![]() ![]() High flier: Ric Charlesworth in action for Australia He also excelled as a cricketer, coming close to a Test cap as an obdurate, left-hand opening batsman, who contributed to three Sheffield Shield titles for Western Australia between 1972 and ‘78. He won Olympic silver in 1976, World Cup gold in 1980, collected 227 caps and would have made anybody’s World XI across a decade at least. ![]() This time, there’s still some paperwork – he’s now involved with selling and marketing World’s Best, the recently-released follow-up to The Coach – but there’s also far more signs of the family life which is increasingly taking over.įor those unfamiliar with Charlesworth, 64, and his impact on the sport you should know he was selected as a player for five Olympic teams, competing at four Games because of Australian Hockey’s boycott of Moscow. He was going to write another book, he said, and this was part of his research. On that occasion, his kitchen table was covered with what must have been 50 hard drives containing footage of every game Australia – and probably a whole host of other nations – had played during his tenure as coach. ![]() They had just won the 2014 World Cup, thrashing the Dutch 6-1 in the final, in Holland. However, things have definitely changed since my last visit, which came just after he had decided to call time on his coaching career with the Kookaburras, the Australian national men’s team. That’s the flavour of life with the Charlesworths: never pass up the opportunity of a challenge and never take the easy route. I suspect that had they been playing tennis, they would have ripped up the stumps and used them to hit forehands. Their vigorous hitting, occasional cut and sweep shots and frequent six-and-out piledrivers are being achieved with the handle end of a hockey stick. It’s only then that I notice the boys are not using a cricket bat. Family life: Ric, with wife Carmen and their two sons However, ignoring the threat to his expensive fixtures and fittings, Charlesworth’s suggestion this time is that they make the contest more competitive, base it around a Twenty20 format and each face a certain number of balls, bowled by each of them. The second intervention comes about half an hour into our chat, after the ball thwacks for probably the fifth time into the feature glass doors courtesy of a full-blooded drive down the wicket. They all troop off, with Oscar returning sporting the full Aussie cricketer look factor 50 all over his face. However, the first time Charlesworth intervenes is to berate the trio about their application … of sunscreen. If your father is one of the world’s best coaches – and I don’t just include hockey in that – you’re not going to get away with sloppy standards, even if it’s just a hit-about between friends. I’ve played on it, and a decent serve from the deuce side at the kitchen end will swerve right into the chicken coop, but at the moment it’s playing host to a game of backyard cricket between son, Oscar, and two of his mates. The yard, as they call it here, is just about the size of a tennis court. He lives in the fancy Perth suburb of Nedlands and I come through the shady front yard, with its lap-pool and comfortable outdoor furniture, and through the main door into the heart of the home, the kitchen with its large family-sized dining table and view into the back garden.Ĭarmen, Ric’s wife and the mother of his two youngest boys, makes coffee because he apparently has no idea how to work the machine. ![]()
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