Remembering the pain of being on the sidelines

In 1990, Ron McKeown was left out of the Collingwood team that won the grand final.

RON McKeown arrived early at the MCG on second semi-final day. Often a player slow to prepare, this day he was inexplicably eager to play. While others waited until after the first team meeting to get into their shorts and gear, Ronnie already had his ankles taped and his shorts on. It was just over an hour until the game and the team milled into the meeting room.

That was when Leigh Matthews grabbed McKeown by the arm. "We've got no one for you to play on," Matthews said. The popular defender had played both the first drawn final against West Coast and the rematch, and played well in both. Never mind, he thought, I must be starting on the bench.

The playing group moved into the meeting room and took their seats. McKeown was in the middle. He looked at the white board and had a sinking realisation of what Matthews had been hinting at. His name was not on the board. "I've decided to leave Ronnie out," Matthews said to the room. McKeown's head dropped.

"I thought, 'Oh, f …, is that what you meant,'" McKeown remembered. "I didn't know what to think, I didn't know whether to get up and walk out, I just thought, 'Shit, why?' I played every other game this year. Why does he decide I am on the nose now and can't match up on anyone? I've done it all year."

McKeown remained in the middle of a crowded room of mates, yet felt miserably alone. He longed to be anywhere but in the middle of those preparing to play … and why the hell did he choose this week to be the first to the ground and stripped, strapped and ready to go?

"I was just sitting there thinking, 'I really don't know what to do. I mean, what do I do?' I'm sitting there in the meeting, me the only one in shorts and tape, and me being the one not in the side, and I'm thinking, 'Shit, this is embarrassing'.''

McKeown eventually left the room and changed back into his normal clothes. His mind was a mess, his disillusionment as much tied to Matthews' timing as the decision itself. Why now? Not just why this game but why this minute? Why not last night? Couldn't you have at least been a bit more explicit when you tugged my arm and said you had no position for me?

He walked slowly up to the stands to join Brian Taylor, and met his bewildered wife Jo, who was sitting waiting for him to appear, bursting through the banner in his footy gear. Not in the stands, carrying it in his kit bag.

Matthews' timing could be easily explained: he had changed his mind only minutes before the player meeting. The coach was in the meeting room, waiting for the players to file in while pondering the match-ups, when he had a moment of blinding clarity.

"All of a sudden it kind of occurred to me. Who is Michael Christian going to play on? And if he has someone, then who is Ronnie McKeown going to play on?" Matthews said. "We made a mistake, but I figured you don't make two mistakes."

McKeown out. Starcevich in.

"That was a terrible thing for Ronnie McKeown, he's probably never forgiven me, I suspect. But it's kind of the things that you had to do. Ultimately, you couldn't put Ronnie McKeown's feelings ahead of the team."

McKeown had missed the first three games of 1990 before he broke into the side. He then became a regular, playing every game of the year, primarily at full-back, before Matthews' late decision to omit him from the second semi-final team against Essendon. He did not play another game that year as Collingwood went on to win the grand final.

At the time the reasoning was inexplicable to him. Twenty years later, he still ruminates on it though he harbours no obvious bitterness to Matthews for his choice. Nor, it should be noted, is there much fondness. "Mate, I don't sit back and sulk about it. You know, sure, at the end of the day, I'd love to sit down and say I played in a premiership, but what do you do?" he said. "I went to training, obviously, building up to the grand final. But I also knew in the back of my head I wasn't going to play. Because, they'd won, they beat Essendon, why were they going to change the side? What's going to be different now?

''It was a hard week to train. BT [Taylor] was the same, you know we were just running around thinking, 'We're going through the motions here, we're not going to play'. And we never really got told. That was probably one of the most disappointing things - Leigh never came up to me the week after to explain exactly what had happened. That's what Leigh was like. "People say, 'You must hate him'. I don't hate the man. Of course I'm disappointed in what happened, that doesn't mean I hate Leigh Matthews. I always said he was a great coach, because he was inspirational when he spoke. He was great.

''So I can't bag the bloke, that would just be sour grapes. If we had have got beaten, I'd probably sit back and say, 'Yes, well, he should have played me'. But they won so I can't criticise him for the decision."

This is an excerpt from Cakewalk, The Inside Story of Collingwood's 1990 Premiership by The Age's Michael Gleeson. The book is available from collingwoodfc.com.au, bookstores and at the club.