Luke Hodge has seen over his time in the game a difference between being liked and being respected.
The former Hawthorn captain was assessing St Kilda coach Brett Ratten’s post-game address to his players in the wake of their loss to the Western Bulldogs last Friday night.
The club released the footage of Ratten speaking with his Saints players in the rooms with one of the more pertinent quotes stemming from his own experiences as a player in a successful Carlton side.
Ratten said: “The teams that I’ve been involved in, there was f---ing blokes saying that ain’t f---ing good enough mate, lift your game. It’s not like he doesn’t like ya, but we’re playing for a f---ing spot in the finals”.
Essentially, Ratten was saying: “We’ve got to ask more of each other”.
"We've got to push, not concede. We've got to ask more of each other, not allow it to happen."
— St Kilda FC (@stkildafc) July 18, 2022
A reality check post-game. pic.twitter.com/vEZ8gCTE3w
Four-time premiership Hawk and ex-Lion Hodge admits there can sometimes be a “big issue” when it comes to confronting teammates in order to improve.
But if you can get it right, it goes a long way to improving standards.
“There’s a big issue with leadership in AFL and it’s the issue between being wanting to be liked or wanting to be respected,” Hodge said on SEN’s Whateley.
“Early on, a lot of younger players especially, they don’t want to say the wrong thing in case they’re not liked by other teammates. Because if they say the wrong thing and they take offence, then, ‘He might not like me, he might not have a beer with me after the game’, and that might fracture their relationship as players and teammates.
“When you get older, it turns from, ‘He might not like me right now, we can get over that, but he’s going to respect me by the end of the game, by the end of the season, by the end of my career’. That’s the twisting part that sounds like ‘Ratts’ is trying to push with these St Kilda players.
“Be tight enough off-field so then when you do say something on-field, when you do push someone, when maybe you say something to a teammate that he may not like, the fact that he knows where it’s coming from. It’s coming from a place where he wants us to get better, he wants us to push that extra little bit.
“If I don’t give my all, I expect a teammate to tell me that. If I see him do the same thing, I will let him know the same thing. It’s not about liking and not liking, it’s about getting the best out of each other.
“They were playing for a finals spot and you look through trying to get the best out of your teammates - 41 clearances to 21. If you look through St Kilda’s midfield, we’ve pumped (Rowan) Marshall and (Paddy) Ryder up about their ruck work, and then you look at (Jack) Steele, (Brad) Crouch and (Zak) Jones. Blokes in there that you think will roll up their sleeves, who will get dirty and get the clearances out. They lost by 20.
“That’s what Ratts is talking about. If you see someone not having a go, mention it, say it to him. Tell him next time that you’ve got to go harder because as soon as you say it to him, I tell you what, next time you better do it because otherwise your teammates are going to come back at you and say the same thing.”
Hodge touched on his own experiences throughout his extensive and savagely successful playing days.
He provided some intriguing insight into the demands amongst the players at Hawthorn and how he had to ensure to newcomers that Jarryd Roughead and Jordan Lewis were indeed mates, such was their lofty expectations of one another.
“It’s about being a leader and getting older and getting that respect part, it’s about moulding both sides,” Hodge added.
“We used to call it two-way feedback. Being happy to say it to a teammate, but also being happy to accept it.
“It took me a long time for the accepting part because I needed to work on off-the-ball stuff as well.
“We had to explain to new blokes that came in to Hawthorn that ‘Roughy’ and ‘Lewy’ actually liked each other. On the football field they were honest.
“I used to have good honest feedback with (Brad) Sewell, ‘Mitch’ (Sam Mitchell) and ‘Gibbo’ (Josh Gibson), (but) Lewy and Roughy were the next level because they had that relationship off-field. They could say whatever they wanted to each other.
“They’d still walk off the field and know they are saying it to get the best out of them to benefit the club and the playing group.
“It’s about pushing those boundaries, using senior guys and practising at training. You need to give them feedback then and there at training if they’re doing the right thing or not.”
Listen to Hodge’s full chat with Gerard Whateley below: