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Whateley

The Leadership Portfolio with Luke Hodge (05.05.26)

05 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What leadership insights does Luke Hodge share about sport?

0.031 - 17.25 Luke Hodge

We start our Tuesdays with a leadership portfolio in Luke Hodge. Hello to you, Hodge. Morning, Gerard. You talk about passion with sport. We had Scott Withers on Thursday at halftime. Tell you what energy. He brings passion, energy, and to a game that he knows nothing about.

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17.27 - 39.505 Luke Hodge

He threw us back into the third quarter on Thursday night, and you were pumped up just listening to him, like how much he just loves sport, he loves the MCG, 80,000 people in there. But if you're looking as a spectator, you just hope that your players have the same kind of passion as what Scott does for a game or a league that he knows nothing about because...

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39.856 - 52.369 Luke Hodge

I tell you what, you knew exactly where you stood with him. He shook your hand. He looked you in the eye. He was passionate talking about it. Loved being in Australia. Loved our game. Unfortunately, sometimes our spectators don't love it as much as what he did on Thursday night.

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52.629 - 69.407 Gerard Whateley

All right, I'm not going to torture you with Carlton today, but I just want to run a couple of things by you. It feels to me, so if I compared you and Patrick Cripps, he is living the complete opposite to the career that you lived. Is that a fair observation?

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70.366 - 90.585 Luke Hodge

Yeah, while you're a leader, yes, it would have been, yeah. So I never went through a stage where, I think this is the third, fourth time that he's been through the murmurs of a coach that's in a bit of trouble. He had the Bolton, had the Teague, had the Malthouse. And unfortunately for him and for Voss, the same murmurs are going at his football club.

91.038 - 107.297 Luke Hodge

So yeah, when I was a leader at Hawthorne, we had a pretty stable off-field. We had a pretty stable coaching staff. Yes, we lost coaches, but that was because they had opportunities to go and lead other clubs. But we always looked at it as you're replacing with someone else who can come in and add something different to your group.

108.118 - 112.063 Luke Hodge

Yeah, so you could sort of say our journeys were polar opposites as leaders.

112.243 - 126.698 Gerard Whateley

So do you feel for him now? I think there's a bit of PTSD that goes on with these things once you've lived through coach sacking, coach sacking, coach sacking, and now there just seems this grim march to the next coach sacking.

127.015 - 143.703 Luke Hodge

Yeah. And unfortunately, it looks like it's not only affected him, but the other leaders as well. And look, when you're going through some tough times, and I know that when I moved to Brisbane, you went through some tough times as a leader because you know what the kids want to try and do, but they just can't quite execute it.

Chapter 2: How does Luke Hodge compare his career to Patrick Cripps' current situation?

216.893 - 239.079 Luke Hodge

I snagged a couple goals. I went to contest after contest. Go back and watch that first minute. I tracked him. The only time that he got any contact, obviously, pitting it with the ruck, he was pushing the shove and going inside defensive 50, but any time he got any contact from a non-ruckman... in that first minute and a half was when Dean fell backwards from a contest and ran into him.

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239.099 - 259.546 Luke Hodge

That was the only time. And then they kicked a goal in the first minute of the game. This is St Kilda. He runs straight past Jacob Wiedering, who's got his head down looking at the ground. And the last person to get back into that centre circle was Tom Deconing. At that point, he's half a metre away from Paddy Cripps. Paddy looks at him, turns around. Who gets the next clearance?

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260.948 - 276.844 Luke Hodge

Tom Deconing gets the ball and surges it forward. And blokes just run past him. And I know it's a simple part. It's not about going to get reported, as I said. It's not about all that dirty stuff. But it's letting him know that, hey, we're going to stand for something as a collective group. I looked at that going, I turned it off.

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276.964 - 289.979 Luke Hodge

I didn't want to watch how much further because I'm sitting there thinking, when was the next time he was going to get touched by anyone else than a Ruckman? And as a group, they've got Brisbane this week. You're not going to go into this game thinking, oh, we're going to win. Go into it with a different target.

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290.039 - 304.676 Luke Hodge

Maybe it's something where, as a collective group, we might be able to do something and stick at it for four quarters. Because, you know what? That may have helped Pitnett. If Pitnett turns around and he's got four of his midfielders running into Tom Deconing, guess what? He might run a bit harder. He might be able to be a bit more physical.

304.696 - 322.816 Luke Hodge

He might be able to push forward because Tom Deconing is tired from getting himself up off the ground. Because he doesn't want to run, because he's got to run around three or four midfielders, Because every time he runs past him, he's getting hit in the shoulder, in the arm, in the bicep, in the tricep, anywhere just to delay him from getting to that next contest.

323.396 - 339.531 Luke Hodge

This is the small little parts that when you're going through a tough time at a football club, narrow the focus and do have a focus of something that you can all do as a collective. Because guess what? Win, lose or draw, I can go as a coach or as a leader, I can go back on Monday morning and say, we had this as a target. And guess what?

339.691 - 361.881 Luke Hodge

To a man, we held each other accountable and we ticked that box. I'm not saying that. Make a simple little task as a player, as a collective, as a group, because at the end, if I was a Carlton supporter, and I hate saying this, I'd feel very similar to sit back and go, here we go again. No fight, no anger, no hurt, no passion. And then they sit there and frustrated.

362.442 - 365.867 Luke Hodge

So it's a tough, because they've gone through it time and time again, and so have the Bombers.

Chapter 3: What challenges do players face during coaching changes?

374 - 390.505 Luke Hodge

And I'm not sitting back having a go at the Carlton boys because you know that sometimes when you try harder, it doesn't work that way and things go, it gets worse. But just tick the box. Just tick the box and have a crack. So if you make a mistake, make a mistake because you care.

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392.543 - 393.465 Gerard Whateley

Oh, you can't.

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393.485 - 402.107 Luke Hodge

Sorry, Gerard, that's a little bit of a... Oh, that's outstanding. I didn't quite realise we were going to end up there. I'm sweating here, Gerard. It's not because of the heat up here either.

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402.288 - 423.945 Gerard Whateley

And that plays to your demeanour and the way that you played your career. So I don't know whether I even want to ask a follow-up. I feel like we got the whole lot. We're hurtling along in the Carlton story to the point where people are saying Cripps is finished and got to get him out at the end of the year. I just wanted to get your perspective on that.

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424.646 - 442.968 Luke Hodge

Football's changed. I'm sitting here looking at. And I'm sitting there going, he's a much beloved Carlton player, leader. Everyone loves him. Whether you're bearing for Carlton or not, you respect the way he's gone about his football. You respect the person who he is off the football field. I think I said something about Nick Dacos. No arrogance. They're just nice people.

442.988 - 463.472 Luke Hodge

Whenever you see him face-to-face, they're just good, honest people. And it's a bonus that they can dominate a football field. Changing teams, it's been more acceptable. We're getting more like the overseas where you can swap teams late in your career. I know I did it and I never thought I'd ever do it before Jordan Lewis and Sam Mitchell did it. Sam Mitchell's a prior captain.

463.552 - 473.462 Luke Hodge

Jordan Lewis was an All-Australian, a BNF winner at the Hawks, played over 250 games there. And Mitch and myself had played 300 games. So I look at Paddy Cripps and go, I don't want to see him

Chapter 4: How can teams improve their performance during tough times?

474.32 - 488.988 Luke Hodge

finish his career the last three, four, five years of the game or everyone thinking about his end finish at Carlton. If that means he needs a little bit of fresh air, he needs to go and have a look, is the grass greener at another club and finish off with a little bit of energy, a bit of a spark.

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489.028 - 500.868 Luke Hodge

Because I know that when I went up to Brisbane, I felt like I was on my last legs at Hawthorne because we'd gone through the same routine, the same voice. going up to Brisbane, you get this little bit of energy because you're around new kids. It wasn't about winning the whole time.

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500.908 - 519.497 Luke Hodge

It was about what knowledge does Paddy Cripps, what knowledge has Paddy Cripps learnt over the last 10, 12, 13, 14 years that he could pass on to maybe it is a West Coast young guy. Because I looked at a few of the West Coast players on the weekend. They've got a lot of talent, but they make so many mistakes, which has cost them the goal. It cost them the game by the easy goals that they gave up.

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520.085 - 532.176 Luke Hodge

does some of that knowledge fast track some of their development and Paddy gets to go home? And I'm not saying he should. I'm just saying that it's more acceptable these days. And I want to see such a great of that football club finish on a good note.

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532.356 - 545.729 Luke Hodge

And it might not be in the blue jumper, but tell you what, I'll always remember him as a gun at the blues, but maybe he might be able to take his talents and his expertise and his leadership to another club to help him see it with a bit of, help him freshen up anyway.

546.77 - 547.901 Gerard Whateley

Awesome. All right.

549.103 - 552.651 Luke Hodge

Please, for the Blues supporters, don't have a crack. No, no.

552.671 - 566.14 Gerard Whateley

They think they've found their new coach, quite frankly. They're pleased for you to go on. Anyway, just give me – I don't want to get bogged down in this. Just give me a quick word on the Brisbane whiteboard. Was that in operation when you were there?

566.491 - 584.587 Luke Hodge

Yes. Yeah. And I'll take this back to further at Hawthorne. What coaches do is they bring up ways of how do players understand or what knowledge do players have of their opposition? So we used to do little games where you'd roll the dice and whatever letter would come up and it would say it'd be a T, okay? And we're playing Richmond. You need to go up there.

Chapter 5: What strategies does Hodge suggest for targeting opponents?

692.607 - 711.478 Luke Hodge

If they took it in a different way, it might be a bit more of an issue. But they both know these players so well. It's a bit of banter which would be spoken about to and fro. So I can understand why people were upset when they initially thought... If it was put as a weakness, does that open another can of worms?

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711.558 - 731.363 Luke Hodge

But I can understand why people cracked it, but I spoke to Jackson, both Bronte and Jackson. They are fine with what happened and they're happy to move on because they knew it's not coming from a mean spot. But in the environment that we are, anytime something like that gets leaked out, people always think to the worst and that's what people have done this time.

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731.647 - 748.227 Gerard Whateley

Our leadership portfolio has always been in good hands and maybe never more so than today with Luke Hodge. We will look toward Fremantle and Hawthorne, maybe a glance back at the Eagles too from what you just mentioned there with Hodgie coming up. The 40 Wings temper text is 0433 98 11 16.

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748.608 - 756.017 Gerard Whateley

Find your personalised bedtime solution with our friendly neighbourhood sleep advisors, 40 Wings, serious about sleep.

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757.06 - 775.086 Unknown

Does it not suggest that you're not moving as quickly as you would like? Well, I think that's a bit of an unfair question, to be honest, Gaz. We've got 15 new players on our list. We've had an incredible amount of turnover in the last two years since I've been at the football club. I understand it's been a challenging time for our football club for five years.

775.066 - 780.617 Unknown

But we feel like we're on the right path and it's going to take some time, but we're doing the right things to build a premiership list.

780.637 - 790.155 Gerard Whateley

West Coast coach Andrew McWalter and Gary Lyon on 360 last night, a good spirited exchange. What do you think of the Eagles right now, Hodgie?

790.135 - 804.997 Luke Hodge

First of all, I like a coach that's happy to stand up for his side and not back down. And when you lose a game that you probably should have won on the weekend, sometimes you just agree with whoever's interviewing you and sort of go along with that style. But he stood up and he firmly believed that they're in a better position.

805.738 - 810.866 Luke Hodge

I went back and looked at a lot of the Richmond goals and I tend to agree.

Chapter 6: What role does passion play in sports according to Hodge?

810.926 - 829.708 Luke Hodge

Like you look back there, a lot of the stuff, a lot of the errors that they made was because they're young, they're inexperienced. And a lot of the stuff that comes with a bit more games, a bit more playing together, even the simple things of the one-on-one contest, like Richmond took a lot of marks in their Ford 50. But it's the decision of when to mark versus when to spoil.

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829.909 - 848.555 Luke Hodge

You get a better understanding on that the more games you play, the more that you play against certain players. You know that you can sort of mark against them compared to the spoil. So that comes with experience, marking versus spoil. The other one is as a collective team defense, when to drop off versus when to stay with your man. That's a system that takes 12 months, 24 months.

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848.996 - 855.445 Luke Hodge

It takes a long time for all these guys, especially as you just said then, there's 15 new players on the list trying to understand this defensive system.

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855.425 - 879.323 Luke Hodge

and the other one which is so frustrating which takes years to get out of is stop ball watching the amount of times when you sit back and someone is just looking at someone with the ball a West Coast player is watching a Richmond person with the ball and then their opponent would just run goal side and all of a sudden they have an impact a couple little structural set up things behind the ball but this all comes with time so you understand they should have won the game from how easy Richmond scored their goals but

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879.303 - 889.596 Luke Hodge

You look at a couple of guys that keep Bolter stood up because he's more experienced and just a bigger body. The defenders playing on him in time will put on that size and be able to handle the one-on-one contest a lot better. So I do agree.

889.616 - 904.774 Luke Hodge

They do look a lot better around the ball, but it's just those little ones, the one-on-one contest, the dropping off versus staying on your man and the, the old sin of a midfielder or a defender, stop ball watching and actually stay in the moment. What can you do to impact now? If you can't impact where the ball is, then have a look around you.

905.115 - 910.249 Luke Hodge

Is my man getting dangerous or can I slide back, help out and, and support my defenders. All these little things come in time.

911.23 - 922.502 Gerard Whateley

All right, let's stay in the West. Thursday night, it's easy to be drawn to this all week. Fremantle and Hawthorne, it shapes as one of the key markers of the season. How have you started to frame this?

923.443 - 942.107 Luke Hodge

Well, I think it's the big test for Freo. Are they there yet? That is the big question. They lost the final last year, and I think they would have taken a lot of areas from that that they need to improve on, especially in clutch position, in clutch games. What decision do I make? They've had a really good history against Hawthorne, so I think they've won seven of the last eight against the Hawks.

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