Local photographer lines up the leadership team for the 2006 season at the Western Bulldog's home ground at the Western Oval. Brad Johnson, vice-captain Scott West, with other team leaders Robert Murphy and Daniel Giansiracusa.
Photo: Joe Castro

'Choco' deserves his place in the sun

Jake Niall | September 27, 2007

PORT Adelaide was heading south after its first AFL premiership when I bumped into Mark Williams at his favourite West Melbourne cafe during 2005.

In a brief, typically intense conversation, "Choco" posed the question of how a team could get back into contention for a premiership without bouncing along the bottom of the ladder. He was searching for the answer, and it was clear that he found the notion of "bottoming out" distasteful, and an affront to his ferocious competitive spirit.

He did not need to add that Port Adelaide had little experience or appreciation of wooden spoons, and was not noted for its patience.

If Williams did not then have the answer to his rebuilding riddle, he quickly found it. Port would spend only one season outside the finals before returning to the grandest stage; the team it finally conquered in 2004, the Brisbane Lions, have not seen September action since.

Getting Port up for a second tilt at a flag has been one of the outstanding coaching achievements of the past decade, given that the system is designed to prevent such a swift rebound. It is a feat that confirms Williams as a great coach.

In nine seasons as Port coach, Williams has won more than 60 per cent — a percentage similar to the career ratio of his former mentor Kevin Sheedy. Port has played finals in seven of those nine seasons, finishing among the top four — the benchmark that defines "contention" — on four occasions. Only Leigh Matthews has bettered Williams for top-four finishes (five) in that time.

He also is sprouting his own family tree of senior coaches, with Alastair Clarkson (Hawthorn) and Dean Bailey (Melbourne) odds-on to be joined by Damien Hardwick (frontrunner for Essendon, if Mark Thompson spurns it) among the branches spawned by the Port system.

All objective evidence suggests Choco is one of the very best in the caper, yet the football industry and media have been slow to recognise him as such. He has never, for instance, had the cachet of Paul Roos or Mick Malthouse. Only now, with Essendon having validated him as its first choice to replace Sheedy, is Williams getting the kudos his record warrants.

I believe this reluctance to ordain Choco as one of coaching's high priests has two explanations. One is that he coaches a club that is largely invisible to those Victorians who aren't Foxtel subscribers.

Second, and more pertinent, Williams is an abrasive character whose fits of irrationality have been on show often enough for outsiders to wonder whether he knows what he's doing. Nothing defined perceptions of Choco more than the aftermath of the 2004 grand final, when he did the mock "choke" with his tie and finished his acceptance speech with the infamous words to his major sponsor, "Alan Scott, you were wrong."

Choco's highly entertaining histrionics contrast sharply with the Zen calm of Roos or Matthews. Williams speaks his mind; these days, he is even showing a penchant for strategic sledging of the opposition (eg, suggesting Cameron Mooney might blow a head gasket).

Like Sheedy, the coach he resembles in some respects, Choco's unconventional nature is seen as a strength. "He looks for the abnormal, in match situations and elsewhere," said one former confidant.

As one who is wont to have irrational moments, Choco has had the good sense over his career to surround himself with sober, rational support staff, such as Bailey, recruiting men Alan Stewart and Chris Pelchen (now at Adelaide and Hawthorn respectively); if Williams has been blessed with excellent assistants throughout, they were his choices.

Having risen in the pecking order of the coaching jungle, Williams was contractually bound and unable to take on the challenge of Essendon's restoration.

His stature in the game now is such that he must be a serious candidate to coach the team he captained, Collingwood, when Malthouse finishes up — an opening that, in the wake of the Pies' finals series, seems more distant than it did 12 months ago.

Or, as some who know him well predict, Choco could stick with Port and seek to emulate Sheedy by coaching the same club for two decades. Who knows? Guessing Mark Williams' next move has never been easy.