Stuart Dew is back in September, the football habitat where he is most at home.
It’s unclear what impact Dew is having in his latest AFL role – he’s been at Brisbane since June, for one or two days a week.
Officially, he’s working at this Saturday’s preliminary finalists as a part-time skills coach.
Unofficially, the experience and wisdom someone like Dew imparts can be the little spark that helps ignite a club’s finals run.
Before his barren six-year tenure as Gold Coast coach, which ended last season, Dew boasted a remarkable football CV of premiership success.
From SANFL side Central District, to Port Adelaide and Hawthorn in the AFL and then working as an assistant coach at Sydney, Dew consistently found himself busy in September, at the pointy end of a season.
Certainly, some footballers are lucky in being at the right club, at the right time with premierships – just as others are cruelly denied.
“You make your own luck,” is Alastair Clarkson’s take on Dew.
The North Melbourne coach has a storied history with Dew, going back to Clarkson’s time at Central in 2001-02.
Clarkson cannot recall coaching Dew, who played in the Bulldogs’ inaugural 2000 premiership team, but straight away recognised a talented kid with a raking left-foot kick who was always popular with his teammates.
He draws a striking parallel with Darren Lehmann, another knockabout lad from Adelaide’s northern suburbs with prolific natural ability, also raised in the school of hard knocks.
Just as Dew would go on to great things in the AFL, Lehmann became a Test cricketer – and then they coached at the highest level as well.
“If you’d asked those lads when they were 14-15, they’d have laughed if you’d said they’re going to coach, because they’re just knockabout mates,” Clarkson told AAP.
“But strangely enough, that was the very reason they became coaches, too – that relationship side of your coaching has become more profound recently.
“In all the things I’ve had to do with Dewy that was the most profound – a really good footy IQ and sporting IQ, and he got along really, really well with people.”
When Clarkson went to Port in ’03 as an assistant coach under Mark Williams, Dew was one of the few people he knew at the AFL club.
Dew played in Port’s 2004 premiership team and retired two years later. Famously, Clarkson had a hunch it was premature and a plan was hatched in ’07 for a comeback with Hawthorn.
It culminated in an astonishing few minutes of play at a crucial stage of the ’08 grand final, when Dew’s two goals and two more score involvements helped engineer a stunning upset win over Geelong.
Clarkson says the credit for Dew even being in attack must go to then-assistant coaches Damien Hardwick and Ross Smith, who came up with the idea as the Hawks struggled with a couple of injuries early in the game.
“He was my entree into Port Adelaide. I have such a strong affection for him because he helped us settle into that club so well,” Clarkson said.
“If somewhere down the track I could help him then I was certainly going to do that.
“Luckily enough, the moons aligned both at Port and Hawthorn in that regard.”
Clarkson said Dew’s booming left foot was akin to Steph Curry’s three-point shooting in the NBA – it changed the game, because his long-range shots terrified defenders.
But equally important, Dew was the only player on the ’08 Hawks list who boasted an AFL premiership.
“It was the standards in terms of team play and sacrifice for one another – all the things that are required to win big finals,” he said.
“His cameo in the third quarter is still my most special memory of the contribution of a player in a very, very short period, that just turned the game on its head.”
And so to Brisbane, who have finished no lower than fifth since 2019 without winning a flag … not too dissimilar to the “chokes” that bedevilled Port before their ’04 triumph.
“Dewy would just be another voice that’s been there, done that. Fages obviously knows him very well, trusts him,” Clarkson says of his good friend and Lions coach, Chris Fagan.
“I just reckon he’d be a really calming influence on that group … optimistic, positive – ‘boys, you can get this done, on any given day’, just like it was in 2008.
“Brisbane have been through their hardships … won more games in the last five years than any other side, I think, but haven’t won the big dance yet. That was Port Adelaide.
“On any given day, if you produce the best footy in September, that’s all that’s required to win.”
That’s exactly how Lions star Hugh McCluggage sees what Dew is bringing to the Lions.
“He’s got a wealth of knowledge. He’s a calming influence when he’s been at the games and someone to bounce ideas off, and also out there on the track (at training),” McCluggage said this week.
“He’s (done) a little bit of goal-kicking with the boys, which has been good for us.”
STUART DEW AND PREMIERSHIPS
* 2000 – Played in Central District’s first SANFL premiership side
* 2004 – Port Adelaide premiership player (after being the youngest player on the club’s inaugural AFL list)
* 2008 – comes out of retirement, has a crucial third-quarter cameo for Hawthorn in the AFL grand-final win over Geelong, kicking two goals and helping set up two others.
* 2012 – assistant coach at Sydney, who beat Hawthorn in a classic grand final.
