Barry Rowlings didn’t play his first League game until the age of 24, but managed to build a long and illustrious career.

RHYS: You are in charge of footy at Caulfield Grammar.
ROWLINGS: I work full-time for a concrete recycling business called Alex Fraser’s and I’ve been with them for about 10 years. They have three recycling depots around the city. I’m also director of coaching at Caulfield Grammar. My young bloke went through school with Juddy so it’s probably 13 or 14 years I’ve been doing that.

RHYS: You have had some good footballers coming through under your guidance. Tell us about some of them.
ROWLINGS: We’ve had Brendon Goddard, Andrew McQualter and Robert Eddy who are at St Kilda, Jack Ziebell came through, and this year there’s Taylor Duryea at Hawthorn and Luke Lowden, a six foot 10 ruckman, at Hawthorn. Taylor Gilchrist is at the Swans as a rookie. Before I was there, they had the Kellaways and Stewie Maxfield.

RHYS: Judd must have been an absolute standout.
ROWLINGS: In my first year Juddy was in Year 7. If you brought anyone down they would look at him and think “How far is this kid going to go?’ He was a sensational kid with a sensational attitude.

RHYS: Any good ones coming through now?
ROWLINGS: Yes, Dave, we’ve got two in the AIS Under 16 squad – Dylan Shiel and Tomas Bugg – really good kids. We’ve got young Seb Gotch down there, too. He’s got to make a decision in the next couple of years. He’s just been put in the Under 16 Australian Cricket academy. He’s a wicketkeeper who can bat – only a little bloke. Even last year he was in Year 10 and we were playing Wesley College and we put him down forward and he had nine kicks and kicked 8.1 in the seniors!

RHYS: There are always tensions between private school football and the TAC Cup sides. How do you see it?
ROWLINGS: You do have a bit of tension but we have pretty good relationships. When Wayne Oswald was at Sandy Dragons he would come down and meet with us about when the boys could play. Even with school football they still end up playing 10 or 11 games in TAC Cup because of school holidays. We don’t start our comp until early April. Gippsland Power – Peter Francis is great to get on with.

RHYS: Is there a danger that private school kids can slip through because they aren’t in the TAC Cup system ?
ROWLINGS: We had a kid Luke Hammond six or seven years ago who just played for the school and he still got drafted by Brisbane. At the private school game you’ll have 16 recruiting blokes watching anyway. Most of them give me a call about whether our kids are playing or what I think of kids from other schools.

RHYS: You didn’t make the grade until the age of 24. Do you think recruiters place too much emphasis on blokes hitting a certain level at 18?
ROWLINGS: Of course. We see kids developing in school footy and they might go on and play two years of amateur footy and they are good players. Blokes like Robbie Nahas have worked their butts off. A bit like myself, I went home and played in the Latrobe Valley League, still wanted to play League football. A bloke up there got me really fit and at 24 I got my second opportunity. Some kids just mature later than others.

RHYS: You played your junior footy at Thorpdale. I believe your dad Jack played as full back for a long time there.
ROWLINGS: All my junior footy was with Thorpdale then a couple of senior years there before playing with Moe in the Latrobe Valley League. I was pretty small when Dad finished playing but people tell me he was very good full back and he played over 300 games. Collingwood or Carlton approached him early on, but he wanted to stay in the bush. I had two brothers who could have probably made VFL football and were probably better than I was, but they wanted to stay in the bush.

RHYS: And then you went to Moe and had a great run, winning two competition best and fairests. I believe Richmond sniffed around at that stage.
ROWLINGS: Tommy Hafey came up and took us for a couple of training runs before the grand final in ’73. I played in four grand finals with Moe and we lost every one. In ’74 when Tommy came up he asked would I like to come down and train with Richmond during the finals. I went down there and he asked if I’d like to do pre-season with them. They had to get permission from Hawthorn. Then John Kennedy said we’d like to see you play a practice game before we agree to clear you. Hawthorn played Footscray and I was on a bloke called Denis Collins and did all right. John Kennedy said if you want to play League football it will be with Hawthorn.

RHYS: Richmond backed off because you were playing in Hawthorn’s zone. But Hawthorn didn’t recruit you until you were 24. Why then? What was the story with your zoning status?
ROWLINGS: I was in Hawthorn’s zone and it was only because of Tommy coming to training that Richmond showed an interest.

RHYS: You had six games in 1972 for Hawthorn reserves on permits. You said later you had been overweight and they didn’t seem interested.
ROWLINGS: I was probably 13 stone – I loved the spuds up there – but I went back and got fit and got the second chance after that.

RHYS: It seems you never gave up hope that you would make it to a League club.
ROWLINGS: No, I was training pretty hard and you never know. As I say to the kids, if you don’t make it in the TAC Cup don’t go away and believe you are not going to make the AFL. Just work your butt off and hopefully someone will be looking at you. I might ring Ayresy at Port Melbourne and say that there are a couple of kids who haven’t been drafted, can you give them a run. I just ring the VFL clubs and see if they can give the kids an opportunity.

RHYS: Hawthorn used you as second rover because of the illness of Peter Crimmins. They were big boots to fill.
ROWLINGS: My first game was on the wing and it was Peter’s last game. Crimmo came off and John Kennedy announced that Crimmo was having an operation. Then I was second rover to Leigh Matthews. He’d do 80 per cent of the roving and I’d do 20 per cent. I played in a Grand Final in my first year in 1975.

RHYS: You said later that you believed that if Crimmins had played in the 1975 Grand Final, Hawthorn would have won. You were close to the Crimmins family and were staying with them in the week leading up to the finals.
ROWLINGS: My wife Rhonda and I stayed with Peter and Gwen Crimmins that week. He came home on the Thursday night and he put on a brave face, but Gwen said he was pretty upset and we ended up going around to Brian and Jenny Douge’s house that night. The way he trained and got back to full fitness I just thought he would have been the person to put in to get everyone going. I just thought everybody was a bit flat knowing that he wasn’t playing.

RHYS: You were obviously close to the family. He must have left a big impression on you.
ROWLINGS: He did. I know Ben and Sam and Gwen – we still talk. Ben is in Collingwood’s marketing department and Sam is up the coast. They are tremendous people. To see how Peter went downhill was pretty sad.

RHYS: You played in the 1976 flag side. Tell us about that day.
ROWLINGS: I got the opportunity to play in the centre. It’s funny how you look back and see Knightsy (Peter Knights), Al Martello and Ian Bremner kicking torpedos and there was probably only me and John Hendrie and Peter Murnane who kicked the drop punts. The build-up to the Grand Final was great, and especially for me coming down after playing in four losing grand finals at Moe. It was funny – Channel 7 gave John Hendrie best on the ground and he won a trip to Noumea; 3AW gave me the best on ground and I got six pewter mugs! My wife always reckons why didn’t I get the trip to Noumea but I point to the cabinet and say, “Look, I’ve still got the pewter mugs!”

RHYS: And of course you were part of that famous picture when you blokes took the premiership cup around to Peter Crimmins’ place.
ROWLINGS: We went around and he used to have a bit of fun because by that stage he had lost all his hair and had the wig on top. It was probably two o’clock in the morning but he was sitting up waiting for us. He was tickled pink for us to win the cup. He passed away a couple of days later, but he just wanted that moment to see everyone with the cup. He was very sick.

RHYS: You missed a place in the 1978 flag team and were out of the senior team for the second half of the year. You had a knee injury and it seemed Hawthorn thought you were finished. What happened?
ROWLINGS: I did the knee in July out at Waverley. I was on Robbie McGhie and I was just talking to him the other day about it. I stood on one of the sprinklers and the knee felt a bit funny. I got it taped up, but they ended up putting me in a cast because it was coming up to finals. I was in the cast for about six weeks then I did a lot of strength work on it. About four games before the end of the season I got back in the reserves. In the first couple of minutes I had six or seven possessions and thought, how good is this? But then someone gave me a handball and under pressure the knee just buckled. I had the operation just before the Grand Final then I did all the pre-season and did well in the practice matches. I had the first four games in the reserves. One night we were at training – I was with the reserves with John Hendrie and Peter Welsh and we saw Ian Wilson (Richmond’s president) watching training. We all thought “who is going to get the chop here?” and as I was walking off the ground, David Parkin said the match committee wanted to meet me. The chairman of selectors Ken Herbert said he believed I had only one year left in my knee and they had enough small men in Russo, Terry Wallace, Normie Goss and so forth. Richmond was keen to interview me, and I said that I wanted to stay and prove myself, but they said there wouldn’t be much opportunity. I was cleared to Richmond and the first team we played was Hawthorn. Instead of one year I ended up going for another eight years.

RHYS: At 28 you finally went to Richmond who had chased you all those years earlier. Despite the late start, you gave the Tigers great value that stretched over 152 games.
ROWLINGS: I went there four games into 1979 and won the best and fairest, which was a real bonus. You are probably dirty (at Hawthorn) at first but in the wash-up you think, if I did play in the seconds I might have only played that year and wasted a few years.

RHYS: What age do you think you played your best football?
ROWLINGS: I reckon in about 1982; I was 32 then. Mattie Rendell, Leigh Matthews and myself were going around to shops doing promotions and they were saying these blokes are favourites for the Brownlow. I got one vote! That year I played in the Victorian side and in the Grand Final.

RHYS: The Tigers took the 1980 Grand Final with a runaway win. What are your memories of that game?
ROWLINGS: In the last game of the year my knee started playing up again and they put me in for an arthroscope. I didn’t play any of the finals until, thanks to Tony Jewell, they put me in for the Grand Final. I remember Peter Welsh and I carrying the cup around in front of where the Hawthorn people were sitting. It was a bit cheeky, I suppose.

RHYS: And you played in another Grand Final in 1982. It would have been inconceivable then that Richmond would play in only a couple of finals in the next quarter of a century.
ROWLINGS: It was disappointing. You had blokes like Cloke, Raines, and Woody leaving the club and you would have thought the club could have gone on, but it went downhill. If those three had stayed as one-club players they would have been immortals.

RHYS: You were at the club in development and coaching roles after that and were given a life membership in 1988. When you reflect on that do you see it as an amazing honour for a bloke who didn’t walk in the door until the age of 28.
ROWLINGS: To get a life membership was a real thrill. I played there and worked in the junior development area and ended up being skills coach, reserves coach and reserves runner until 1990. I was involved in the Under 9s, getting kids down. That was great.

RHYS: In 1991 you went to work at Collingwood in an administrative capacity and even filled in during a reserves game in 1992 when you were 42. You were always super fit.
ROWLINGS: I thought if I wanted to branch out as a coach I’d have to expand by going somewhere else. I was skills coach and reserves runner. One weekend, Collingwood was playing in Brisbane on the Sunday and the reserves were playing Fitzroy at South Melbourne. A couple of blokes rang up crook and Leigh Matthews and Ronnie Richards were there. Banksy was meant to be runner and I think he had just got home from a night out. Ronnie said you’ll have to change and play. I said I was 42, what do you want me to do? They said just sit on the bench in case. I remember they gave me Paul Tuddenham’s number 6. At half time the boys were getting a flogging and Leigh said I had to go on. The ball came down to the forward pocket I marked it and thought how easy was this? I kicked a goal, the ball came down and I got another kick and missed. I was on a bloke called Frank Bizzotto who absolutely gave it to me, saying why don’t you go home and boil the kettle, you old mongrel. Later in the year we played Fitzroy and I was runner. Frankie Bizzotto was in the back pocket and he was on a little blond bloke for us who kicked six on him. I had the mouthguard in my pocket just in case. I gave him heaps. After the Collingwood stint I went back to Hawthorn under Knightsy as coach of the reserves.

RHYS: You must love the game to have such a long involvement.
ROWLINGS: I still have a kick with the kids at training with Caulfield Grammar. I take a couple of kids for skills training, I still love it and I’m a mentor to players down at Richmond.
RHYS: You played alongside two of the game’s great rovers who were vastly different in style – Leigh Matthews and Kevin Bartlett.
ROWLINGS: Leigh – the way he trained and when he played – he just set the example with the way he hit the ball. A tremendous player. KB was a freak. On the half-forward flank in the 1980 Grand Final, everyone has a go at him for not handballing but he handballed one to me and if he had kept going himself he would have kicked eight. He was so quick and elusive that players used to cringe when they had to go onto him.

RHYS: You’ve been involved with some major figures in the game. Tell us about John Kennedy and Graeme Richmond.
ROWLINGS: When I got there, Kanga Kennedy would have contests – two on three, three on four, five on six – that’s how we used to train. We’d go around and around in circles at competitive work and you’ve probably heard the story how Parko said “why don’t we do something different?” and Kanga said “OK we’ll go the other way.” I came off the training track one night and Kanga was in the shower going “Phoo! Phoo!” And I realised he was having a cold shower. I thought it was good enough for him it’s good enough for me so after that, every shower I had, I’d finish with a cold shower. Years later we were out with Kanga at dinner and my wife said Barry learned one thing from you about having a hot shower then finishing off with a cold one. And he turned around and said “That was the only night I ever had a cold one!” Graeme Richmond was a great influence on the Richmond Football Club. If anything needed to be done on the ground he’d call on Terry Smith and Jimmy Jess to do it. “Things have got to happen a bit quicker here, Jimmy!”

RHYS: And finally any word of advice for blokes like James Posdiadly who come in late?
ROWLINGS: At Moe we’d train on Tuesday and Thursday nights. On the off nights I’d practise my skills with my brothers or go for a run. Even when I got to 32 I used to make sure I didn’t stop when the season stopped. We’d run the Tan a fair bit. A lot of blokes said at 32 or 34 why didn’t I give it away for the young blokes. I’d say if the young blokes can’t beat me around the Tan, I’ll just keep going. I made sure I did extra work all the time. I didn’t drink and didn’t smoke and while that’s not the be-all and end-all, I think it helped.

DAVID RHYS-JONES