“He just pushed some a bit too far”
Former St Kilda and Carlton star Dean Rice has detailed just how his promising St Kilda career came to an end.
Rice played 116-games for the Saints – on the verge of stardom – between 1987 and 1993, before a series of serious knee injuries hastened his departure, whereafter he fortuitously landed at Princes Park, recovering to play a further 118-games including a premiership in 1995.
His son, Bailey, also spent a number of years on the Saints’ list, playing 11 games in 2018, before making a switch to American college football, accepting a scholarship to become a punter for UNC Charlotte.
The tough winger turned half-back spoke on the Unpluggered Podcast, detailing how he loved his time at the Saints but a tumultuous relationship with coach Ken Sheldon saw him depart Moorabbin.
“I had a few run-ins with Kenny,” Rice chuckled.
“Kenny was interesting, he obviously got the best out of players… most players anyway.”
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“He had an interesting way of going about it. It was always going to be tough for Kenny because he was transitioning from a player to a coach straight away. To get players’ respect, I think – at times – he went over the top, and in the end [he] was one of the catalysts of why I left St Kilda.
“To Ken’s credit too, you have to take your hat off to him. He really challenged the players and pushed the players and he probably didn’t find that happy medium where you challenge players and you push them, but at the same time you’ve got to get their respect and get to understand them too, and who they are, because everyone’s not the same.
“I think he just pushed some a bit too far and I think that’s why in the end, when he had a lot of success – for St Kilda – but was then sacked as the coach. He lost the players by the way he went about it.
“Once Kenny moved on I was pretty committed to the club.”
Rice ultimately outlasted Sheldon at the Saints, but after having already suffered one ACL injury, another injury to his good knee saw the Saints’ new coach, Stan Alves, take the opportunity to part ways and move on.
“I remember at the start of the 1994 pre-season, it was the end of my contract, and St Kilda wouldn’t sign me up. I guess they had some concerns about my knee.
“I said to them ‘if you’re not going to sign me on a contract, how do you expect me to do a pre-season?’ I stood out of training for a couple of weeks.
“Unfortunately at the start of ’94… I got injured in a practice match. I hurt my good knee. At the time it was pretty upsetting, and I thought I’d be gone again for the whole year.
“But I got the news I’d only be out for 6-8 weeks. Stan used that as a reason to tell me they no longer wanted me anymore.”
Rice arrived at Carlton in 1994 via the pre-season draft and – despite suffering another season-ending knee injury in his first game for the Blues – managed to recover and make himself a crucial part of Carlton’s last premiership.
Rice said that the difference between the cultures at St Kilda and Carlton showed where the two clubs were at at the time.
“Carlton – and David Parkin – were great to me,” Rice remembered.
“It was just culture. At St Kilda, you’d win a game and you’d be celebrating for a while… whereas, at Carlton, I remember at the start of ’94 when I first came to the club and they held a jumper presentation at the start of March for all the players. I remember, John Elliot getting up in front of the big crowd, all the sponsors and supporters, and just lambasting the whole club for finishing second the year prior when they got beaten by Essendon in ’93.
“He was telling everyone that second wasn’t good enough. I was just thinking at the time, if St Kilda finished second, they’d probably celebrate that for the next ten years.
“That was the difference between a winning culture and the culture that St Kilda had… I guess to a point Carlton’s probably lost that now, over the years.”
You can listen to Dean Rice on Unpluggered on all major podcast platforms, or via the player below.
