How Pagan slipped through Dees' fingers

Two-time premiership coach Denis Pagan has revealed that he was close to coaching Melbourne before landing the job with the Kangaroos.

Speaking on SEN Afternoon’s ‘Jesaulenko You Beauty’, Pagan said that he interviewed for the Demons’ vacant coaching position following the departure of John Northey to Richmond at the end of 1992, but missed out on the job after it was offered to Neil Balme.

“A couple of months earlier, Melbourne were interviewing for a coach and I got a gig there, so I had done a lot of work,” he said of the amount of work he had put into his presentation for the Kangaroos’ role.

“The night before I went for the Melbourne job, I found out that Neil Balme had been appointed.

“I can remember saying to my manager Ron Joseph, “you heard that Neil Balme’s got the job and they still want to interview me tomorrow? I don’t want to do it, tell them to stick it up their jumper.

“Ron said: ‘nah, go along, it’s a great experience. People who interview for coaches they probably do it once in their life, they’re not experts at it and some of them wouldn’t even know if a football coach jumped up in their Weetbix in the morning’. It was the best advice he ever gave me.

“So I went there and I was amazed being interviewed by the board of Melbourne, I went along with the charade and when I finished I can remember (jokingly) saying to (then-Melbourne CEO) Hassa Mann on the way out, ‘you’ll regret this’”.

“When it came to preparing for North Melbourne, all I had to do with put a 'North' in front of the 'Melbourne' and change the colors from red and blue, to royal blue and white, and the rest was history.”

Pagan went on to take North Melbourne to the finals in each of his first eight seasons at the helm, culminating in premierships in 1996 and 1999.