Powerhouse Parrots: Coach Trent McMicking’s bid for historic ’Gatha glory with flag three-peat

Right place, right time.

As the Parrots cast around for a coach for the 2022 season, McMicking was back living in South Gippsland and had finished up after seven years on the coaching staff under Gary Ayres at VFL club Port Melbourne.

Paul Carbis guided the ‘Gatha to the 2018 premiership and to the 2019 grand final, and he had them 9-1 when Covid cut off the 2021 season. But he was based in Melbourne and the club decided it needed a local in charge.

McMicking, originally from Tarwin, had bought a house at Inverloch. A 20-minute drive from Leongatha, it was local enough.

Offered the job over a pot and a parma with club president Mal Mackie, he jumped at it, knowing he had landed at a strong club poised for more success.

It was achieved under his wing, with premierships in 2022 and again in 2023. After finishing on top of the ladder this year, the Parrots are striving to make it three in a row.

It would be a historic first for the Leongatha, which a number of times in its distinguished history has gone back-to-back but never stretched its league dominance to a three-peat.

Not that McMicking has been thinking about it; it’s “way, way too far ahead’’. He says there is little between the top four or five teams and if the Parrots are to win it again, it will take nothing less than their best.

“It starts again now. We’re well aware that even though we landed on top, there’s nothing between any of the sides,’’ he says. “We lost two games to Morwell this year and they didn’t even make it.’’

The ‘Gatha finished with 15 wins and three losses despite a rotten run with injuries. McMicking says his team hasn’t made it through a game with a full bench.

The long list of casualties created opportunities and McMicking and his match committee used 43 players, many of them youngsters.

“That’s actually been a good thing to happen to the club, to have all these injuries … we’ve been able to play kids all year,’’ he says.

“They wouldn’t have got a game in a normal year. This year we’ve played kid after kid. Credit to them and the leadership group and the players’ competitiveness that we’ve been able to stay around the top.’’

*****

Well before he coached Leongatha, McMicking had an appreciation of its standing in South Gippsland.

As a major country league club, it regularly attracted players from smaller, surrounding towns who were wanting to try their luck at a better level of football. McMicking was not one of them, but he knew a few ambitious fellows who headed for the ’Gatha and the Gippsland competition (the old La Trobe Valley league).

McMicking played senior football for Tarwin Sharks, when he was on the family farm and after he moved to Melbourne to establish a gardening business. He and other city-based players would meet at Chadstone and two carloads would hit the road on Thursday afternoons.

Part of the Sharks’ first premiership team in 2004, he also got his start in coaching at his home club, as an assistant. McMicking took his first senior position with Highett in the Southern league in 2010 – and 12 months later was a premiership coach, lifting the club into first division.

“It was all based on relationships,’’ he says of his approach at Highett. “Just trying to get an understanding of what the players were like and what was going on outside of footy, and then trying to build a relationship where they could trust me and I could trust them. I felt like if I could get that trust, then we could have critical conversations and hopefully improve each other.

“That was my philosophy then and it still is today, spending the time and getting to know them and understand what makes them tick.’’

Wanting to be involved at a higher level, McMicking moved to Port Melbourne in the VFL. He did everything with the Borough, from head of development to coaching the reserves and overseeing a line in the senior team.

For one match he also served as senior coach, filling in for an ill Ayres. Port won – and McMicking still likes to say he’s going at 100 per cent in the VFL.

“It was a great experience. I was able to build on my philosophies, I guess … even create my philosophies on coaching and footy and how I wanted things to look, standards,’’ he says of his time at the Borough.

“Having never played at that level, it was definitely the most I ever learnt.’’

What did he take from Ayres?

“I can put it in one word: honesty. I’ll never forget how honest he was. Sometimes it was brutal. I’ve ran with that ever since. I don’t shy away from telling guys they’re doing the wrong thing.’’

He stayed with Ayres until the end of 2021, when Port ended the former Hawthorn champion’s long tenure in the VFL. McMicking, by then living at Inverloch, was keen to coach on – and, right place, right time, it was to be at Leongatha.

Former player Mark Lafferty, who also spent time at Port, put the Parrots onto him. He knew what he was taking on.

“Don’t worry, I’m very understanding of the fact that I’m one of the luckiest coaches in country Victoria with what I inherited, the playing list, the club culture and the way the club is run,’’ McMicking says.

“I don’t think there would be too many luckier coaches, to be honest. It’s crazy.’’

But Mackie says it was the Gatha’s lucky day when it secured McMicking. He says he has brought professionalism and high standards to the club.

“He ticks every box, every box,’’ Mackie says.

As he settled in at Leongatha, McMicking saw a reminder of Port Melbourne. He thought Parrots leaders Tom Marriott and Cade Maskell carried themselves like Borough captains John Baird and Toby Pinwill.

“I did think there were similarities in the playing group and the closeness and the care for each other,’’ he says.

The Parrots defeated Sale in the 2022 grand final, going through the season undefeated. They lost three games when they came from third to get past South Gippsland rival Wonthaggi in last year’s decider.

Home-nurtured talent is driving the ’Gatha glory. Mackie says he gets annoyed when people claim his club buys success.

“There was a bloke on social media knocking us saying we were paying out a heap of money,’’ he says. “Well, have a look at last year’s side. Nineteen of the blokes in that side came through our juniors.’’

The Parrots – the home club of Jarryd Roughead and Dyson Heppell – continue to produce players.

Will Dawson, given a senior debut in 2022, was drafted by North Melbourne last year. Tom Hanily was taken by Sydney in this year’s mid-season draft. Xavier Lindsay, who played five senior games for Leongatha last year, is expected to be a high draft pick in November.

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McMicking says the playing list has remained “pretty stable’’, as has the committee under long-term president Mackie.

“He’s an extraordinary leader,’’ he says of Mackie. “He does the most work I’ve seen from any president behind the scenes. He goes above and beyond for the players as well. He bleeds green and gold.’’

- Leongatha will play Moe in Saturday’s Gippsland league second semi-final at Leongatha Recreation Reserve.