard, or Dick, as he liked to be called, arrived in Australia from Poland in 1934 and subsequently spent a couple of seasons playing in the Carlton under-19s, winning the Morrish Medal for the best-and-fairest player in the competition in 1953. His time with the Blues turned him into a passionate Carlton supporter who often gave the club financial support. However, by the end of 2006, he was convinced that the club was in serious trouble. After being approached by a number of Carlton identities, Dick challenged Graham Smorgon’s board in February 2007. It turned out to be a bloodless coup, as the Pratt group was elected unopposed. Dick took on the role of president, with Stephen Kernahan becoming vice-president.
My relationship with Dick and his wife Jeanne was really good from the moment he took over as Carlton president. I think that most people who met Dick tried to suck up to him because he had a heap of coin, whereas I was the total opposite. I used to take the piss out of him and he loved that about me. He’d often take the piss out of me in return; he was a good dude to have a laugh with. Jeanne was really great to me and my family as well. On one occasion she invited Alex and me to a theatre show that she sponsored. We sat in the front row next to Jeanne and Dick, and on the other side of them was Victoria Police chief commissioner Simon Overland. I turned to Jeanne and joked, ‘Gee, you couldn’t have gotten two more different people on either side of you.’ She saw the funny side of that. Jeanne also hosted the launch of Alex’s photography book Snapshot: A Portrait of Success at the Pratt family mansion, Raheen. She provided the waiters, the food, the whole show.
Dick told Carlton’s playing group that he wasn’t just going to pour bucketloads of money into the club, but that he was committed to helping push the mighty Blues back up the ladder. And the Pratt era began very well on the field when we beat Essendon by 4 points in the first round of the NAB Cup. At one stage we’d led the Bombers by 34 points, but we were happy to sneak home by less than a goal. Any win was a good win at Carlton in those days. I kicked five goals that night, including four in the first half. After a tumultuous summer during which I had been lambasted over the incident in Ireland, then hounded again when the affair that I had appeared in the papers, it was great to get back out on the footy field and have some fun. Denis was rapt with me after the game, saying at his press conference, ‘He’s a very important player for us, just the way he commands respect. Brendan kicked five himself, but he had to do it for a few others because everybody leaves their opponents and goes to Brendan.’ Denis also sung the praises of the new board: ‘Since Dick Pratt came to Carlton, it’s as if someone turned the lights back on.’
4 January 2007: Coach Denis Pagan has a word and a laugh during a Carlton FC time trial at Princes Park. (Newspix/Colleen Petch)
Despite our dubious double in 2005, when we’d won the pre-season competition then finished on the bottom of the premiership season ladder, Denis was adamant that we needed to attack the NAB Cup with all guns blazing. He had trained us really hard in the weeks before the Essendon clash and he did the same again before our second-round meeting with Hawthorn in Launceston, which we won by 7 points. When we walked off the ground after the game, Dick and Jeannie Pratt were in the race, cheering us on. That was great to see. Both of them had really embraced the club and everything that the players and coaches were trying to do. I only booted two goals against the Hawks, but Denis was delighted with the way I’d chased and tackled.
Our progression to the semi-finals of the NAB Cup gave the media reason to quiz Denis about why he was so keen on doing well in the pre-season competition, when it seemed highly likely we were going to win only a handful of home-and-away matches. He responded:
My philosophy is, and it’s stood the test of time, that if you start playing around with your players, you rest them when they are fit … all of a sudden you are in a massive hole. We have them up and running now and we know exactly where they are.
I put my critics well and truly back in their boxes when I kicked eight goals—including a nine-point supergoal—in our 15-point semi-final win over North Melbourne up at the Gold Coast (the Kangaroos had done a deal with the AFL to play four games per year up there). Our victory was a beauty. We were 37 points down midway through the third quarter before Nick Stevens, Ryan Houlihan and I took matters into our own hands. With Stevo and Hoops on fire in the middle of the ground, I started getting a lot more opportunities to put my stamp on the contest, and I made the most of them. I took a couple of screamers and kicked three goals in four minutes. I led the way again in the last quarter as we kicked six goals to two. Getting on such a roll in a game, even if it was only a pre-season match, was heaps of fun. It was also great for our morale. For the second time in three years we found ourselves in the NAB Cup grand final. This time we would take on the Brisbane Lions, who had beaten St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs and Geelong on their way to the pre-season decider.
People were again quick to cite the fact that we had been a wooden spoon side after winning the NAB Cup in 2005, as well as that Geelong had won the pre-season competition in 2006 only to miss that year’s finals. But as he’d done after we’d beaten the Hawks, Denis rejected the widely held belief that the NAB Cup trophy was a poisoned chalice: ‘All I know is it’s going to be a great experience for our guys. We are better placed this time. Everyone knows we are a young group and we are only going to get better.’
It was no surprise, however, that many of our older players, Kouta especially, disagreed with Denis’ thoughts. Kouta believed that in previous years we had gone so hard in the NAB Cup that we had then run out of steam halfway through the regular season. He feared that we were going to do the same thing in 2007—not that he told the media, as can be judged by this article by the Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson on the eve of the final:
There’
s so much love at the Blues it’s fitting this week’s NAB Cup grand final is considered the rebirth of the Carlton Football Club. Anthony Koutoufides said yesterday he couldn’t remember the club being a happier place. Coach Denis Pagan agreed.
Even club legend Stephen Kernahan, who forgot how to laugh for two years, had no bite in his famous bark. ‘The difference is we’ve got real talent in the club and, to that end, it doesn’t make … our win-loss any better, but it’s going the right way. There is some real talent there.’
It was certainly true that winning games, even in February or early March, put smiles on supporters’ faces, especially as we were coming off consecutive wooden spoons. And on my part, I truly believed that it was a very different situation from 2005 because we now had a young list that was stocked up with top-ten draft picks—gun youngsters like Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs and Josh Kennedy. In contrast, our 2005 side had been full of recycled players. They were all super blokes, but they were never going to turn us into a top side. Also, at that stage in my life I had plenty to prove, so kicking goals and winning games made me happy no matter when they took place.
More than 46,000 people—most of them Carlton fans—turned up at Telstra Dome for the NAB Cup grand final, and they saw a great game. With Simon Black dominating in the midfield and big Jonathan Brown on fire up forward, the Lions led throughout the first half. But after copping a rev-up from Denis during the long break, we came to life. I kicked two goals in the third quarter and another couple in the final term as we headed towards a 25-point win. Nick Stevens, who had gotten himself much fitter during the pre-season, won the Michael Tuck Medal after racking up a heap of possessions.
We enjoyed the win, as did the fans, but there were none of the raucous celebrations that had taken place in 2005. The players got together following the game and decided we would all adhere to a 1 am curfew, so we had a few beers at an after-match function at Telstra Dome and then we all went home. We knew we had to be on our game when we played Richmond in round 1 in two weeks’ time, and all of the players interviewed after the grand final pushed that point. Bret Thornton’s quote was typical: ‘We have said it all week, all pre-season and we’ll say it again now: round 1 is our aim.’ Surprisingly, Kouta was the one who got the most carried away with our NAB Cup win, telling the press, ‘Finals are certainly not out of reach for us if we really want it.’
A few days before our clash with Richmond on a Sunday evening at the MCG, Dick Pratt held a function that raised $2 million for the club, which was another massive boost to our morale. Still, the curse of the pre-season premiership appeared to have struck again when we found ourselves trailing the Tigers by 27 points early in the third quarter. But we dug deep, booting eight of the final ten goals of the game to win by 17 points. It was such a relief to win that game. I can only imagine the gloom that might have enveloped the club if we had lost. I received a lot of credit from Denis for my performance that night. He said I had shown great leadership in lifting my intensity in the second half, when it looked as if we were going to get blown away. Denis was particularly happy that I had not dropped my head after making a heap of mistakes in the first half, including hitting the post from 10 metres out, twice putting set shots at goal out on the full, and cleaning up Richmond’s Andrew Krakouer, which sparked a bit of a brawl. Instead, I’d gathered my thoughts at half-time and run back onto the field with a clear head and a desire to do something positive for the team. Not only had I kicked three crucial goals in the second half, but I’d constantly encouraged younger boys like Andrew Walker and Andy Carrazzo. That was the thing that took Denis’ fancy.
Counting our four pre-season victories, we had now won five games in a row. But we crashed back to earth with a thud in round 2. Having been rated a good chance to beat Geelong at Telstra Dome, we lost to them by 78 points. The heat was mainly on our skipper, Lance Whitnall. I felt sorry for ‘Big Red’. He was trying hard but his confidence was shot, partly because he was battling a chronic knee injury. Lance ended up retiring at the end of that season, although to his credit, he managed to battle through fifteen games.
We were back on the football rollercoaster a week later when we took on Essendon. Almost 65,000 people turned up to see what proved to be my favourite game of my entire career. Down in the dumps after the flogging from Geelong, we were terrible early on. When we slipped six goals down just before quarter-time, 3AW radio commentator Rex Hunt did his famous high-pitched fat lady impersonation: ‘Iiiiiiiiiit’s oveeeeeeeeeeeer!’ At the 29-minute mark of the second quarter, we were 48 points down—the score was 12.13 (85) to 5.7 (37). I was struggling to get anywhere near the ball, and I wasn’t the only bloke in navy blue in that predicament. In the stands, some Carlton supporters were gathering their things together and preparing to go home—I knew that because I could hear them telling me about it! The Blues had never won a VFL/AFL game after trailing by such a large margin, but for some reason, which even now I can’t fully comprehend, we refused to give up. There’s a highlights package of our fightback on YouTube, and from time to time, if I need a pick-me-up, I load it up and have a look.
Our revival began when Simon Wiggins put a pass out in front of me and, despite some close attention from my opponent, Mal Michael, I took a strong overhead mark just inside the 50-metre arc. I went back and kicked my first goal of the game from 55 metres out. Less than a minute later, Adam Bentick shot a long handball in my direction and for some reason big Mal was nowhere to be seen. Although I was on a reasonably tough angle, I put my running shot right through the middle. ‘Fevola’s kicked two in two minutes and given the Blues some hope as they narrow the margin back to an even six goals,’ said Channel 10 commentator Michael Christian. We snared another goal just before half-time. As we jogged into the rooms, we were still 30 points down, but we were very upbeat. I had no doubt we could win.
The third quarter was an amazing experience. Five minutes into it, by which time the margin had narrowed to 19 points, Ryan Houlihan hit me on the chest with a left-foot pass. I’d taken the mark not far from the boundary line in the left pocket, about 50 metres out, but I went back for a shot anyway. ‘What a turnaround,’ said Channel 10’s Robert Walls as I prepared to take my kick. ‘Seven or eight minutes before half-time, you could not have imagined this,’ added commentator Tim Lane. To the delight of the Carlton fans who had hung around, the kick sailed straight through. The margin was now just 13 points. Essendon booted a steadier, then, after the ensuing centre bounce, Andy Carrazzo bombed the ball long and I marked it 25 metres out on a slight angle. Another goal, and the margin was back to 13 points. With six minutes to go in the third quarter, we snuck to within 5 points. The crowd was going berserk. Then Marc Murphy kicked the ball in my direction and I clunked another strong grab on the 50-metre line. ‘Fev, if you kick this goal, you are a star,’ Walls said. It never looked like missing. ‘The Blues are in front at the MCG,’ Christian shouted. ‘A dramatic turnaround.’ The Carlton fans were jumping up and down while I was punching the air. It was crazy stuff. It was like the being on the greatest drug ever invented.
A couple of minutes later, Heath Scotland dashed down the wing and kicked another long bomb. I took another one-grab overhead mark, had another 50-metre shot at the big sticks, booted another goal. I had kicked six in half an hour of footy—we had gone from 48 points down to 7 points up.
On occasions like that, when I was playing so well and was completely immersed in the game, my body felt sort of numb. It was like being in a dream. I couldn’t hear the crowd. Only when the ball went through the goals and I’d get a chance to catch my breath could I hear everything that was going on in the stands. It was really weird like that, but it was an amazing feeling. If we lost, that feeling would immediately disappear. If we won, it stayed with me until we’d sung the Carlton theme song.
Essendon refused to give up in the last quarter, but we held them at bay. I finished with eight goals. The last of them came after I took a spectacular one-handed mark over Dusti
n Fletcher. ‘I don’t know if you’d ever see a better half of football played by a forward as what we’ve seen from Brendan Fevola in the third and fourth quarters here at the MCG,’ Walls opined after I fell to ground and the ball landed in my lap. When I put that kick right through the middle, we went 9 points up, and we hung on to win by 3. Back in the rooms, we belted out the Carlton theme song like I had never heard it sung before. It was a magical experience, an extraordinary win.
I loved singing the song. Standing in that circle with my teammates, arm-in-arm, was really powerful. I would look into the other boys’ eyes and soak it up. Those were great times. We were just so happy when we won a game. Some teams just go through the motions when they sing the song. Geelong do that. Once, James Kelly acted like he was asleep on a teammate’s shoulder when the Cats had yet another win down at Kardinia Park. That really shits me. We hardly ever won, so when we finally got over the line and had a victory, it was like we’d won the premiership. Everyone was up and about, we’d be that happy. We appreciated every single win.
Fev: In My Own Words Page 16