Coaching great Leigh Matthews believes his conversation with Ross Lyon may have contributed to Lyon considering a return to the AFL coaching ranks.
Lyon revealed on Triple M that he had recently bumped into Matthews while working in the media at an AFL game, saying that the pair’s chat enlightened him.
Lyon, who has coached both St Kilda and Fremantle, is currently being heavily linked to a position at Carlton, who are poised to decide in the coming days whether David Teague will continue in 2022.
Matthews said that after asking Lyon about whether he was “stimulated” as much in the media as he was as a coach, he may have inadvertently set the wheels in motion for him to consider a coaching return.
“What I always say to (former Brisbane coach) Justin Leppitsch now or Ross (Lyon), when you cover footy in the media, it’s stimulating and enjoyable but you know your mental state is going to be the same at the end of the game than it was at the start,” he said on Sportsday.
“I said to Ross whether he was stimulated working in the media and that’s always the issue – what do you do with your life after you stop coaching?
“You only have a couple of years I reckon, if you’re out of (the coaching space) for a couple of years, you sort of get lost about what’s going on.
“Maybe it was just stimulation (during our chat) and in a lifestyle sense, it might have started him thinking at least.
“People don’t seem to understand the coaching at AFL football is such a lifestyle – there’s two sides of the coin where it’s incredibly exciting but also has incredible stress.
“You might have it all, but you also have the stress. Sometimes you have to say that you’re prepared to chuck yourself back into that lifestyle and maybe that’s the journey Ross has gone through in the last month or two.”