Nick Davis will never forget the moment he was \u2018given the keys\u2019 to one of the greatest players of all-time.<\/p>\n
It was shortly before Christmas 2013. Working at the Swans as a development and kicking coach, he stepped out of the lift that went up to the offices at the SCG and bumped into John Longmire with the club\u2019s secret boom recruit.<\/p>\n
\u201cNick \u2026 meet Lance,\u201d said the coach. \u201cAnd Lance \u2026 meet Nick. He\u2019s going to teach you to kick straight.\u201d Or words to that effect \u2013 and no doubt said with a smile.<\/p>\n
Davis offered this little piece of private anecdotal gold this week as he reflected on more than 20 years in red and white \u2013 six years as a player until he was delisted in 2008 and 15-plus years as a coach after he returned in 2010.<\/p>\n
Having rejoined as a development coach in the AFL program, he also had five years as the AFL team runner. Later, he worked in the boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 academies, and more recently as the senior assistant-coach of the AFLW team, which included a stint as caretaker coach.<\/p>\n
But this week \u2018Davo\u2019 has made a leap into the unknown, and without knowing exactly what he\u2019s going to do next, he\u2019s decided it\u2019s time to try something new. To see if the multitude of technical skills and the engaging personality that has made him an all-time club favorite can combine successfully in a new challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like a sabbatical,\u201d he declared. \u201cI\u2019ve learned so much from so many great people at the Swans and I\u2019ve loved every minute of it \u2026 and one day I might end up back there \u2026 but I just feel the time is right to do something different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m a good coach or have just been fortunate to work with some good players and good people, but it\u2019s time to find out. For my own personal development, I need to look at something different and see if I can learn some new things.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe down the track I can bring some new ideas back to the Swans. Who knows? But I do know the club has been fantastic in letting me dabble in different areas over the years and has given me a range of unbelievable learnings and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s partly a move by Davis to give some space to his 16-year-old daughter Jordan, a member of the QBE Sydney Swans Academy who has always been coached by her father. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t need the old man looking over her shoulder all the time,\u201d he reasoned.<\/p>\n
Davis will still undertake part-time corporate work for the club \u2013 and anyone introducing him at a sportsman\u2019s night will have more material than just the fact that he kicked four goals in the last quarter of a semi-final against Geelong en route to the 2005 premiership.<\/p>\n
Now the 45-year-old Swans premiership player and life member will also be the guy who helped \u2018Buddy\u2019 with his kicking.<\/p>\n
For context on where this all began, Franklin had just joined the Swans in one of the great recruiting coups of all-time. He\u2019d kicked 580 goals in 182 games with Hawthorn, including the last AFL \u2018ton\u2019 in 2008, and had won the Coleman Medal in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013.<\/p>\n
Coach Longmire would not have said as much, but perhaps he\u2019d noted that Franklin had kicked 580 goals 422 behinds at the Hawks for a conversion rate of 57.88%. And perhaps he thought there was room for improvement.<\/p>\n
It was never a big thing with the man who quickly became a huge Swans favorite, but Davis loved the time he spent working with Franklin. \u201cHe was a pretty private bloke, but he really loved his footy and was a great student of the game. And he was a deep thinker on footy.\u201d<\/p>\n
If he was so inclined \u2013 and maybe only in a sportsman\u2019s night setting \u2013 Davis could point to the fact that maybe he did help the great man a little. Because at the Swans \u2018Bud\u2019 kicked 480-320 at 60.29%.<\/p>\n
But there is much more to Davis\u2019 contribution to the Swans than his four goals in 20 minutes 20 years ago, and his kicking expertise. He\u2019s filled a multitude of coaching roles at the club and has been admired and respected across the board.<\/p>\n
It all came after 71 games with Collingwood from 1999-2002, including the 2002 grand final, and a life-changing trade to Sydney, where he played 97 games from 2003-08.<\/p>\n
He wanted to play on after he was delisted by the Swans in October 2008, nominating for the draft, and dabbled with the prospect of becoming an NFL punter, before he joined the Swans coaching staff.<\/p>\n
Then came a chance meeting with coach Longmire at the club one day. \u201cHe asked how fit I was and said to me that he\u2019s give me a call. I immediately thought \u2018comeback\u2019 and went for a run and had a few kicks. But as it turned out he wanted me to be the runner. I was happy with that because I didn\u2019t have to tackle,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n
He filled this crucial role as the coach\u2019s on-field voice from 2012-15 in an era in which the runner spent almost as much time on the ground as some players, and completed a rare double of premiership player and premiership runner in his first season in the fluro green.<\/p>\n
He graduated to be part of the team in the coaches box with Longmire in 2016-18, took over at the Academy in 2019, and joined the AFLW program in 2023.<\/p>\n
With the full support of the club, he\u2019s dabbled with rugby league and rugby union along the way, which in part explains the temptation to do some new things now while continuing his AFL connection via commentary with SEN radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been so fortunate to coach some incredible players \u2026 (Isaac) Heeney, (Errol) Gulden, (Nick) Blakey and (Callum) Mills \u2026 and before them (George) Hewett, (Tim) Membrey, (Aliir) Aliir and (Toby) Nankervis,\u201d he said, before rattling off a list of rugby league equivalents.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd more recently, Laura Gardiner and Sofia Hurley, who have won the Swans B&F, and Chloe Molloy who we got from Collingwood.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, what will he miss now that he\u2019s not going to work at the club every day?<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t hesitate: \u201cI\u2019ll miss the people,\u201d he said. \u201cThe strength of a football club, or any organisation for that matter, is the quality of the people, and the people at the Swans have just been magnificent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes back to (Ricky) Quade and (Dennis) Carroll, (Craig) Holden and (Ron) Barassi, (Andrew) Ireland and (Tom) Harley, and (John) Longmire. It\u2019s wrong to single out a few because there have been so many at all levels, but I can\u2019t thank them enough for all the experiences, all I\u2019ve learned and all the fun I\u2019ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I won\u2019t miss Horse\u2019s bad jokes,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd now that he\u2019s not coaching and he can\u2019t get around in a polo shirt all day I won\u2019t miss his bad dress sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The son of Craig Davis, a 163-game AFL player at Carlton, North Melbourne, Collingwood and Sydney turned 20-year official in NSW football, Nick Davis was born to be a footballer.<\/p>\n
But in bidding farewell to the Swans, at least temporarily, he lifted the lid on another special \u2018weapon\u2019 in his football arsenal. He has two all-time footballing greats as Godfathers \u2026 Andrew Ireland, a teammate of his father at Collingwood who was a premiership-winning CEO with the Brisbane Lions and the Swans and is now on the AFL Commission. And AFL Hall of Fame Legend, AFL Team of the Century member and Sport Australia Hall of Famer Alex Jesaulenko MBE, who played with his father at Carlton.<\/p>\n
Is it any wonder he could turn a final in a twinkling, and could help \u2018drive\u2019 one of the greatest of all-time?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Davis will never forget the moment he was \u2018given the keys\u2019 to one of the greatest players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":["post-66364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}