Senior Hawthorn officials shielded coach Alastair Clarkson from Jeff Kennett when the Hawks’ 2010 AFL season threatened to go into freefall.
A new book on the reigning premiers confirms that Kennett, then the Hawthorn president, floated the radical idea of demoting Clarkson to their Box Hill VFL affiliates early in 2010.
After stunning Geelong in the 2008 grand final, Hawthorn had slumped to ninth in 2009 and started 2010 with only one win in seven games.
The outspoken Kennett was predictably on the warpath.
But Andrew Newbold, then the vice-president, chief executive Stuart Fox and former football director Jason Dunstall made sure Clarkson was able to focus on fixing the team’s problems.
“I didn’t have a view, because these two gentlemen (Newbold and Fox) and Jason Dunstall, they shielded me,” Clarkson said at Wednesday’s launch of Playing To Win.
“I was pretty-well shielded and protected from the real goings-on.”
Fox also spoke on Wednesday of a meeting he had at Kennett’s home in the midst of the crisis.
“My strategy was to bide our time,” Fox said.
“It was a nervous probably hour and a half with Jeff – I came out fairly sweaty.”
Kennett was Hawks president from 2006-11, with Newbold succeeding him.
“That was Jeff … even when we were going well, he would ring me up,” Fox said.
“I think his whole strategy was to destabilise organisations, no matter how well we were going.”
Kennett continues to be a major AFL figure, saying after a narrow loss to Geelong early last season that the Hawks should look at moving on Clarkson at the end of the season.
This week, Kennett pointed to that controversial statement and boldly said he took full credit for Hawthorn going on to win the flag.
“He is the best self-promoter of all time, isn’t he, Jeffrey Gibb?,” Clarkson said with a chuckle.
“Listen, he’s had a significant influence at our footy club for a long time.
“I’d suggest it was probably the players and coaches and the administration of the club, more so than anything Jeff did last year.
“You can talk about some of the left-field stuff with Jeff Kennett.
“But something he’s continued to challenge us with is to continue to stretch ourselves as an organisation.
The two years after the 2008 premiership were pivotal for Clarkson, because they taught him of the need to continually refresh how the team plays.
“There’s a tendency to think that once you’ve got the system in place or the players in place or the coaches in place, that we’ll just keep trotting out that formula,” Clarkson said.
“The professional era now, it’s highly unlikely that you can do that.”