Paul Roos (Australian rules footballer)

Paul Roos
Personal information
Full name	Paul Roos
Nickname(s)	Roosy
Date of birth	(1963-06-27) 27 June 1963
Original team(s)	Beverly Hills (EFL)
Height / weight	188cm / 88kg
Career highlights
Sydney premiership coach 2005 Australian Football Hall of Fame Mitchell Medal 1985, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1994 E. J. Whitten Medal 1985 (captain), 1988 (captain) Leigh Matthews Trophy 1986 Fitzroy captain 1988–1990, 1992–1994 Fitzroy leading goalkicker 1990 All-Australian Team 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997 All-Australian coach 2005
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Paul Roos (born 27 June 1963) is a former Australian rules football player and coach in the VFL and Australian Football League.

Playing the majority of his career with Fitzroy, Roos was one of the teams greats, captaining the side for a long time and was acknowledged as its best player for several seasons, being named in the Fitzroy team of the 20th Century.

Roos also achieved league recognition as an all time great. He is in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, was named All-Australian seven times, received the league's (MVP) most valuable player award and represented Victoria on several occasions in State of Origin. He is the AFL/VFL record holder for the number of games played wearing the number 1 jumper – which he wore in every one of his 356 games at Fitzroy and Sydney.

His coaching record includes steering Sydney to a record number of finals series and a 2005 premiership. Roos is the only interim coach to win a premiership, having been appointed interim Swans coach midway through the 2002 AFL season.

Paul Roos is one of Australia's most admired sporting personalities and is also a newspaper columnist and professional speaker. He is regarded as one of Australia's leading motivational keynote presenters. At the end of the 2009 season Roos announced that he would retire at the end of the 2010 season.

Early life

Roos grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Donvale and played junior football with Beverley Hills Football Club in Doncaster East. He attended Whitefriars College from 1975 until 1981.

Playing career

Fitzroy

Roos was recruited by the Fitzroy Football Club, where he was to play the majority of his career. His first league game was round 4 on Sunday, 18 April 1982, against the Sydney Swans at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He developed a reputation for being a solid defender, playing primarily in the centre half-back position.

Roos captained Fitzroy 122 times in seasons 1988–1990 and 1992–1994 during difficult times with the constant threat of merger and relocation. In 1986, Roos polled a career high 16 votes in the Brownlow Medal to finish runner-up. He ended his career with 121 Brownlow votes (98 with Fitzroy and 23 with Sydney).

During his playing career at Fitzroy, he was selected as an All-Australian in 1987, 1988, 1991 (as captain) and 1992 (as captain). He also represented Victoria in State of Origin as captain.

Sydney

He finished his career at the Sydney Swans with 87 games and 19 goals during seasons 1995–1998. While Roos was at the Swans, he was one of Sydney's best in the 1996 AFL Grand Final loss to North Melbourne. He again qualified as an All-Australian in 1996 and 1997.

In his playing days, he was often cheered by supporters with a distinctive, deep rolling roar of "ROOOOOOS!".

Coaching career

USA

When his career ended, Roos spent some time in the United States and coached the national side to victory over Canada. He is often credited as one of the key people in the success of the fledgling United States Australian Football League, establishing networks with key people in the US.

Sydney Swans

Returning to Australia and the Swans, Roos then became an assistant coach to Rodney Eade. Part-way through the 2002 season, with the Swans' record getting worse by the week, Eade was sacked. The club administration started the search for a new coach and it is widely believed that negotiations with Terry Wallace were at an advanced stage. Nevertheless, when Eade finally went with several games of the minor round still to be played, Roos was appointed caretaker coach for the remainder of the 2002 season, a move hugely popular with Swans fans, who remembered his great contribution to the club as a player.

As caretaker coach, Roos immediately transformed the dispirited Swans players. Several who had struggled under Eade blossomed under his leadership. Surprisingly, the Swans won most of their remaining games that year (six of their last ten), and the fans soon let it be known who they wanted as coach by reviving the famous "ROOOOS" call. Despite this, the club administration continued their talks with Wallace (and perhaps others). Finally however, they were unable to ignore the players' own support for Roos, when, after a win late in the season, all the players surrounded Roos on the field and, unprecedentedly, themselves joined in the "ROOOOS" call. The administrators knew when they were beaten, and appointed Roos coach for the 2003 season (despite reportedly having to pay Wallace a considerable amount to unwind their almost-concluded deal with him).

Under Roos' coaching, Sydney participated in every finals series between 2003 and 2008. They made it to the preliminary final stage in 2003, the semi-final stage in 2004, won the Premiership in 2005 and almost retained it in 2006, losing the Grand Final by only one point, and then got eliminated in the first week of the 2007 finals. They made it to the second week of the 2008 finals. But 2009 was the second time under Roos' leadership that they didn't make the finals.

Roos also implemented a policy of giving up first round draft picks in exchange for players from other clubs: namely, Darren Jolly, Ted Richards, Peter Everitt, Martin Mattner, Rhyce Shaw and Shane Mumford in the years 2004–2009 inclusive. Only Jolly and Everitt are no longer at the club, and the other players earned more game-time than they did at their original clubs; this policy paying off for Paul Roos.

2005

In 2005, Roos' coaching style was criticized by AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou, who referred to the Swans' defensive and negative style of play (presumably the tactics of flooding, and retaining possession through short chip kicks). Demetriou even went so far as to claim that the Swans would never win a premiership playing such an unattractive style of football. As a result of Demetriou's criticisms, the Swans were labeled by the media, especially in Melbourne, as the ugly ducklings.

Roos and his Swans were criticised for their game plan in a match against St Kilda in mid-2005. This led to the media, led by Andrew Demetriou and the Network Ten commentary team, which was covering the match, describing their game plan as "disgusting" and "ugly". The Swans also "misbehaved" during the match, and lost the match 15.11 (101) – 8.10 (58) [1], a result which appeared to be the turning point in the Swans' season, only losing three more matches (by single margins) for the rest of the 2005 season. Roos and the Swans would however have the last laugh as they defeated the Saints in the preliminary final with a 15.6 (96) – 9.11 (65) win, denying them a shot at their second premiership. Coincidentally, in the Grand Final, they would also kick 8.10 (58), this time defeating the West Coast Eagles which scored 7.12 (54).

Roos proved his critics wrong by leading the Swans to their first premiership in 72 years, with a hard-fought win against the West Coast Eagles in the most thrilling Grand Final for a number of years. Many believe that the AFL's change of rules for the 2006 season was in direct response to the Swans' style of play, but this was later denied by the AFL.

2006

In the 2006 pre-season, Roos briefly returned to the US with his Swans side for an exhibition match against the Kangaroos at UCLA, and suggested that this should become an annual event.

Things became serious when the Swans lost at home to the rampant Adelaide Crows by 39 points, 15.11 (101) to 8.14 (62). Roos cited a lack of hunger and even went so far as to say that his team were "clearly incapable of winning the premiership", but they managed to reach the Grand Final against the West Coast Eagles, losing by one point.

2007

In Round 12, Sydney faced Collingwood, and lost in a game that Roos described as the worst game he had ever coached in his five-year stint at the Swans. He responded by dropping star forward Barry Hall, who had been struggling with injury.

Roos also accused Carlton of tanking in order to gain a third successive priority draft pick when the Blues lost its final 11 matches of the regular season, most by lopsided margins (which ultimately led to the sacking of his Carlton counterpart Denis Pagan). This included a 62-point pasting from Roos' Swans in Round 15, the penultimate round before Pagan was sacked.

2008

In early 2008 Roos was alleged to have been in the centre of a match-fixing controversy involving wingman Jarrad McVeigh. His alleged instructions to McVeigh was to "go forward, just don't kick a goal" during the final stages of the Swans' NAB Cup match against Hawthorn, which the Swans lost by two points. Roos was cleared of any wrongdoing by the AFL one month later, as it turned out to be a joke regarding McVeigh's poor accuracy during the 2007 AFL season.

He also coached from the bench in the first match of the 2008 season in which his Swans were beaten by St Kilda in a tight match.

In 2008 the Swans made the finals in 6th position and then made a terrific 35 point come-from-behind win against the North Melbourne Kangroos in the elimination final.

2009

2009 turned out to be Roos' worst ever season at the Swans, and the Swans' worst season since 1995, when it failed to make the finals, winning only nine games (five of which came in the first nine rounds of the season) and finishing in 12th position. At the end of the 2009 season Roos announced that he would retire and step down as Sydney coach at the end of the 2010 season.

2010: Retirement

Roos coached out the 2010 AFL season where the Sydney Swans returned to the finals after last year's absence from the finals. They defeated Carlton by five points in its home elimination final but the following week was eliminated by the Western Bulldogs in the second week of the finals by the same margin. He retired at the end of the season and was replaced by assistant John Longmire in a succession plan. In all he coached 202 games for Sydney, including 16 finals, 9 of which were won.

Roos is now a commentator and analyst with Fox Sports, calling games mainly involving the Sydney Swans. In recent times Roos has been linked to coaching jobs at West Coast, Adelaide, Melbourne and the Gold Coastbut has repeatedly ruled himself out of coaching another AFL club, stating that he "doesn't want to coach ever again" and that "he can't see himself doing it".

2011 coaching controversy

During a juniors' match in 2011, Roos ran onto the field to defend one of his junior players who had been injured heavily in a collision. His actions were condemned by the AFL public and Andrew Demetriou, but Roos was not suspended due to the nature of the incident, instead he was reprimanded and afterwards he acknowledged that "he should have known better".

Personal life

In 2008, Paul Roos was named Australian Father of the Year. The award recognises a high profile father for their significant contribution to family and community, and is presented by the Australian Father’s Day Council, in conjunction with organising charity, The Shepherd Centre. His two sons go to Cranbrook.

References

• AFL Tables (2007). Paul Roos: Statistics. Retrieved online (26 October 2007). http://stats.rleague.com/afl/stats/players/P/Paul_Roos.html
• Australian Football League (2007). Statistics: All Australian. Accessed online (26 October 2007). http://stats.afl.com.au/public/statistics/all_Australian/all_Australian_2006.shtml?season_idIndex=0

External links

• Paul Roos Official Paul Roos Website
• [2] "1977 3C – 2nd Row 2nd from left"