Ross Lyon protege Matthew Pavlich believes the coach can bring St Kilda back to finals

Nine years as captain, 353 games, 700 goals, six best and fairests, eight All-Australians across every line on the ground. Pavlich has done just about everything there is to be done in the game and much of his career was under Lyon.

So can Lyon get the Saints back to winning?

“I think he will,” Pavlich says.

“What I like about St Kilda’s list is they’re a bit of an older list, the fourth or fifth oldest list. I don‘t necessarily like that for their development and where they can go, but I like it for Ross.

“I think this notion that he can’t rebuild is a bit of a folly, but what I do like is that he can go in and shift pretty quickly a group that has been eighth, ninth, 10th. He’ll be able to straighten them up and really drive high performance because that’s what he does well.”

Although Pavlich’s reflections on Lyon as a coach are fond, he remembers the hard stuff, too.

“He’s the best coach I had, but he’s a hard taskmaster and he starts at the top. So if the leaders aren’t playing well or if the captain’s not pulling his weight he just beelines straight at you,” Pavlich says.

“But it was what we needed, it was what I needed to shift my leadership and to keep evolving.

“When he first came in, we were setting new standards for everything. On fitness, on game plan and on the trademark, living and breathing it day in and day out.

“He was very technical about wingers and midfield flips, he brought a whole new IP and knowledge, as well as a hard-nosed attitude. He was so brutal, so sarcastic but brutal with his feedback.”

It took some getting used to.

“‘You’re a great person, but’ … basically he’d reel off all the things you’re shit at,” Pavlich says with a laugh.

“I remember this one at halftime, Ross wasn’t happy. He was saying, ‘You get the ball at half forward and you go back, put the ball on the ground’. He was speaking to Paul Duffield at the time.

“‘You get your comb out, you‘re combing your hair…. how about you just get the ball inside the forward 50, Paul?’”

His captain wasn’t absolved from the firing line, either.

“He gave me a ripper in his first year, we were up at the Gold Coast, playing an expansion team. We are getting done at half time. It’s one of those slippery, early season games, where it’s humid, and we’re getting smacked, I’d hardly touched it playing as a forward,” Pavlich says.

“He’s come steaming into the rooms, I’ve stripped off because I was so wet and so new jumper, new shorts, got a towel was getting ready for the second half.

“We’ve all come together, and he’s come straight to me.

“‘Have a look at our captain, he looks pristine. Hasn’t got a bead of sweat on him, he wouldn’t bruise a grape’.”

With all of his achievements in the game, Pavlich does have some sore points. No premiership next to his name feels like failure at times.

“At my worst moments, I look at life as yes and no and binary, when there‘s a whole heap of grey, like my hair these days.” Pavlich says.

“So, did I win a premiership? No. So on my bad days, I go, well I failed and there’s this feeling at times when you think, I haven’t succeeded.

“Now I can intellectualise the fact that that‘s all bullshit. I can work through the relationships and the people you meet, the better opportunities the game and the AFL have afforded me and my family, all the goodwill and everything else.

“But what I‘m feeling in my bad times, that’s just what I feel and that’s OK as well. I think getting older really helps, having kids and a family. But yeah, I think there’s times you look back and go, well my ultimate goal as an AFL player and as a captain was to win a premiership and it’s not there.”

After losing the 2013 Grand Final to Hawthorn, Fremantle were again strong in 2015 with a home preliminary final against the Hawks at Subiaco Oval. It’s the one that stings the most for Pavlich.

He hurt his calf in the last quarter and had mixed emotions.

“I did my calf, I’m limping around, dealing with this feeling of, ‘Geez we’re still in this game’, but thinking, ‘Shit can I play next week?’” Pavlich says.

“I remember after the game, the physio saying this would have been a challenge if we’d won. Because you can’t really fix a torn calf, you can’t jab it, can’t rehab it. That’s a hypothetical we’ll never know the answer to.

“At that point in time I‘m driving out of my driveway to the game thinking, ‘Is this the last AFL game I’m ever going to play?’ Because I was 33 or whatever it was, the body had started to pack up and mentally also.

“I remember walking back out onto the ground after everyone had gone. I walked out sort of not far onto the ground and my family came out and joined me, I just started crying.

“It was sort of a moment if I reflect back and think now, I know the opportunity for that group was gone that night. I knew there was no coming back.”

Catch the full chat with Matthew Pavlich on the BackChat Podcast below.