Dean Bailey was an Australian rules football player and coach. He played for the Essendon Football Club and was the senior coach of the Melbourne Football Club,...

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"Vine Dean Bailey" by Mark Pepper

The way they moved and the way that they played the game, you certainly think, ‘Are we seeing the superpower of the future?’” Michael Voss, July 2010.

Dean Bailey’s passing today at the age of 47 could be seen as a life unfulfilled but in those 47 years his impact not only to his family and friends but also the wider football community cannot be underestimated. Since the news came through this morning that he had been taken by a very aggressive form of lung cancer, many people who knew him better than I ever will have painted a glowing picture of a man who genuinely loved football but also praised him for his humour, his ability to mentor young players but mainly for putting into perspective that there is more to life that what happens when you cross that white line.

When Dean Bailey won the role ahead of the likes of Sheedy and Connolly, all Melbourne supporters (including this one) shook their heads and for a split second thought “What have we done? We could of had Sheedy!” but by the end of his first press conference his determination to re-build the list from scratch was paramount and he made no bones that in the short-term this would hurt the club. He was a premiership winning assistant coach at Essendon and Port Adelaide. He was the right coach at the right time for the club. In fact after that first press conference I came across this quote on a Demons fan forum:

Bailey talks like a man on a mission. Unlike Ross Lyon, who addresses the media like he has just had a bong.

Dean Bailey came into my world not through any personal contact but through a wicked hangover. It was February 2008 and Melbourne was playing Geelong in their first pre-season game down the highway. I was determined and perhaps a little idiotic in my enthusiasm to see what the new coach had been working on over the summer.

With the sun beating down and the hot greasy chips eating away at my lack of sobriety, Dean Bailey’s game plan came alive in a kaleidoscope of unpredictability and confusion. Players would run to daylight like kamikazes coming out of the back half then suddenly stop, spin and in a desperate attempt to keep moving forward would often not hit the target of a teammate going past. It was utterly frustrating to watch but when it clicked, it was the closet that Demon fans have ever come to our own version of the LA Lakers “Showtime.”  Needless to say 2008, the club’s 150th anniversary was not one of celebration but of endless losses punctured by glimpses of the brand that Bailey was trying so desperately to infuse into the players DNA.

Fast forward to Round 18, 2009. Melbourne v Richmond. Jordan McMahon’s goal. The modern history of the Melbourne Football Club spirals off on a nightmarish tangent as a result of one kick. Having been there that day and watched McMahon’s goal sail through I was torn between anger at losing a game  we had control over yet quietly satisfied in cementing that prized priority pick. Melbourne had to rebuild through the draft as we had a void from the departures of Roberston, Yze, McDonald and Bruce. I was thinking of the future that day and for a split second I “tanked” as a supporter and I’ve regretted it ever since.

Now imagine how Dean Bailey felt at the same time.

“I was asked to do the best thing by the Melbourne Football Club and I did it. I did the right thing by the Melbourne Football Club.’’ Dean Bailey 2011.

The Round 5 2010 game against Brisbane was perhaps the purest example of Bailey’s vision on how a game of Aussie Rules should be played…down the centre corridor with pace, pressure and always on the edge of turning the ball over. Watching Bailey’s Demons was like watching a NASCAR race waiting for an accident to happen but you just couldn’t look away because the cars were going at breakneck speed.

Check out the highlights on YouTube of that Brisbane game and see how Melbourne attacked the corridor with numbers, the spread they achieved from stoppages, the linking handballs and the pressure applied to the opposition when they didn’t have the ball. Most importantly look at the faces of the long-suffering Melbourne supporters whose smiles finally came to the surface after another series of heavy losses. This team was going to take out of the wilderness and Dean would be the one guiding us with a grin on his face and the most remarkably manicured sideburns the AFL had ever seen. 2010 was Bailey’s best year.

I was there for many of his 22 wins and certainly there for many of his 59 losses but in that time the club were gathering momentum on field. Even through the big losses we all knew we just had to stick to the task at hand and get games into the kids. These kids included Jack Trengove, Jack Grimes, Nathan Jones, James Frawley and Jack Watts. These 5 now form a majority of the backbone that the current list is now built on. Building a team of kids coming through and depending on the draft to do this was the MFC’s mantra in the late 2000’s. The celebration when Tom Scully was picked at number one and the anger at his defection to GWS showed the football world that draft picks don’t get through on talent alone but need to be nurtured. Dean Bailey was renowned as a teacher and developer of players but when you are given sub-standard facilities to teach in you can only go so far.

I came into 2011 expecting the Demons to make a run for the final 8. 3 years of development had come to a point where we had put games into the kids and picked an excitement machine from Yuendemu called Liam Jurrah. 2011 was a disaster of the highest level not because of Bailey but because of outside forces that had been circling him for 2 years had come home to roost. The clubs darkest day in Geelong  (a 186 point loss, the second biggest in AFL history) was the death knell for Bailey who in his post match press conference accurately predicted the plight of the club for the next few years.

”There will be a dark cloud sitting over all of us.”

Dean Bailey was sacked 2 days later and the club changed tack and went for a defensively minded coach in Mark Neeld to replace him. Yet I compare the pain caused in the Bailey and Neeld era’s, Dean Bailey’s Demons were entertaining in their execution and quietly determined to stay the course.

I only met Dean Bailey once at a Demons function at the MCG. My fiancé` and I chatted to him for about a minute and then asked him to pose for a photo. He was gracious enough for us to take a photo with him and we wished him well for the future. Another Demons fan asked him right after us for a picture and without hesitation said yes and on it went for most of the night.