New season is Bays' chance to fix finals yips

SANFL football - Glenelg coach Mark Mickan. Picture: Mark Brake Source: The Advertiser

And the hungry mob at the Bay vented their fighting fury after last year's semi-final loss to the Eagles.

In the firing line was coach Mark Mickan, in charge of a super minor-round team but with a 2-7 finals record in five years at the helm.

"That's all part of it. You expect it," he said of supporters' anger. "Passionate people are going to express themselves and I fully understand that.

"You put yourself in the same position and you feel the same way."

Mickan didn't take the criticism personally but admits the Tigers' finals flop kept him awake at night.

"There was a fair bit of disappointment, angst and frustration, as you would expect," he said.

"You can't help but lose sleep over it - I couldn't imagine how you could possibly not lose sleep over it.

"But it was more about what we're going to do about it."

So Mickan got to work. Instead of curling up in a ball and hiding for a week, he kept turning up to the office.

"I didn't feel like I wanted to switch off. I wanted to do something about it straight away."

He postponed his end-of-season break until February, spoke with 50 players individually and made a two-hour presentation to the board. Not once did he consider quitting, despite media speculation he could be sacked.

"I didn't want to leave it like that. I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could in the recovery from all this," he said. "I felt a real responsibility to the club and players to front up again and get it right."

His steely resolve seems more serious now than it ever has since he started the job in 2006.

He found the same resolve in his players when he looked them in the eye at the end of the season.

"Once I started talking to the players and people at the club, making plans for 2011, you start seeing there's real optimism around the place and we've got a lot going for us still - that we're not far away and clearly need to perform better in finals. But we've got to win enough games to make the finals, so that's our first goal,'' Mickan said.

His presentation to Glenelg's board "covered every aspect of the club" he could think of.

"From analysing everything so thoroughly you can see little areas you can add and change, but at the same time you've got to recognise what your strengths are and what you can build on," Mickan said.

"It wasn't all about chucking everything out and starting again, because you don't win 15 games and 17 games in the minor round without doing something right."

The former Brisbane Bear and Adelaide Crows player studied psychology in 2005. He jokes that while it doesn't look like it has helped him or the team on the field, he's able to recognise that part of Glenelg's finals woes is above the shoulders.

"Certainly an analysis of it suggests you don't go from being skilful and competitive to being less skilful and less competitive without some sort of mental process playing a part. That's certainly received some attention,'' he said.

"We'll give them (players) some tools that are geared towards performance in big games."

Heading into his sixth season as coach, Mickan is more motivated than ever to end the club's 25-year premiership drought.

Unlike recent years, Glenelg won't start among the flag favourites - that title rests with Central District, Norwood and the Eagles.

But it won't force Mickan into a "nothing to lose" attitude.

"I see it as a nine-way nil-all draw. No one's kicked a ball, laid a tackle - it all starts again," he said.

"Whether we've won the premiership or finished bottom, you go into the new season with optimism and a new set of plans."

Among those plans is to unearth a raft of young talent at the club.

After watching first-gamer Seb Tape become Glenelg's best player in its last final of 2010, he made the telling statement: "It opens my eyes to the fact that you give young talent a go and you get richly rewarded."

Tape is now likely to play in Gold Coast's historic first AFL game in April.

This year Mickan expects many others from the Tigers' under-18 and reserves premiership teams from recent years to get their opportunity.