A dedicated Chris Bond has spent the best part of a decade preparing himself for the job of coaching an AFL team.
MICHAEL Voss had the record of a champion player, the profile and enough interested suitors to know that an AFL coaching job next year was his if he wanted it. He also knew when he bowed out of the race this week that he was not yet ready to take on the task.
Chris Bond's accomplishments on the field are far more modest, the recognition factor far lower, and his senior coaching potential never likely to spark the sort of frenzied speculation that surrounded Voss' name being thrown into the mix.
But when the Western Bulldogs' assistant coach was interviewed for the vacant Melbourne position yesterday, he took with him one important asset even a decorated like Voss couldn't. The belief that AFL coaching is unquestionably a job for which he was made.
It's a truth first realised as long ago as 1999, Bond's final season as a player, when he was captain of a perennially struggling Fremantle.
It has been underlined repeatedly in eight years working under three different coaches at Whitten Oval, and was driven home again last year, when St Kilda's hunt for a new coach started with Bond as a longshot but ended with him coming within hours of landing the gig.
Before Ross Lyon bobbed up at the 11th hour, Bond had the Saints convinced he was the man.
Bulldogs' senior coach Rodney Eade has continually sung his praises, as have plenty of other insiders in the football industry, wowed by the depth of his knowledge and preparation.
Bond hopes Melbourne, Fremantle, Carlton and Essendon (with he will speak next week) will be, too. But while his rivals for those jobs include the fearsome pulling power of Kevin Sheedy and a 10-year senior coach in Neale Daniher, Bond is not about to marshal the PR forces to help get him across the line.
"I'm not here to promote myself," he said, bluntly. "I don't agree with people promoting themselves too much. The people I've worked with, the length of time I've been in the AFL and success I've had coaching a team and in the development of players is enough.
"I understand the importance of promotion, but this is a major role in a football club, and to think that club wouldn't have done their homework on the type of person you are and how good at your job you are would be wrong."
Such reconnaissance will tell them of a man with quiet confidence in his capabilities, assertiveness and leadership skills. St Kilda had already found out last year that the candidate originally considered least likely wasn't before them simply to clock up some more experience.
"I don't think it has helped specifically," Bond said of his flirtation with the Saints last October. "Yes, it's nice to have gone through the process already, but I went through it to get the job, not just to go through the process.
"I was confident going into that one, as I will be when the time comes with this one as well."
Bond's involvement in AFL football has spanned 18 years now, and four clubs. Drafted from North Hobart by Carlton in 1989, he managed only 22 games in three seasons before being given the flick.
He moved to Richmond and chalked up 100 more as a hard-nosed and often underrated midfielder, winning a best and fairest along the way. His final stop as a player was at Fremantle, where he played another 41 games over two years, the second as captain. It was then the coaching penny dropped.
"It was halfway through the year, and I knew then that I was coming to the end because my body was shot," he said. "I was working closely with players I thought had big futures, like James Clement, Jess Sinclair and Brodie Holland.
"I was doing everything I could to play, and get myself the fittest I could be, and I was able to drag a few people along with me, and make them better, and that was a real turning point. It just hit me at once, that that was the path I wanted to take."
Bond the player wasted no time becoming Bond the coach. Interviewed by the Western Bulldogs, he assumed the midfield coaching role.
That 2000 debut would be the last time the Dogs appeared in finals for six years, but over 2001-02, Bond was cutting more teeth in charge of the club's VFL partner Weribbee, which he took to a grand final and preliminary final. It was experience he says has proved critical.
"I can't comment on whether everyone else needs to coach their own team, but I know I did," he said. "I was very strong with the club that I still wanted to do the midfield and be involved with the matchday stuff as well, which meant my workrate was through the roof.
"But that was the greatest part of the apprenticeship for me. The best thing about being in charge of a VFL team that's aligned is that your people-management skills have to be spot on for it to work. But the key point was having faith in the fact you could get a group of players to play a certain style of football. I walked out of that feeling very confident in my ability."
Bond sums up that style as a very competitive brand, but one still leaving room for flair. A bit like that to which the Bulldogs aspire under Eade, one of several key influences upon whom Bond says his philosophy has been based.
There's a bit of David Parkin, his coach at Carlton, Robert Walls, who had Bond for two seasons at Richmond, Bulldogs' coaches Terry Wallace and Eade, even Gerard Neesham, Fremantle's coach only in Bond's first year with the Dockers.
"He was totally out of left field," Bond said. "Just a very attacking type coach, especially out of defence. It was all about counter attack and outnumbering the opposition, and that's had a huge influence on me.
"I've grabbed bits and pieces from my coaches, and I've certainly grabbed bits that I wouldn't use as well. But I've definitely got my own pretty strong philosophies on the way it should go, and they've grown with me, especially over the last couple of years, and things like being involved in a sports science committee; that's really improved my thinking.
"And I reckon being a midfield coach is a very powerful tool, too, because you're right in the inner sanctum and involved in a key part of the game, so I think that improves you year after year."
It's certainly seen Bond work with a wide variety of players. He's studied from the closest of quarters the professionalism and consistency of champion centreman Scott West, the precocious young talents of Adam Cooney, helped engineer the rise of Daniel Cross and steady improvement of Mitch Hahn.
And Bond himself is big on constant improvement. It's why he spent a couple of days during the club's supposed mid-season break at the AIS, among other things talking to the likes of Australian under-20 basketball coach Martin Clarke about dealing with Generation Y.
"I think you can do some research into understanding things like that," he said. "There are certain things with individuals that you are going to have to treat differently, because of either their age or personality or upbringing. I thought it was important to do something about that. It's all part of trying to develop yourself."
Bond already has plenty on his plate. Married to Gina, and with three young children, Lewis, 7, MacKenzie, 4, and Remy, 1, his days are always full. He runs at least six times a week, often up to 12 kilometres, a self-confessed addict.
Family and fitness are great releases from the pressures of football, he says. "Lewis is at an age now where there are a lot of things going on; swimming, indoor soccer. I still insist on taking him to school a couple of days a week. If you're organised, you can still get it all done."
Yesterday, after helping get his kids' days started, Bond launched a big one of his own.
There was the job interview that might have determined how much of the rest of his professional life would be spent. Back to Whitten Oval afterwards to do a little more work with players and complete the Bulldogs' midfield rotations. Home for a little while. Then off to Telstra Dome, and his club's season-defining game against St Kilda.
It's a full book, even without the added complication of being a candidate for the senior coaching post at a quarter of the AFL's clubs. But time and stress management is another skill that coaching teaches you. And Bond has learnt to live with uncertainty.
"It chops and changes so much that in the end you just need to worry about the job at hand," he said of the all the coaching speculation. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't read it or listen to it, because it's always in your face. Every time you pick up a paper or listen to the radio, it's being discussed.
"But you can't afford to ride the waves of emotion. You can do your head in about things like that in July, when there's still six weeks to go."
That's not going to happen to the affable Bulldog assistant. Bond knows his time is now.
But after spending the best part of the last decade preparing himself, and knowing that much of the next could be spent putting those carefully laid foundations into practice, a matter of a few more weeks isn't much of a wait at all.
CHRIS BOND
Born: 26/1/1969
Age: 38
THE PLAYER
Drafted from North Hobart, No. 35, 1989
Carlton 1990-92: Games 22. Goals: 8.
Coaches: Alex Jesaulenko, David Parkin.
Richmond 1993-97: Games 100. Goals 32. Best and
fairest 1994. Coaches: John Northey, Robert Walls.
Fremantle 1998-99: Games 41. Goals 15. Coaches:
Gerard Neesham, Damien Drum.
THE COACH
Western Bulldogs assistant and midfield coach 2000-07
Werribee (VFL) coach 2001-02
Worked under: Terry Wallace, Peter Rohde, Rodney Eade
