Former Melbourne caretaker coach Mark Riley didn’t know exactly how to address the playing group for the first time after taking over from Neale Daniher in 2007.
Riley treated the role as a “nine-week job application”, after Daniher resigned midway through the season.
But in his first game as head coach, he didn’t get off to the greatest start as one certain player took his instructions too seriously.
“I do remember talking to our doctor at the time, Andrew Daff, and he said he didn’t stitch many blokes up at the stage of that year,” Riley told The Sporting Capital.
“I used that as a bit of an emotional driver prior to the game, like who’s going to put their head in the hole, who’s going to create the most courageous acts that we follow?
“It was pretty funny because old Nathan Carroll, who I brought with me from Claremont, I remember him going back with the flight early in the game, marked it, copped the oncoming traffic and ended up having about 15 stitches in his scone.
“That wouldn’t have hurt Nathan because he had a very hard scone. That’s about all I remember from that first game.
“We played pretty well but it was back down to earth next week when we travelled up to Canberra and we were six goals to zero at quarter-time. Anyway, it was a great experience.”
