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He accompanies his words with a video. The glow in his face expresses to me the satisfaction it gives him. I wonder how often he watches it. It is the video shown to the '89 grand final team on the Thursday before the game, as Hawthorn attempts back to back flags. "John Kennedy had two chances. Parkin had two chances. I had two previous opportunities." The video, like Pat Benatar's musical accompaniment, fires up. The fundamentals Jeans talks of happen before us, unfolding in brown and gold. Keep your eye on the ball. Tackle - chin in the middle of the back, bring the opposition down. Jason Dunstall, centurion goal kicker chases and executes a perfect tackle. "No rule to say forwards don't chase," Jeans growls, transformed with the video back into the pitch of battle. "Everybody has two tackles, that's forty tackles." He brightens with footage of Hawk captain Michael Tuck spoil an attempted mark. "Tucky - 36 years of age and he had to do exactly the same..." Fundamentals.

Jeans shows me a typed sheet, something of a compendium to the video. The title reads OPERATION TACKLE.

"I was a policeman. Every operation in the police force has three categories: Situation, mission and execution strategies. What's the situation? What's the mission? How we gonna work it? There is the summary sheet to tell you basically how it's going to work. What I was trying to get across by the name ‘Operation Tackle'?."

The secrets of football - the Force - was starting to dawn on me. The ball can only be in one of three phases during a game: ball in dispute, we have it, they have it. When they have it - let's say Geelong, in '89 - Jeans impressed upon his players the fundamentals: chase, tackle, harass. They'll make one mistake, two mistakes.

The last line of the OPERATION TACKLE sheet, we will win the game if we out tackle them. "I was just trying to get them to work hard while we haven't got the ball because they were an offensive team."

I remember an image, the quintessence of the Hawthorn campaign, Dippa - punctured lung and all - grasping two Geelong players in a tackle fierce enough to squeeze a quid out of a miser. The side that wins in most positions usually wins the game. Jeans' announces the tackle statistics of the game: Hawthorn 49 tackles, Geelong 24.

I tell him what every football fan knows; about Brereton's opening surprise from the point of the square.

"You must just concentrate on the ball. You can't go fighting. What's fighting going to do for you?" But it almost won Geelong the flag, I tell him. He's bewildered at my comment.

"But... it lost them the grand final. Shit, we only had thirteen blokes left. A bloke kicked nine goals; thirteen kicks for the day, nine goals. A sensational performance and they still can't win. These were our instructions before the game: if a fight starts and we have possession of the ball, play on."