Stuart pays his Dews
You need a good balance of that people element. What’s happening in a player’s life, footy, how you piece it all together
SYDNEY ASSISTANT COACH STUART DEW
In rare, quiet moments, Stuart Dew reflects on “sliding doors” junctures that threatened to sabotage mentor Alastair Clarkson’s Hawthorn dynasty and his stunning evolution from premiership enigma to AFL coach-in-waiting.
Sydney assistant Dew is considered AFL’s coach with a bullet, while wife and television presenter Sarah is carrying the pair’s second child.
It’s prompted the dual-premiership forward with a Hollywood back-story to ponder his past and future.
Dew, 35, feels indebted to Clarkson for opening his eyes to possibilities outside his comfort zone in Adelaide. The Hawks mastermind set up Dew’s remarkable comeback, second premiership medallion in 2008 and elite coaching career.
“To be honest I owe so much to Alastair Clarkson. I think I would still be involved in footy but at what level I am not sure,” said Dew.
It’s a long way from humble origins in Adelaide’s blue collar north to Harbour City life with Sarah and daughter Frankie – fatherhood has mellowed Dew.
“I do think about it all every now and then, where footy has taken me. Salisbury Oval was at the end of my street, they were good times really,” he said.
“I guess I love the game and it’s provided me with a foundation in a lot of things.
“Fatherhood is the best thing ever, there is nothing better than coming home and having family time with another one on the way. It makes you smell the roses.”
Dew is respected in equal measure as one of football’s savvy football operators and best blokes, complete with a journey containing big-screen twists.
Dew was a premiership star with Port Adelaide who fell out of love with the game in 2006 and into a romance with Hollywood starlet Teresa Palmer.
Single again in 2007, Dew embarked on football’s greatest comeback since Tim Watson returned to win a flag with Essendon in 1993.
Dew notes Clarkson risked the sack and subsequent threetime premiership legacy if an invitation to jettison retirement, aged 27, in 2007 had failed.
“He put a fair bit on the line, and it worked really well but had it gone pear-shaped he might not have a job, that’s how ruthless the business is,” noted Dew.
Clarkson was under pressure to deliver success at Hawthorn in 2008 after finishing 14th, 11th and fifth in preceding years. Reconditioning Dew was an incredible football gamble.
“Clarko is an innovator, not scared to try things and challenge,” said Dew, who entered 2007 expecting to front for Central District in the SANFL where he a won flag in 2000.
“You need a good balance of that people element. What’s happening in a player’s life, footy, how you piece it all together.”
It was Hawks fitness guru Andrew Russell and enduring development mentor Geoff Morris who knocked Dew into shape.
“I was putting myself on the line a little bit, wasn’t in great condition and a year out of the game. I didn’t want to embarrass myself,” Dew said.
Six years into an AFL coaching apprenticeship in Sydney, Dew feels the finished the article and is “ready” to coach at senior level.
Starting as Swans development coach in 2010, Dew unearthed heart and soul midfielder Dan Hannebery, mercurial Lewis Jetta and courageous Gary Rohan.
Dew’s bold call switching Swans action man Ryan O’Keefe to shut down Hawks champion Sam Mitchell late in the first quarter triggered a fightback that clinched the 2012 grand final.
“It was a bit about survival. We just pulled the trigger. It was sliding doors,” said Dew, understating what fellow Swans midfield coach Josh Francou insists is an uncanny ability to ”detect and act” swiftly on game day.
Now, with whistle around neck and gentle arm on players’ shoulders in the middle of the SCG, you see a leader who connects.
Dew short-circuits any hint of burnout in players he experienced during the relentless drive to Port’s inaugural 2004 flag.
“We lose in 2001, which was the one that hurt the most, then 2002 and 2003. I don’t want to think of what would have become of the club and group if we didn’t get one flag,” said Dew.
“I think what I can relate it to is that players can be insular, look at the small picture.
“I take pleasure in seeing 17 year old kids come to Sydney and seeing guys like Gary Rohan turn from boys to men.
“I think what I was like in my early 20s. I was around my safety net and grew up more when I moved interstate.”
Dew the senior coach will be very different to his “perception” as a laconic left-footer who slotted 265 goals in 206 AFL games.
Behind the personable exterior is a driven competitor who mixes sage playing lessons from Mark Williams and Clarkson with the best of the Bloods coaching culture under Paul Roos and John Longmire.
Dew famously made young Hawks teammates believe they were ready to win a flag ahead of schedule in the 2008 grand final and that message resonates in his coaching mantra. It takes on new meaning in an AFL landscape changed forever by the loss of Dew’s 2004 premiership midfield mentor, Walsh.