TIGER BALME A WINNER
Veteran’s calming influence proves Pies’ loss is Richmond’s gain
A MEETING in a discreet alcove of East Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel was the giveaway sign that 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 just after 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 from them. 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 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 un- comfortable but Gubby Allan couldn’t have cared less. He seemed completely oblivious and 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 over the top 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 that Balme was about to be boned, but Allan’s appointment was not announced until August 31. The Tigers were conducting their own internal review after a poor 8-14 season.
Chief executive Brendon Gale picked up the phone and asked Balme whether he would consider a return to Punt Road to work alongside Dan Richardson in a revamped football department.
Balme, a key member of Richmond’s 1973-74 premiership teams, was non-committal, but the seed had been sown. Soon the Tigers and Balme were conducting their own secret meetings in the boardroom of former club director John Matthies’ South Yarra offices. President Peggy O’Neal attended one meeting and, after assurances that 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 reflected this week. “Having Dan and Neil around the senior management table has been really important.
“Football is our core business and it should be represented at the decisionmaking level.
“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.”
Top player agent Tom Petroro has dealt with Balme on multimillion-dollar contracts and in managing the occasional off-field scandal.
“The players like him and they respect him,” Petroro said this week. “He just understands the industry and the role that everyone plays.
“He’s willing to listen to people — and when there are issues he’s good at consulting all the key parties and coming up with a really measured response.
“It’s his calming influence. You never feel like you’re ar- guing with him; you feel like you are working with him.”
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 before we do it.
“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.
Former Geelong player and now TV commentator Cameron Ling recalls when Balme took over as football boss at the Cattery in November 2006, he enabled people to perform at the highest level. “I’m still completely surprised he’s not at Collingwood, but their loss was Richmond’s massive gain,” Ling said.
Gale sat back with a smile last Saturday when Balme addressed the Tigers 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,” Gale said.
“It wasn’t profound but it was just plain-talking experience and wisdom at work.”
Ling recalled Balme using the exact same calming words immediately 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’re doing this, for the Grand Final parade we’re doing this. The players go, ‘OK, all I have to do is recover, train, play. That’s it’.”