Pike Finds Home On The Peninsula

The Sunday Age

Sunday April 2, 2006

Paul Kennedy

After retiring with four AFL premiership medals, reformed tearaway Martin Pike is coaching a team used to losing, Paul Kennedy reports

MARTIN Pike carries four premierships in his long-armed gait and short, quiet sentences.

That he's landed at Hastings, on the Mornington Peninsula, is at first a chin-scratcher. Here is the AFL's most team-successful footballer, coaching a country club that has won a handful of games in three seasons.

But it's beneath the pine trees, beside the railway and down the street from tough pubs that Pike has made his latest football stop. And he looks comfortable teaching.

"First two," he says kicking the ball up to a pair of competing teammates. "Three goes at gettin' it back to me."

It's early for such full-scale activity but there are no frowns.

Actually, Hastings players smile a lot these days. Scoring a coach from the Brisbane Lions lifts morale among fellows who daydream at trade school of kicks and handballs.

"He's good so far," last year's best and fairest Mick Agnello says. "Just his presence. You can see blokes are going harder at it (the ball)."

Pike doesn't roar, for he is trying to win their respect. He talks in his honest voice of gravel. "That's it, boys. Come over 'ere and 'ave a drink."

A couple of tattooed, out-of-condition blokes pant like puppies.

A brave, muscular, blond kid, who is hearing impaired, follows Pike with his eyes.

His grin says what he is thinking: "Martin Pike is my coach."

Pike narrowly failed to land an assistant role at St Kilda following his 247-game career, ended by a painful groin last year.

Others may have lobbed in a commentary box and started manufacturing quips for a quid.

But special comments men don't make coaches, as much as the other way around.

Pike has set his stare on making it back to the AFL. He has chosen an apprenticeship and planned to move his fiancee, Amanda, and children Benjamin, 5, and Kaitlin, 3, back to Victoria.

"I probably knew all along I wanted to coach," he says. "This is the opportunity I needed.

"Probably the hardest bit of this is coaching not just the team but the whole place, trainers, junior coaches. Anyway, it's good training for whatever you do in life."

He is student and teacher. A glance back at Pike's 13 seasons on the top shelf would have you tilt your head at thoughts of him leading by example.

In 1994, after two years at Melbourne he was delisted for lousy off-field behaviour. Former Demons coach Neil Balme now recalls he was "raw, a bit of a larrikin".

Fitzroy picked him up and he became a trivia answer by winning the club's last best-and-fairest trophy. When Brisbane took eight former Fitzroy boys in the Lions merger, Pike, the most successful player from the previous season, wasn't one of them.

Denis Pagan bounded along and North Melbourne soon had the former South Australian hard-head hooked on September sparkling wine. After falling out with the Kangaroos post-1999 premiership, Pike went to Queensland and binged on success.

At the Gabba, he was hard, loyal and popular, running all match, hunting collisions and setting up play with thoughtful passing. He was rarely beaten in one-on-one duels, a coach's treasure. The only time you saw him relaxing was at grand final parades.

When he reportedly headbutted a Lions official after the 2004 season, the club denied (and still does) it happened and gave him another contract.

The club officials' silence was a tribute to their "Pikey".

By the time he stopped playing, Pike had kicked and handballed an AFL Sherrin in games 3500 times. Balme was not surprised when he heard of Pike's desire to coach.

"He's always had a good relationship with his fellow players and that's a good indication he's a good communicator," he explains.

Hastings has not bothered talking to Pike about disciplining his young players.

Pike says: "I might do what the AFL teams are doing now and let the players decide their team rules.

"They're not professionals. Let the leadership group decide." Leadership group: a coach's term.

President Kevin Miles says: "As far as our boys are concerned, he knows all the tricks."

Miles has been knocking on the doors of businesses to tell them of a coming sponsors' night (a couple of them became new corporate sponsors the day Pike signed).

"There'll be 500 of them if everyone comes," he half-smiles through handlebar whiskers. "The town is buzzing."

The local competition is also excited. Crowds will grow.

The 33-year-old isn't the only AFL retiree coaching in the Mornington Peninsula and Nepean Football league.

Former Saint Aussie Jones is playing coach of Narre Warren, which competes in another division, against Berwick, led by ex-Cat and Crow Ronnie Burns. Both are likely to play finals.

Pike, however, has taken over a team that has finished last for the past few seasons. After becoming a league powerhouse in the 1990s, the Blues are suffering.

Defeat seems out of place at a club boasting former players John Coleman and Peter Everitt. Pike is their hope.

"I want to pass on my knowledge," he says, without mentioning he's been mentored by Pagan and Leigh Matthews.

He may not realise it yet but Hastings suits him, too.

When he coaches from the sidelines, he will learn his supporters are not as pleasant as some of the Brisbane set.

They've got a lot of Pike about them, all dryer-than-toast humour and crossed-arms welcoming.

Officials and players wish he would lace up his boots and bare his teeth on the field of play but at the moment he is retired.

"You never say never but I'm pretty close to never," he says.

As the sun stops peeking through the pines, Pike notices a spindly young man called Jason Kestle having a kick after everyone else has gone. Kestle, perhaps the league's most promising young player, moves around a football field as he drives his orange ute - faster than anyone else.

He didn't know whether he would play at Hastings this season until Pike was appointed.

Now it's almost dark and he's still kicking and running.

Pike watches him with the experience of a man of who has given his life to football.

Satisfied, he stands and wanders into the new social room for a meeting with the leadership group, to plan his next victory.

© 2006 The Sunday Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home