And it's why I have my eye on the new CX-60 coming to our shores
Opinion Commentary & Media VI
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I detest M.Lloyd.
Me too - but on a program which has Craig Hutchison, Caroline Wilson, Kane Cornes, Eddie McGuire and Ross Lyon he is by far the lesser of many evils.
That's like saying you'd prefer shit on an English Muffin over shit on toast. Your point is clear, but not really any better.
Lloyd is a fly catcher.
Massive Unit
The Devil Incarnate
Reminds me of someone too....
Boris?
CURVE
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- Jan 23, 2019
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Could be to late, we could be in trouble. I heard he had a meeting with Clarko.
Think he may have devoured him.
Oh well
krakouers
Certified with Bonz Tick of Approval
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Oh man... as much as I try doing that with all my photos.. it doesn't work in real life...
giantroo
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Friday Footy Preview with Brent Harvey 12th August 2022
The AFL games record holder joins us to run his very experience eye over the upcoming games
player.whooshkaa.com
rickety
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Was when you knew the movie was ending, everyone got tall and skinny
shintemaster
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They were ahead of their time.
Can't stop laughing at the background singer "bok bok bok bok bok".
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How Greg Miller became a talent-spotting whizz
No way would Greg Miller the recruiter have picked up Greg Miller the player.
www.codesports.com.au
How former Swan Greg Miller became a talent-spotting whizz and administrator
When Greg Miller started in footy recruitment, he was told to “make sure you don’t recruit players like yourself”. Fifty years on, he’s made a career of finding the best of the best, writes PAUL AMY.Paul Amy
August 12, 2022 - 6:00AM
From fullback in the 1970s, Greg Miller became one of the AFL’s best recruiters.
No way would Greg Miller the recruiter have picked up Greg Miller the player.
The advice Ian Stewart gave Miller when he employed him at South Melbourne in the late 1970s stayed with him like an old song.
“Just make sure you don’t recruit players like yourself,’’ triple Brownlow Medal champion Stewart had told him.
“I was just a trier, so it made sense!’’ Miller, 69, says.
Miller was a full-back in an era when most clubs had ace full-forwards and only one umpire controlled games.
He says he could get away with a bit behind play. He needed to as he tried to stop the likes of Peter McKenna, Doug Wade, Royce Hart and Alex Jesaulenko.
Fifty years ago today Miller, the determined defender who became one of football’s most respected administrators and recruiters, made his senior debut for the Swannies, against Fitzroy at the Junction Oval.
The legendary Norm Smith was his coach. Smith had phoned Miller’s father, Allan, on the Tuesday night before the game, saying he was going to select the 19-year-old.
A determined defender in his playing days, Greg Miller became an ace talent spotter.
Smith asked Miller senior to keep it quiet.
He was unable to contain his excitement, rushing in and telling his son he was going to be picked.
“I didn’t sleep for the rest of the week,’’ Miller says.
It was a dreamy few days. His father had played 36 senior games for South Melbourne and young Greg joined the cheer squad and was a passionate Swans supporter.
Now he was going from “a fanatic to a player’’. And it happened quickly: He started the 1972 season in the thirds, moved up to the seconds and, with four rounds to go, was promoted to the firsts, three grades climbed in fewer than six months.
He made his debut with a fresh haircut.
“On the Tuesday night Norm Smith took me aside and kicked the ball away and made me get it, and he kept me going like that for five minutes to see how I would react,’’ Miller recalls.
“Then he called me in and says, ‘Go in and have a haircut’. He sent me in to the resident barber we had – he kept a chair in the rooms – and the barber put a helmet around my head and cut my hair, about two inches above the ear.’’
Miller was coached by the legendary Norm Smith at the Swans. Picture: Getty Images
Teammate Graham Dempster watched on, ready for his long locks to be lopped.
Smith had also decided to debut Dempster.
“That was Norm Smith’s way of finding out how much you wanted to play, sending you in for a haircut,’’ Miller says.
“Graham was squealing like a pig. But they could have cut off all my hair off if they liked.’’
Miller lined up on Doug Searl, who kicked five goals in a 45-point victory for the Lions. The following day on World of Sport, Smith noted that his young defender gave a commendable display.
Miller himself thought he played reasonably well for a side with a green goal-to-goal line of Miller, Max Robertson, Bruce Davis, Stewart Gull and Dempster.
He went on to play 52 games, two knee operations slowing his progress.
Stewart arrived as coach in 1979.
“He wanted to retire me straight away. He took one look at me in a practice match and said he’d seen enough. He asked me to be his assistant coach,’’ Miller says.
“I said, ‘No, no, I’ve got plenty of time left’. He tried his best to get me out of the side.’’
Miller, on the front of the VFL Record in 1975, played 52 games for the Swans.
But they got on well, and Miller credits Stewart with steering him towards a career in football administration.
It would last almost 30 years and take in the chief executive role at North Melbourne and the football manager position at Richmond.
He was also on the board at both clubs.
Money was drum-tight at Arden St and Punt Rd. Through the 1980s and 90s he had to tap new markets to keep the Kangaroos going, even exploring a merger with Fitzroy. At Richmond he “did a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of everything’’.
Miller says if he accomplished anything in football, it came from his ability to build off-field teams.
“We had no money at Richmond and we had no culture of thanks,’’ he says.
“Their longest-serving staff member had been there for five years. That was an indictment on the club. That was something I wanted to try and change. The best thing I did was employ some good people. I got Francis Jackson out of Brighton Grammar, where he was head of sport and coaching the First XVIII, on the promise of paying him the following year! In his first year as a recruiter he got Shane Edwards and Jack Riewoldt.
“That’s my biggest sense of achievement, the teams of people I created to help run the footy clubs. When I left North, of the team of 20 people, 15 had been there with me for 10 years. The ability to get them together, with everyone having a sense of worth, a sense of involvement and a sense of achievement, I was pretty proud of that.’’
Of course, through his recruiting he built some damn good on-field sides too, setting up the Kangaroos for the 1996 and 1999 flags.
Greg Miller with a young Wayne Carey at North Melbourne.
*****
Greg Miller had made the move into administration at South Melbourne in 1979, with his duties in support of the club secretary encompassing everything from football and social manager to players’ association rep.
Quickly, he immersed himself in talent spotting, setting himself to fill South’s under 19s team with players with skills superior to his own.
He appointed injured player Francis Jackson as coach halfway through the season and together they let go a dozen players.
For a while South struggled to fill a side. Miller can recall Brownlow Medallist Ron Clegg’s two sons getting a game one week. At the time they were the club’s cleaners.
Miller headed out to South’s zones – the Riverina area, the southeast of Melbourne, bits of the Mornington Peninsula and western suburbs – in search of likely lads who had never been invited to the club.
In came players like David Rhys-Jones and Warwick Capper.
Miller spotted Warwick Capper early on his scouting missions. Picture: Getty Images
In 1980 Miller formed the Cazaly squad to bring together good prospects and lift South from the under 19s up.
“There were so many sitting dormant in the zones, Dennis Carroll, Brett Scott, Anthony Daniher, these types,’’ he says.
His commitment to finding talent required long-distance dedication; Miller would head to the Riverina almost every weekend to watch games and not return to Melbourne until 7am on a Monday.
There was no match vision or statistics to lean on – his eyes told him all. And he spent time building a network of helpers.
“You’re at a footy match and you meet people. You talk to them and get to know them and after a while they start to trust you,’’ Miller says.
“You’ll hear stuff like, ‘This kid’s gone here’ or ‘This kid’s worth watching’. So you pick things up and it might create a little opening or an opportunity for you. It was worth doing the miles.’’
Miller also got involved in school and state representative squads, for better to get an early glimpse on what was coming through.
John Longmire was 11 years old when Miller saw him play for the first time. He tucked away the name.
Aside from the Cazaly squad, early in his time at South Melbourne he set up his own under-age carnivals, staging matches at Waverley Park the day after the grand final.
He would round up the best players in South’s regions, as well as a team from other clubs’ zones.
“There would be 60 or 70 of the best kids from around Australia out there playing,’’ he says. “I got them from everywhere. It was massive.’’
It was beneficial too. One afternoon Miller was at North Albury watching a full forward named Darryl Jordan when a polite young man approached him.
“G’day Greg,’’ he said. It was Dennis Carroll, who had played in a Miller carnival at Waverley and was now showing great promise in senior ranks for Albury Tigers.
A connection had been made. Miller signed him to the Swans. Carroll went on to captain the club and gain selection in its team of the century.
Swans team of the century player Dennis Carroll. Picture: Tony Feder/Getty Images
*****
Greg Miller was at South Melbourne when it moved to Sydney in 1982, keeping a house in both cities and travelling back and forth.
Quite a few players did the same.
“We took 30-odd players to Sydney and we left 20 in Melbourne,’’ he says. “I’d travel up for match-committee meetings and games and take players with me, Gary Baker, Vin Catoggio. David Stirling lived in Upwey and he was a baker. He used to bake his cakes and his bread at four or five o’clock on a Sunday morning, finish work at 9.30 and then get an 11 o’clock plane to play at two o’clock in the afternoon at the Sydney Cricket Ground. True story.’’
Miller was part of a Swans staff exodus at the end of the 1984 season, Dean Moore, Tony Franklin and Ricky Quade leaving too.
He joined North Melbourne as recruiting and football manager, starting at the Roos under the legendary official Ron Joseph and on the same day as coach John Kennedy.
Miller had seen at South Melbourne and Sydney that he could tweak a few recruiting rules by applying what he calls “entrepreneurial skills’’ but others would describe as rat-cunning.
As he recalls, not many other clubs had dedicated recruiting staff.
“I think there was only really me, Noel Judkins and Shane O’Sullivan in the late 70s,’’ he says. “We were joined by ‘Gubby’ Allan and a few others later on.
“But some clubs didn’t even have recruiting departments. And you could take advantage of them, manipulating the zoning, shifting players around, doing things you needed to do to get the talent to your club.’’
Miller got creative to sign Mark Bayes (front left) to the Swans. Picture: Allsport Australia
When he was at South he liked a kid from Noble Park named Mark Bayes, first seeing him in an under 15s schoolboys squad.
But he was tied to Footscray. No matter; Miller rented a house in South’s zone, put it in the name of Brian Bayes, Mark’s father, changed the address on the lad’s school papers and presto, he had a long-kicking left-footer who went on to be a Swans club champion.
“That was the best one I ever did,’’ he says.
Of course, North Melbourne supporters will be forever grateful for him doing a deal with his old club Sydney to make Longmire and Wayne Carey Kangaroos.
He paid the Swans $60,000 for Longmire and $10,000 for Carey. At the time, he says, Sydney was more interested in signing established players like Gerard Healy and Bernard Toohey.
Miller also snaffled Craig Sholl – “He was playing for the Horsham seconds,’’ he says – and Alastair Clarkson from Essendon’s zone and Wayne Schwass from Fitzroy territory.
He moved to secure Nathan Buckley after watching him play for Port Adelaide’s reserves, his balance, his off-the-mark pace and the penetration in his kicking creating an immediate impression.
Miller signed Buckley and figured to do a deal with Brisbane, to whom he was zoned.
“I did everything quickly. One thing you learn in recruiting is if you don’t act straight away, you can miss out … you never think you’ve got anyone until you’ve got the final signature,’’ he says.
Miller attempted to sign a young Nathan Buckley before he joined the Bears. Picture: Getty Images
He says the late AFL executive Alan Schwab – wanting to help the battling Brisbane land a rare talent – eventually torpedoed his plan.
Buckley made his entry in the AFL with the Bears and he later acknowledged that Miller was the first recruiter to pay him attention.
In the years since Miller has sometimes wondered how many more flags the Roos would have won if Buckley had played in the same side as Carey.
“Greg was outstanding at recruiting. He was the best recruiter of that era,’’ seasoned scout Neville Stibbard, who made his start with the Kangaroos under Miller, says.
“Really smart with a very good eye and a very strong work ethic.
“He was limited in that North’s budget was nowhere near Collingwood’s or the other clubs, so he had to do it on the smell of an oily rag. And he did a terrific job.’’
*****
Greg Miller in the colours of the Cheltenham Football Netball Club, where he's now a board member.
Greg Miller was a teenager when he first studied the league zones.
He came out of East Burwood, which was part of Richmond’s recruiting area.
But he didn’t want to play for the Tigers; he wanted to pull on the South Melbourne jumper, like his father.
And in an effort to get a clearance to the Swans he went to VFL House as a 17-year-old with paperwork suggesting his father had played 50 games, which would have allowed him to go to South as a father-son.
The league didn’t care for his maths. “They knocked me back,’’ he says with a laugh.
He played a few games for the Richmond under 19s before coach Ray ‘Slug’ Jordon cleared him to the Swans.
Greg Miller became a useful player, making his start 50 years ago today. He also became a wonderful administrator and recruiter.
This was a great listen and I loved that he potted Willson along the way.Friday Footy Preview with Brent Harvey 12th August 2022
The AFL games record holder joins us to run his very experience eye over the upcoming games
Very interesting to hear that training standards have lifted another level considering it was one of the main platforms that Noble was very strong on.
Regarding JHF I’m happy we are taking a CLUB FIRST approach regarding all players.
Hope are able to get buy in by the list and this continues with our next coach.
Well done patch.
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jaspers_barber
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Order restored by this ******t:
Cunnington’s AFL returnAny slither of positivity re Clarkson
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I would love it if this costs him the early word on the new coach's appointment.
Tas
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I don’t wish pain on people but damo is a ****in worm, so I hope he stubs his toe on a coffee table really bloody hard!
Massive Unit
The Devil Incarnate
If the flog has another dip at us, we'll need to upgrade that damage to a paper cut!
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