Matthew Ridge

because I had super high standards and come from the best team you know like we'd been the grand final like sort of three years in a row I think and best defensive team and all that sort of stuff and I came back to a team that had no culture no coach mainly was a like sorry John but he wasn't a very good coach you know

And certainly not a good man manager.

It's okay if you're not a good coach, but you've either got to be a man manager or you've got to be technically really good coach, right?

The best are technically good coaches and good people, you know, a good man manager.

He was neither.

So, you know, I felt like I was thrust into a role where I started coaching, you know, and then...

You know, when you're focusing on, like, I was focusing on so many things trying to get us to a level.

And then, you know, like...

like the way I spoke to the players and stuff, like on the field, like, like you don't have time to fuck around on the field.

Right.

So you, you, you say what you think, but a lot of the guys that, that just, they just couldn't handle it.

Right.

So it was just like, it's going one ear and out the other.

And they'd be like, if you can't talk to me like that, you know, whereas in Australia you can, you can say what you think, you know, and guys just wear it because they know it's true.

Right.

Whereas these guys didn't really know whether no, that they were good, they were bad or they were indifferent.

Right.

So yeah,

It was really, really hard.

You know, he had a great halfback.