ROB Dickson has had a behind-the-scenes pass at the last two Hawthorn-Geelong grand finals, and while his experience in 1989 no doubt helped shape him as a person, it didn't have quite the all-round happy ending of last September's big day. While another premiership for his beloved Hawks was joy enough, grand final day also provided some of the most moving and candid scenes of Dickson's Essence of the Game documentary, which screens on Channel Seven tomorrow night. "I was emergency for the '89 grand final, so to go this journey with them — even though I was on the other side of the camera — it was actually quite therapeutic," Dickson said yesterday. "To witness the joy, particularly after the game at eight o'clock when they wandered out into the middle of the 'G, to be amongst that with those guys and the club that you love was quite special." And certainly a different emotion to 19 years earlier, when Dickson was a lightly framed flanker who donned his footy gear and completed the warm-up before being told in the final team meeting that Greg Madigan had got the nod ahead of him. "I spent the first quarter in the old Richmond rooms calming down, missed the opening barrage with Dermott (Brereton) getting crunched," says Dickson, who still loves then-coach Allan Jeans, and reckons he probably wasn't in the Hawks' best 20 anyway. "Tucky spent the whole team meeting just holding my arm, which was a nice thing for your captain to do."
DICKSON'S vision of Hawthorn's 2008 captain is the perfect illustration of the essence of the game at the high end — wearing a premiership medallion and a look of pure contentment as he stands alone, hands in pockets, on the MCG on grand final night. Sam Mitchell (pictured) saw that moment as a perfect aligning of the stars, "and I wanted to make sure that I remembered it for what it was. It's not just one game or one year. It's years of work from so many hundreds of people, thousands of people really. To be part of it is pretty daunting." Dickson admits he got lucky in that the two AFL clubs he followed for Essence of the Game — Hawthorn and Western Bulldogs — both had memorable seasons. Mitchell said of the doco: "It's the sort of thing you want to lock away, keep the DVD in good condition, show the kids one day and say, 'Look what I was able to achieve as a player.' "
EVEN with his Hawthorn heart, Dickson's greatest joy in making Essence of the Game came from the many layers below the elite, from the Manly Bombers Auskickers to the champion Darebin Falcons women's team, Xavier College to Encounter Bay in South Australia, West Coburg to the Peres Peace Team. "My thought was we follow 12 sides drawn from every level, but really I could have gone into any footy club in Australia and got a good story. Fortunately the clubs I did choose had really lovely outcomes." Even the Peace Team, which came to last year's International Cup confident of doing well after a practice-match win over a team of expats in Israel, but was thrashed by Britain. "Rather than actually winning the game the focus became, 'Can they kick a goal?' They kicked one 29 minutes into the last quarter, and went absolutely nuts."
Last Modified on 08/01/2010 09:44