From the Pocket: Ross Lyon gives an unvarnished view of AFL reality but too often punches down
Ross Lyon’s press conferences are typically a mix of battery and flattery,On any given day, you’ll get smart-arsery, hostility, humility, occasional mirth and genuine insight,Sometimes, he will provide a 10-minute explanation of how the game was won or lost,Sometimes, he’s playful and rhetorical,Sometimes, he’ll cock his head and look at the questioner like they have no business even being in the same room as him.
The St Kilda coach has been criticised for the way he responded to a set of perfectly reasonable questions in Adelaide last weekend,“Do you have a sense of where you’re at in the context of the season?” was one of them,He didn’t exactly react like Bob Hawke to Richard Carleton’s “impertinence” in 1983,But it was a typical Lyon response – part superciliousness, part drollery, part deflection,It was nothing, really.
The journalist handled it well, and the coach didn’t cross the line.But his club president then weighed in and didn’t exactly help.“It’s a pretty tough situation we put coaches in – you have a one-point loss, you don’t have much luck in the running, and you’ve got to front an interview,” Andrew Bassat told the ABC.“I think Ross is much better with good questions than he is with bad questions.‘Ask stupid questions, win stupid prizes,’ is his view.
I think if he gets an intelligent and fair question, he’ll respond to it fairly.”For a start, it was comical to hear the founder of Seek straying into “poor us” territory over the idea of Lyon having to front the media after a loss.Few people in the history of the game have more regularly preached what a pitiless industry footy is.“The most uncompromising business in Australia,” Lyon called it earlier this year, which anyone working in hospitals, schools, airports, prisons, restaurants or dozens of other professions would have had a quiet chuckle at.To call for restraint, empathy and fairer questions was a bit rich.
It was also a good example of the standing Lyon has at his club.He’s been handed a level of power that’s almost unprecedented in the modern game.In terms of the long-term strategic direction, media messaging and even the appointment of key personnel, he’s pretty much running the show.He gets an equally good run from the mainstream media.He’ll mumble something mildly amusing, they’ll cross back to the panel shows (which often feature several of his former players and media colleagues) and they’ll be laughing like Basil Fawlty has just goose-stepped into a dining room.
But Lyon and those employing and protecting him want to be careful that he doesn’t stray into untouchable territory.There’s been several recent incidents where he’s crossed that line.The first was a press conference last year where he struck a tone with AFL reporter Gemma Bastiani that he never would have with a male journalist.There was a sneering exasperation to him, an assumption, as always, that he was the smartest person in the room.But she was well prepared and handled the encounter a lot better than he did.
The other was a line from last month: “If you want normal, you step the other side of this microphone, the other side of the fence, on the ground, and you pursue mediocrity in your life.” The reporters who trekked out to Moorabbin did so in good faith, asking the same question that is being asked on every panel show, on every St Kilda focused podcast, and in every pub.And Lyon was so precious and so boorish that he immediately went into his “cornered rat” routine.Lyon’s grizzled worldview has its place in footy.He offers an unvarnished view on the realities of what this dog eat dog competition is.
Sometimes you read the social media banter between clubs and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a garden party,But it’s a knife fight,It’s central to everything Lyon says and believes,So much of what we hear from coaches is carefully massaged and workshopped, an exercise in brand management,It’s important to know that they’re not all Ted Lasso.
There’s a lunatic in all of them, and it’s good to see that reality occasionally.His view, and it’s got merit, is that the wider commentariat is lazy when it comes to St Kilda, and that we revert to cliche when it comes to his teams.But his press conferences are an exercise in buying more time, in protecting his players and in igniting a few spotfires.It has worked for three years now.It can be funny.
It keeps everyone on their toes.And it gets people talking about his club.But so much of it is a punch down.“Ask stupid questions, win stupid prizes,” may well be his view.But with his team still marooned in footy’s lower middle classes, it’s a view that’s wearing increasingly thin.
This is an extract from Guardian Australia’s free weekly AFL email, From the Pocket,To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions
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