Grant Thomas (footballer)

Grant Thomas (born 14 February 1958) is a former Australian rules football player and coach. He most recently held the position of coach of the St Kilda Football Club from 2001-2006. He attended St Bede's College in Mentone.

Playing career

Thomas began his career at the St Kilda Football Club in the VFL, debuting in 1978. He took a long time to break into the side as a regular senior player, but settled in as a centre half-back. He played 72 games for the Saints between 1978 and 1983 before briefly moving to North Melbourne in 1984, and finishing his career at Fitzroy in 1985.

Following his retirement from the VFL at the end of 1985, in 1986 he moved to become the playing coach of Warrnambool in the Hampden Football League. He won four premierships with the club in just 5 seasons until 1990.

Post-playing career

After his retirement from playing, Thomas coached Old Xaverians in the VAFA in 1992, and was the chairman of selectors at the North Melbourne Football Club in 1993 under Denis Pagan.

In 1994 he was an assistant coach at St Kilda under Stan Alves, before moving on to pursue various business ventures.

Coaching St Kilda

With this experience from the business world, Thomas took a new philosophy to the St Kilda Football Club when he was appointed caretaker coach of the club in 2001 after the controversial mid-season sacking of Malcolm Blight. Thomas was then appointed as full-time coach.

Thomas had a focus on man-management in his coaching style, as well as conducting practices towards the running of the club that are common in the business world. This new style of coaching has characterised by Thomas occasional use of jargon, such as "processes" and "outcomes" - although they are now terms almost universally used by all coaches.

Thomas coached St Kilda to consecutive preliminary finals in 2004 and 2005, plus a Wizard Cup Premiership in 2004.

While he initially came under fire for refusing to use the 'flood', Thomas slowly started to integrate the defensive coaching into his match-day approach, with improved results. Despite the criticism, Thomas maintained an impressive win-loss record against some of league's most highly rated coaches, including Malthouse, Pagan, Eade, Matthews, Wallace and Craig.

Thomas once said in an interview about the St Kilda Football Club: "This club is what I'm about."

Thomas is only the 2nd coach to coach St Kilda to 3 straight finals series. The other coach to do so was St Kilda's 1966 premiership coach Allan Jeans.

Sacking

After many injuries during the 2006 season, St Kilda finished 6th after the home and away season but were beaten in the elimination final by Melbourne. Injuries to Fraser Gehrig, Robert Harvey, Justin Koschitzke, Raphael Clarke and Xavier Clarke during the game, as well as the underdone Aaron Hamill & Max Hudghton, led to the Saints exit from the finals after leading for most of the match but being unable to run the game out. They finished the season in 8th position, which was not considered good enough by president Rod Butterss.

On September 12th, 2006 the St. Kilda Football Club announced that Thomas would no longer coach the club as a 'mutual' agreement, however Thomas maintained that the club had asked him to leave by sacking him, and while he had accepted, it was not completely mutual. The decision was a shock to the footballing world considering Thomas was only the second coach to lead the Saints to 3 consecutive finals series. It is not known why he was sacked, but many factors include the controversial match against Fremantle in Round 5, 2006 in which the Saints were stripped of two points following a hearing the following Wednesday, which ultimately cost them a top-four spot and the double chance, the long-term injuries to Justin Koschitzke, Aaron Hamill and Fergus Watts and starting the season with two interstate trips in four weeks.

Thomas has shown no interest in ever coaching another AFL club.

Post-coaching career

In 2007, Thomas was hired as a columnist for The Age, and appeared every Sunday until he was sacked on the 19th of July after an argument with chief of football Caroline Wilson, as Thomas accused Wilson of being a liar on radio station SEN 1116, which led to Wilson getting Thomas fired.

Thomas recently came under scrutiny after suggesting St. Kilda player Robert Harvey would not be able to perform at AFL level in 2008. Thomas has since eaten his words with Harvey averaging more than 22 disposals per game for the St. Kilda Football Club this season. Harvey is also arguably the favourite for the club's Best & Fairest award.

Thomas is now an expert commentator with Melbourne sports station SEN 1116.

Trivia

• Thomas has 8 children.

External links

• Coach profile at Saints.com.au
• The Age Story (2006)