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Whateley

The Leadership Portfolio with Luke Hodge (16.06.26)

16 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What insights does Luke Hodge share about Damien Hardwick's coaching style?

0.031 - 18.231 Luke Hodge

Our leadership portfolio is run by Luke Hodge. Hello to you, Hodgie. Morning, Gerard. Don't you love an angry Damien Hardwick? I know when he coaches at Hawthorne, he was so passionate. You could sort of see when those eyes got angry. The eyes just sharpened up a little bit. The voice got a bit deeper, a bit firmer.

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19.272 - 32.528 Luke Hodge

But mind you, at the start of the show, he spoke to Swanee, and Swanee had calmed him down after his comments post Geelong, and he put his hand up and said that, look, it wasn't the right thing that he had said, and Swanee's a ripping guy. He loved it. It was just a one-on-one conversation. He pumped up Swanee's leadership.

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33.109 - 50.693 Luke Hodge

But then when he got down to the back of it, what really got his blood boiling again. But he also put his hand up and said that my club are talking to other clubs as well. So it was big. It went round in circles of a nice placid and angry finish. A little bit of open up saying that we're doing the same thing that we don't want other clubs to do to our players.

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50.673 - 73.525 Luke Hodge

um but it is this is what this is what footy revolves around it's who goes where who's going to make their team better gold coast have successfully the last couple years have gone out and brought players into their football club that have made them better players but unfortunately gold coast over the years have had a lot of quality high draft picks being taken away because the lure to go to victoria to play the mcg or back to other states so

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73.505 - 81.242 Luke Hodge

It's funny, but what I do know from Dimmer last night, he's all over the shop. He's a bit angry, but also he sounds concerned as well.

81.923 - 102.846 Gerard Whateley

And he does have extreme cause for concern, I think, at the moment. I want to come back to that and do it properly. Just the overall, and Lee Matthews said, you know, diabolical for team spirit last night. We are in a really peculiar phase because nothing can happen in season. We don't have trade windows. There's not the possibility of these players being traded next week.

103.147 - 108.237 Gerard Whateley

It feels more acute now than it was in your leading days.

108.453 - 126.445 Luke Hodge

We only had the one... In my opinion, he was the best player in the competition in Buddy. So he was the only run. We had other blokes that got touted or their names were mentioned, but not to the probably extent as what we had or we have at the moment. And what we realised that it was affecting Bud's performance. You probably look at a Humphreys very similar.

126.425 - 143.1 Luke Hodge

And we sat down with him as a leadership group and we had Clarko in the meeting as well. But we run as a leadership group and just said to Bud, whatever happens at the end of the year, we want you to stay. Understand if you want to go, because he had that massive, it was $12 million for six years or something that was touted from Gold Coast.

Chapter 2: How has Gold Coast's performance impacted player recruitment?

192.187 - 207.715 Luke Hodge

It doesn't happen in the outside world in business, I can tell you that. But what players and what clubs need to do is actually sit down one-on-one and be honest. That is where it is. And I know sometimes for players, managers will say, don't be too honest because you still want to be getting a game.

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207.695 - 220.175 Luke Hodge

But if it's a serious club who's pushing for a premiership or you look at Gold Coast who are pushing for a top eight, top four, and we all know their list can get there, sit down and have good old honest conversations to see, can we push through this?

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220.235 - 227.526 Luke Hodge

And then when it gets to the end of the season, hopefully we've had the success that we know that we can and we can move on and you either stay or you go, but we do it as a team and as a group.

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227.506 - 234.741 Gerard Whateley

So now's the buy for the Brisbane Lions, and they have two players who are right in this window now, Lockie Neal and Zach Bailey.

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236.164 - 257.81 Luke Hodge

I think with the Lockie Neal one, when it comes to family side of things, and Chris Fagan's probably got two thoughts there. One is Lockie with his age, and he understands the list that's coming through. So he might think it could be the best for Lockie to either move closer to his family or a contract that's obviously might not be able to say no to at his age.

258.451 - 272.683 Luke Hodge

But Faggs is also sitting here thinking, we've got so many young guys that might be able to come through, even though Lockie Neal is leading their, I'd say personally that he's leading their best and fairest by a long way at this stage. But what's going to happen the next five or six years are these young guys can develop and turn into the next Lockie Neal.

272.663 - 290.487 Luke Hodge

The Zach Bailey one's a little bit different because I think he's had the most impact over the last three grand finals. In big games, he stands up. His speed, his burst from a stoppage. He will add so much to that football club if he stays there just by he knows what to do on that turn of speed that we've seen him do it over the last three years.

290.737 - 312.525 Luke Hodge

And if Lockie does go, there's a void for him to go into that midfield as well. The question is the money side of things. And will the rest of the players be happy that he's on the touted 1.5, 1.6 over a seven-year contract? That's the biggest question for the football club. I feel that the Lions can understand why this has taken Zach Bailey a long time to make a decision because...

312.505 - 331.269 Luke Hodge

Let's be honest, it could be $3 million difference between the Adelaide and the Brisbane Lions deal, and you sit back and go, where's loyalty? When you're finished football, that's a lot of money in football, but outside of football, what are you thinking of his future? So I think the club can definitely understand why it's been such a hard decision for Zach.

Chapter 3: What concerns does Luke Hodge express about the Western Bulldogs?

367.122 - 386.995 Luke Hodge

So it did scratch my head at their age... And where they are list-wise, as good as Lockie Neal is, I don't think he'll get them straight back into a top four contender. But who knows? Obviously, they like what he's seen. And everyone's liked what they've seen from Lockie this year. His season so far has been as good as any.

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386.975 - 392.166 Gerard Whateley

Let's do Gold Coast then. What are you seeing at the moment? What worries you most?

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394.11 - 413.175 Luke Hodge

What worries me the most for Gold Coast is the murmurings of the players are frustrated with the coaches, the coaches are frustrated with the players. And that happens, but obviously when you have losses, that's where the cracks really open up and it starts to get a little bit worse. And the worst part about it, people start to talk outside the football club.

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413.215 - 435.342 Luke Hodge

When you're winning and things are going okay, things like that can be kept in-house. And what I'll do there is I'll bring you back to what I mentioned about the Bud situation is if there's any issues with the football club, the biggest and the best way to sort those out is communication. The leadership group should get into a room with the coach, the GM, possibly the other coaches.

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435.322 - 450.503 Luke Hodge

And have an honest two-hour chat of where we are, what we need. What is frustrating the coaches about the players? And it might be some of the leadership group. It might be some of the other younger guys that are coming through. And on the flip side, what's frustrating the players from the coaches? What do they want from each other?

450.543 - 467.316 Luke Hodge

Because unless the coaches and the leadership group can understand where each other are at, that can then flow into the rest of the players. And if you get buy-in from coaches, if you get buy-in from the leadership group, You get buy-in from the rest of the group because that's just the peer pressure that happens in a football club. That's what we talk about, leadership from the top down.

469.16 - 487.722 Luke Hodge

The other concern with the players, sorry, the coaches there is that almost there's a little bit of entitlement to the list that they should be doing more. You've got high draft picks. I'll look through. I think they've got 13 first-round draft picks they're very lucky to have that many. But also that comes with everyone entitled to, hey, I should be having more midfield time.

487.922 - 507.661 Luke Hodge

I should be playing this position. I'm a young forward. If you look at Jed Walt, he feels that he should be in that best forward line. But then you look at the other ones. They've got King. They've got Jamara, who they've now bought in as well. Reid is another one. So that's the tussle of having so many high-round draft picks is who gets their spot.

508.262 - 526.083 Luke Hodge

And then when you bring in blokes like Petrarca and Jamara this year, you've got Dylan Patterson, who's picked five, you've got Zeke Yulin, who's picked two, Jai Murray picks 17, add in Jed Walter, three, Humphrey, six, Leo Lombard, nine. But then the blokes who moved out last year was the Ainsworth, the Butterick, the Fiorini, the Flanders, the Dave Swallow.

Chapter 4: What challenges do Brisbane Lions face with player contracts?

957.498 - 971.337 Luke Hodge

But I love the part where it was all about, I'm not going to do it if it's not the best thing for the Geelong Footy Club. He understands what that football club has done for him, was able to bring him back to his hometown. But I think that's, we just spoke about the leadership mentality of Gold Coast.

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971.758 - 981.872 Luke Hodge

If I was Dimmer, I'd be playing that to them, saying this is a bloke who's done everything in football almost, and he's still putting the club before himself. This is the mindset that other young blokes should start to trend between it.

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981.852 - 992.858 Luke Hodge

trend towards and there's no doubt that Danger early on had a little bit of the Gold Coast mindset because all young kids do to get drafted especially high but listen to how he finished his career let's start to take a little bit of a mindset like that

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994.019 - 1004.172 Gerard Whateley

The best leader in the game right now is Jordan Dawson. So we did this four weeks ago. He was both in our top four. I suspect if we did it today, he would be number one. Would he not?

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1005.574 - 1019.993 Luke Hodge

I think so. More so the fact that what he's been able to handle, and leadership comes on field, off field, and being able to focus on certain things when things aren't going your way in a personal life, and then you add on what

1020.445 - 1042.129 Luke Hodge

he's gone through and that's just to another extent which no one you couldn't even dream you couldn't even think about what he and his family have gone through to show his mental strength to be able to handle himself how he did we were lucky enough on channel 7 last week to sit down and Haim interviewed him You can see the pain post-game. You can see when he talks how much hurt he is.

1042.21 - 1062.491 Luke Hodge

But footy's that freedom for him just to go and release himself. So for him to be able to perform how he has with what he's gone through, I think everyone would stand back and just say he's definitely one of the better leaders that we've seen over the years. And I interviewed Bont on the same night and sort of mentioned how much admiration and how much do you admire him?

1062.531 - 1080.405 Luke Hodge

And he spoke that highly of him that we need to do something on field because he's just got that mental strength and they weren't able to. He had three goals in the first quarter and went and did what he did. So kudos to what Jordan Dawson has been able to do. But yeah, what he's been through, it's numbing how painful he must be.

1080.385 - 1092.408 Gerard Whateley

How inspiring for his teammates is for him to be able to do that. So they're seeing it firsthand and then he goes out and shows them the way. It really is a wonder to behold at the moment.

Chapter 5: How can communication improve team dynamics in footy?

1202.813 - 1219.274 Luke Hodge

For the doggies players, if I was coaching, I'd go back and show them, this is what we did when we upset a really good top four team. This is what we did to allow a team who finished top of the ladder but didn't win any finals last year run over us. We had no yelp at all. So that's a little bit of maturity side of things for the doggies.

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1219.294 - 1225.582 Luke Hodge

If you're going to be a top four team, it's week in, week out. Be nasty. Be the best you can be. You can't pick and choose. That's what's going to happen to you.

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1225.843 - 1229.968 Gerard Whateley

Can you imagine the dogs without English? We've sort of seen that. It looks terrible.

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1230.32 - 1248.854 Luke Hodge

Well, yeah, you're spot on. You've seen the dogs without English. And I don't think if you're a list manager at the doggies, you're not letting him go because those stats, the win-loss of with and without their big Ruckman, it's not impressive. No. Are you Perth Thursday night? Yes, I'll be over there. What a game, hey? Can't wait.

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1249.034 - 1266.835 Luke Hodge

I'm looking down at the Frio and the Cat stats at the moment just to – their comparison of how good both teams are. So we just want to see who can show up on a big Thursday night game. Will Danger travel as well? A short break for him. So, look, it's going to be a quality game Thursday night.

1266.855 - 1272.95 Gerard Whateley

Looking forward to it. We should get Wharfie time, shouldn't we? It should be. If it's close in the last quarter, I'm just all in it for Wharfie time now.

Chapter 6: What are the implications of player loyalty in the AFL?

1273.431 - 1279.446 Luke Hodge

That's a non-negotiable. Wharfie time will rock up. There's no sure thing. All right. Hodgey terrific. Thank you, Gerard.

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