Just what the DOK ordered
Just how did the Geelong Falcons find a way to win Sunday’s dramatic TAC Cup grand final against the odds? The resilience they showed was years in the making. Geelong Advertiser footy writer DAMIEN RACTLIFFE has followed the Falcons all year and was grant
“DOK, DOK, DOK” chant the Geelong Falcons players.
The love for their coach Dan “DOK” O’Keefe, and for each other, is infectious.
This was intimate, inner sanctum stuff — a coach, his players and support staff finally enjoying the ultimate team success.
Players sit buoyant on the terraced seating inside the meeting room under Etihad Stadium, in the euphoric minutes after winning the most dramatic of grand finals to snap the club’s 17-year flag drought.
The cup sat at the feet of O’Keefe, who only took over as coach at the start of the season.
But if you hadn’t a clue, you’d think the 28-year-old had been coaching this group of teenagers since under-10s.
The bond all year, in particular through the finals series, was as tangible as the cup itself.
At halftime, that two-way relationship reaches one of its more desperate points.
The Falcons have their backs to the wall; down by 20 points and it could have been more had Sandringham kicked straight.
Plan A isn’t working, but DOK backs in his players to turn it around.
“More than half of us are getting beaten as individuals and a lot of us have to lift. You have to lift, you have to lift, you have to lift, a lot of us have to lift,” O’Keefe says, not afraid to single out a few individuals. “The time comes now, you can’t second guess yourself, there has to be no regrets when you come and meet me at three-quarter time.”
At a time like this, you can hear a pin drop. Yet there’s no sense of panic, more so an understanding of what needs to change. O’Keefe pulls his charges in tight.
“There’s so much faith in this group, and I’ve got so much trust and belief in what you can do at the end of the night,” he says. “You can do it, I promise you this. But you have to want to do it and you have to work hard.
“Do not come in here at three-quarter time, and dare I say it the end of the game, and think I could have worked that little bit extra harder to that contest.
“Don’t die wondering in this quarter.”
Do motivational speeches really work? Was it the paint he ripped off the wall just minutes earlier that woke the Falcons from their slumber? Or do the players really not want to let down their coach?
Whatever it was at halftime that changed the players’ mindset, it worked.
They’d meet again half-anhour later, having kicked eight unanswered goals in one of the biggest quarters of footy they’ll ever play.
By the final siren — and the defining kicked that followed — there were scenes of just absolute jubilation.
O’Keefe found talent manager Mick Turner, the first he wanted to celebrate with. Then his assistants, followed by long-term support staff like trainer Tim Malberg, who has been there since day dot. But the best celebrations were saved for his players.
Out on the ground they went nuts. Back in the rooms, singing the song, was even crazier.
But it was in the briefing room, in that final address, where the premiership win finally started to sink in.
“I walked in here just then and looked at that,” O’Keefe said, pointing to the words ‘Resilient TBD’ on the whiteboard.
“To be decided ... you can give that a big tick.
“That third quarter was incredible; it’s a quarter you’ll remember forever and a day.
“The character that you guys showed at halftime, to come back like that and the way you did it, together as a unit, is just incredible.”
O’Keefe joked he “might be up for a bit of cash” after wrecking the box, but added he couldn’t wait for five and 10-year reunions — and quipped he might even organise six and seven-year ones. While that bond had clearly been established, win or loss, before Sunday, it’s now been tied with the best bow of all — a premiership one.