How Balmey Army led Tigers’ charge
A MEETING in an alcove of East Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel was the giveaway sign Neil Balme’s days at Collingwood were numbered.
Magpies coach Nathan Buckley and club netball boss Graeme “Gubby” Allan were seen deep in conversation in a corner of the hotel’s groundfloor restaurant.
It was about noon on Wednesday, August 17 last year — two weeks before Balme’s Holden Centre execution was made public.
“They were kind of hiding in the alcove,” a female diner this week recalled of the Buckley-Allan meeting.
“We sat two tables away. There was actually no one else in the restaurant. And I looked over and I said to my girlfriend: ‘Oh s---, that’s Nathan Buckley over there’, and I could see that he was actually quite uncomfortable that we were sitting so close.
“Gubby Allan was driving the laptop and discussing who was potentially poachable from the Greater Western Sydney list.
“Then they did a broad look at the competition, who would be ideal, and then they went through the Collingwood list, pretty much player by player.
“Bucks was visibly uncomfortable but Gubby Allan couldn’t have cared less. I was thinking, ‘Why wouldn’t you be doing this in private or at the club’?” The answer was obvious. Balme was still Collingwood’s football boss and the club’s plan to dispense with him and install Allan remained a closely guarded secret.
“He spent 45 minutes to an hour with Buckley and then Scott Pendlebury arrived,” the diner said.
“He also looked incredibly uncomfortable. The three of them spent 15 minutes together and then Buckley left.
“The next thing I heard was Gubby saying to Pendlebury: ‘OK, I want you to go through the whole club with me — I want you to be completely open and honest and tell me your thoughts on everything.’
RICHMOND had a sniff Balme was about to boned, but Allan’s appointment was not announced until August 31.
The Tigers were conducting their internal review after a disastrous 8-14 season.
Chief executive Brendon Gale picked up the phone and asked Balme whether he would consider a return to Punt Rd to work alongside Dan Richardson.
A key member of Richmond’s 1973-74 premiership teams, Balme was noncommittal, but the seed had been sown.
Soon the Tigers and Balme were conducting secret meetings in the boardroom of former club director John Matthies’s South Yarra offices.
President Peggy O’Neal attended one meeting and, after assurances Richardson, the son of Balme’s premiership teammate Barry Richardson, was keen on the coup, Balme agreed to come home.
Collingwood’s trash became Richmond’s treasure.
“Structurally, we felt we needed two senior football people,” Gale said this week. “Having Dan and Neil around the senior management table has been really important.
“Neil has been very important for Damien (Hardwick) to just let him get on with the job.
“He’s also very capable and confident in the media and is a very clear, plain talker.
“Judgment is important in running a footy department.
“It gives the people around you confidence. He’s very calm and very measured.”
TRIPLE Geelong premiership player Cameron Ling said Richmond’s resurgence and Balme’s return to the Tigers were no coincidence.
Ling sees uncanny parallels between the Cats’ droughtbreaking 2007 premiership season and Richmond’s run a decade on.
Balme took over as football boss at the Cattery in November 2006 after a heavy review that, like Hardwick, almost cost Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson his job.
Ling believed Balme and Cats deputy footy boss Steve Hocking worked together in the same way Balme and Richardson had teamed up this year.
“Balmey was huge for us,” he said. “I could rave about him all day — brilliant, unbelievable. He was perfect for us at the time and he was so perfect for Richmond.
“In 2007 we were two wins and three losses and had a bad loss against North Melbourne at home.
“A lot of stuff was getting spoken about, maybe the review was wrong, but we came out and flogged the Tigers and started playing some great footy.
“Balmey just kept things calm so we could concentrate on training and playing.
“I’m only guessing here, but when Richmond lost those couple of unlosable games this year against Fremantle and GWS and people were saying it’s ‘Richmondy’, I can just picture Balmey’s calm influence and maybe taking a bit of the heat himself.”
FORMER Collingwood development manager Mark Kleiman, who worked with Balme at the Pies from 1998 to 2006, agrees.
Balme played 229 games for the Tigers between 1970-79 and coached Norwood, Woodville-West Torrens and then Melbourne from 1993-97 before turning to football administration.
“He’s the complete opposite to what he was on the field,” Kleiman said.
“He’s one of the smartest blokes I’ve met and just doesn’t make a rash decision.
“If a player had mucked up or we were talking about contracting players or recruiting players or even trading players, he’d say let’s think through this.
“It doesn’t surprise me how Richmond are going and how they are running now.”
CALM was the word repeated by everyone who spoke this week about Balme.
“It’s funny because he wasn’t very calm as a player — he was a killer,” Gale said with a laugh.
Ling guessed right about Balme’s influence after the close losses to Fremantle and GWS this year.
“He was saying: ‘We’re doing a lot right. We’ve pushed the reigning premiers to the brink’ ,” Gale said. “Balmey was just reinforcing we were still on track. But just persevere and remain positive.
“There is probably no more experienced senior football administrator — with successful experience — than Neil Balme.”
LING said Balme enabled people to perform at the highest level and Tigerland had benefited from that immensely.
“I’m still surprised he’s not at Collingwood, but their loss was Richmond’s massive gain,” he said.
“Dan Richardson is obviously the perfect foil for Balmey. They also went and got (assistant coaches) Blake Caracella and Justin Leppitsch.
“I can just imagine Balmey at early match committee meetings through the preseason with Caracella wanting to push this way of playing and ‘Leppa’ trying to bring ideas — and just working with ‘Dimma’ a little bit, just to be open to it.
“And what about that player who has only played 10 or 12 games — and just gently pulling down the walls that Dimma might have put up.
“It would have taken time, but they all embraced it together and it’s just total commitment and they are playing unbelievable footy.”
GALE sat back with a smile last Saturday night when Balme addressed the Tigers in the player meeting room after the preliminary final triumph.
“To have someone stand up and say, ‘OK, well that’s terrific guys. We’re really proud, it’s a great result, we’re in a grand final and in most respects things won’t change, but this is how it will change and this is what we are going to do to manage it’,” he said.
“It wasn’t profound but it was plain-talking experience and wisdom at work.”
Ling recalled Balme using the same calming words after the 2007 preliminary final.
“It’s not waving the magic wand, but I remember how calm and organised things were straight after the game,” Ling said.
“It was stuff like; for the Brownlow we are doing this, for the grand final parade we are doing this, we will bus to here, those who want to stay in Melbourne and not fight the traffic can stay here. Open training is this day, media is this day.
“The players go, ‘OK, all I have to do is recover, train, play. That’s it’.”