My father Jack's footy career was interrupted by World War II. Dad played for West Torrens' seconds, but then the war came at an inopportune time for his footy. Dad's brother, my Uncle Horrie, also played for West Torrens and the state. They didn't push you to play; it was quite the opposite. You'd come home after playing sport and it wasn't discussed much at all, which suited me because I liked to keep to myself a bit.Two of the things that attracted me to footy were high marking and goals. And they were two things I tried to do throughout my playing days. I can assure you there weren't too many times when I thought about punching the ball from behind. And I never ceased to get a buzz out of kicking a goal.You can improve your marking by using something as simple as a wall.I loved throwing a footy against the back wall in our backyard and jumping up the wall as high as I could and pushing off it with one leg. That helped teach me how to jump.I loved my footy, but I couldn't do it every day.There were always other things I wanted to do in my life as well. If I'd had a footy in my hands for a whole day, that was enough to keep me going for a two or three-day period. I wasn't the type to be obsessive about it every day, which is probably a bit different from a lot of other guys who went on to League footy.I was small as a kid – they played me on a wing. I started in the Kilkenny under-15s when I was about 10 or 11 – a midget compared to the other kids. It wasn't until I turned 15 or 16 that I shot up about eight inches (20.3 centimetres). It probably took me 12 months to catch up with my body and my footy probably waned a little because I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do. I started to think: 'Is this really for me?'Technically, I was a better kick on my left foot than my right. It goes back to playing kick-to-kick as a kid. Because I was only a little fella, I had to run right up and slam the ball on my right boot from a great height to reach the big kids at the other end. As I got older and started practising on my left side, I was a bit stronger and distance wasn't an issue, so I could concentrate on technique. I was OK on my right foot but probably more dangerous on my left. I'd use my right for set shots, but I preferred to use my left on the run because I felt more balanced. About 90 per cent of my snap shots throughout my career were on my left foot.My club (Kilkenny) disbanded. We lived in Woodville South and the team training at Woodville Oval was Woodville South under-15s, so I joined them. I'd finished runner-up in the league medal two years in a row and captained Woodville South in a losing grand final. We won an under-17 flag and the following year I played in the under-19s, seconds and seniors.Our under-17 coach at Woodville, George Kersley, was a legend. He taught you a lot about disciplines in footy and life, and was big on improving skills and protecting yourself. One training night we did a drill where the ball was rolled along the ground to you and you'd be tackled by someone coming the other way and the idea was to turn your body. I did something really silly – a pirouette or something – and he gave me a big spray. It was a great lesson in, firstly, following the coach's instructions, secondly, that mucking around at training isn't very smart, and thirdly, that you can actually get hurt if you don't do it correctly.I also learnt a lot about protecting myself from playing against men as a kid. My older teammates taught me not to put myself into foolish positions – not to 'kamikaze'. Anyone who plays the game gets bowled over occasionally, and it certainly wasn't about being soft, but they basically taught me that: 'This is a contact sport, and you're a skinny kid, so we'll show you how to turn your body in certain circumstances.'It took some persuasion to get me to North Melbourne. I'd lived in Adelaide for the whole 22 years of my life and played five years of League footy there. The SANFL was very strong and healthy and, at the time, there were only a handful of South Australians playing in the VFL (now AFL). (In 1973, the year after Blight won the Magarey Medal) I actually signed a Form 4 to play with North, but I didn't go. First and foremost, I wanted to play 100 games for Woodville. The following year, North convinced me to move – and I'm glad they did!Half the trick of sport is knowing you actually belong, fit in, and are capable. All of us at some stage think: 'Do I really fit into this place?' That takes a while to understand. For me, it was like: 'You fitted into Adelaide OK, but are you suited to the Melbourne lifestyle and (coach) Ron Barassi's approach, which is much more aggressive than anyone else you've experienced before?' For a time, I thought: 'Jeez! What's all this about?'If you haven't got discipline, you've got nothing. I was a bit of a free spirit in the way I played, a bit loose, and probably appeared casual at times. You'd try a few things; sometimes they came off, sometimes they didn't. Coaching me might have been frustrating at times, and 'Barass' gave me some of the biggest sprays of my life. But the discipline that Barass imparted was probably something I needed at the time as a young player.The torp after the siren (to beat Carlton at Princes Park in 1976) has been over-hyped. A lot of people have asked me to describe it, especially since the Toyota ad on TV, so here it is. With about three minutes to go, we were a couple of goals down and I was lucky enough to get on the end of a couple of kicks. I kicked a drop-punt goal from centre half-forward, then a check-side goal from the right forward pocket about 40 metres out, so the adrenalin was pumping. Sometimes the ball just falls your way. Then I took another mark – all three were chest marks; there wasn't a high mark among them. Then the siren went (with North a point down) and for some reason I put my hands to my head and thought: 'What should I do here?' But I actually said it aloud and (dual Brownlow Medallist) Keith Greig, who was beside me, said: "How about you kick the bloody thing!" What I meant was: 'Will I make the distance with a drop-punt, or should I kick a torp?' It wasn't like I didn't want the responsibility – I wanted to be in that position. I decided on a torp and didn't waste much time thinking about it. Thankfully I got onto it. When you get onto a torp, you hardly feel it off the boot – it just hits that sweet spot. It's like hitting the middle of a cricket bat, or a one-wood straight down the fairway. It's one of the most pleasurable feelings in sport. It's quite funny now that eight and 10-year-olds come up to me and say: "Jeez, you're a good kick, mister."Because of the fickle nature of the game, you can be a hero one week and a dud the next. A few times in my career I kicked late goals to help win games, but I also missed one after the siren (in 1977) against Hawthorn, and ran into an open goal another time and unknowingly kicked it through the points instead, which people still find pretty funny.The 1977 drawn Grand Final was one of my worst days in football. In the first quarter, I made a major blunder where I centred the ball instead of shooting for goal – ironic that! – and mis-hit it badly and it went straight to a Collingwood bloke and they went downfield and kicked a goal. At quarter-time, Barass read me the riot act and dismissed me with: "Just go to the forward pocket." So I went from playing on-ball to being a stationary forward pocket. Collingwood kicked eight unanswered goals in the next two quarters and the ball hardly came down, so I was as fresh as a daisy at three-quarter time. In the huddle, Barass told Johnny Byrne: "You're off." I thought: 'Bad luck, John, but you beauty, I'm back on the ball.' Barass walked away from the huddle and then said: "No, Blight, you're off.' I thought: 'Damn!'' I sat out the last quarter on the bench, which was very frustrating. Through some divine intervention, I got a second chance the following week. There was debate about whether three of us – Brent Crosswell, John Cassin and myself – would get a game for the Grand Final replay. Legend has it that Barass eventually succumbed to pressure from around the club and kept the same side.Barass made the profoundest statement to me before the Grand Final replay. Just before I ran out, he looked me in the eye and said: "If I was a praying man, I'd pray for you today." What a thing to say! Especially as neither of us was very religious – and they were the first words he'd spoken to me in a week! I thought: 'Hmm, does that mean he's with me or against me?' I took the positive view. In the end, we won the flag, I played OK and some people even gave me the votes that day. I believe that if you approach a situation like that thinking: 'My form's poor, I don't deserve to be here,' none of that good stuff ever happens. One of the great things about footy is if you're given an opportunity and you don't take it, regardless of the circumstances, your career and your life changes forever. Once you're on a list and in the system, you will get an opportunity at some stage. You can think what you like about the coach, your form, niggling injuries, etc., but there comes a time when you have to put it all aside and do something. From sheer frustration, to almost not being wanted, to being feted within seven days shows how quickly the game and perceptions can change. I felt I'd overcome the final demon in my own mind. (Blight won the Brownlow Medal the next year, 1978.)When you're at your absolute peak, you don't actually have to think. I'm a big believer in 'see footy, get footy'. When you keep it that simple, automatic and instinctive, sometimes it just seems to happen for you. 'The zone' is an interesting place. It's an unconscious state. It happened occasionally, but not often enough. For me, a classic example of this 'non-thinking' theory was the 1978 Grand Final – which, ironically, was a day when I didn't get into the zone at all. I'd won the Brownlow during the week, but in the first five minutes of the Grand Final, I did my groin and then had the ball booted into my face. I received a couple of injections (for the groin) at half-time but could hardly move. But I'd had a good year and I thought I could get into the zone, because that's where I'd been, mentally, for most of the year. I kept saying to myself: 'Don't worry about it, just play footy.' But mentally, that wasn't where I wanted to be. I wasn't letting it happen. I'd let my injury become a distraction. After some considerable debate with myself, I went off the ground with injury for the only time in 22 finals.It can be difficult getting into 'the zone' because there are so many distractions and outside influences: the opposition, noise, umpiring decisions, the bounce of the ball. It's about keeping your head clear and not letting anything else in, good or bad, because there's no point dreaming while you're playing – dreaming is for the night before. It's all to do with doing, and nothing to do with thinking.Footy is about the individual in the team. You can be the keenest, the best or whatever, but the footy can still bounce the other way. One of the tricks of the game is when it's not going for you, what can you do about it? As you get older, you realise there are things you can sacrifice and do to help the team. For instance, if you're on a good opponent, just follow him around. Or if you're being tagged, sit on another bloke and frustrate him for a few minutes. It's basic stuff, but when your focus is squarely on getting the ball, you can forget to do it. The art of good coaching is to find something a player can do when he isn't having a good day, and take his focus off: 'Gee, I'm having a bad day.' That's the way to go when coaching young players.Some players see a teammate first and look to give the ball off; others see an opponent first and try and avoid them. I was a bit like that, and there's no doubt Gary Ablett was. I'd try to get out of trouble first and then see what my teammates were doing, whereas a Greg Williams obviously saw his teammate first. I don't know how it comes about, and neither way is right nor wrong – as long as the ball ends up where it's supposed to go!Sometimes the percentage thing to do is to actually have a low-percentage shot at goal. Just before three-quarter time in a tight game against Melbourne in 1980, I got the ball near the boundary and, while I knew Barass' team rule was to centre the ball, there was no one to centre the ball to. I had time to sum it up, and I decided to have a shot with a left-foot banana kick, which went through for a goal. Barass dragged me, which caused a bit of a stir. At the time, Barass was writing for Truth newspaper and he wrote something like: 'If you want to make a big deal of why I took Blight off the ground after kicking a goal, come down to training at Arden Street. I'll pressure him and he won't kick one in 20.' Barass did the chasing and bowled me over after each kick. After 10 shots, I'd kicked about 4.6, including a couple of posters. Barass started walking off. I said: "What about the other 10?" He said: "You're a freak. Get out of here."I played in every position bar one – first ruck. Sometimes that was what got me a game, so I didn't say a word. Footy can also get pretty tough and humdrum at times, so moving around a bit might have snapped me out of any monotony. I actually started a couple of seasons on the backline and was flying. I thought: 'How good's this?' But eventually, when you start to lose a few games, they figure: 'Let's put the lair on the forward line again.'I was probably only a B-grade trainer. I only ever did what was required, but as you get older you knuckle down a bit more and get better at it. I wasn't the best long-distance runner – I was probably below average. Running k after k, while I did it, wasn't my favourite pastime. It's funny though how you can always run a lot better when a ball is involved. But it was necessary, and something I pushed when I coached. I was keen to get the miles into the legs of players first. I had to be dragged up to do it as a player but realised in the end that it's what everyone needs.Wayne Schimmelbusch and I had competitions to see who could make the least mistakes at training. 'Schimma' was a great player for North Melbourne and a great role model, and we upped the ante and aimed to have a nought session – no mistakes. You couldn't walk through it and be careful about it – it had to be done flat out. You could only improve with an attitude like that.My stint as playing-coach at North was short-lived but certainly toughened me up. I thought I had some reasonable ideas, but we didn't have much luck with injury. I did the job as well as I could have at the time, but I didn't do it as well as someone else could have. I was the last bloke in the comp to pull on a jumper and point the finger at the same time – no one has been silly enough to do it since! I belted myself around about it for a fair while. From the day I stopped coaching North, I decided that if I ever coached again it would only be done one way – my way. That's not meant to be big-headed, it's just that if you're going to lead a group, there can be no confusion about who's in charge.Most people who knew me until my mid-20s would've said I was the least likely to coach. That was perhaps a reflection on the way I operated. But I really wanted to go back to my old club, Woodville, which was the worst senior club in Australia at the time – they'd won only one game – and I wanted to find out if I really wanted to coach. (Blight captain-coached Woodville from 1983 to 1987, taking it to third in 1986 and fifth in 1987. In 1985, he won the SANFL goalkicking with 126 goals.)I gave Gary Ablett an ultimatum when I took over as coach of Geelong in late 1988. Gary had missed a few training sessions, so I arranged to meet him at this little sanctuary in Geelong. I said something to the effect of: "Either go home and get your gear and come to training, or you're out of here." Thankfully, he went home and got his footy gear! We always trained very hard, and I made Gary do some extras after the rest of the boys had finished. To Gary's credit, he did it. I didn't realise it at the time but the other players have since told me that it had a profound effect on them; that we were a team.We (Geelong and Adelaide) played a style of game planned around kicking more goals than the opposition. I could never understand the theory behind going defensive early. I'm not talking about exceptional circumstances like when you lose the toss and have to kick into the wind in the first quarter, because you have to do something about that, but if you take those out of the equation it's the perfect 50/50 game. If there's a question of: would you rather stop a goal than create one? I reckon the answer is obvious. But then you get labelled as this attacking coach. The irony of that is that, while at Geelong we were the highest-scoring side, we actually won two premierships in Adelaide with the least points scored against us.I regret ordering the hit on (Hawthorn superstar) Dermott Brereton in the '89 Grand Final. When we played Hawthorn earlier that year (in round six), Dermott fixed up 'Yeatesy' (Mark Yeates). Dermott, being Dermott, was livening up everyone in the competition. Before the Grand Final, I presumed that with (Cats centreman) Paul Couch winning the Brownlow Medal that year and standing in his customary position on the defensive side of the bounce, Dermott may come. Yeatesy was an insurance policy against that. Although there was no elbow or head-high shot, if I could take that back, I would. Dermott was famous before that. His reputation didn't need to be enhanced by him getting up. It's unfortunate that it became public that it was premeditated, but I regret it. Would it have changed the result? No. Hawthorn were a great team and we were just coming. I always believed you should get after the player, but I was never keen on blokes hammering each other off the ball, mainly because I didn't when I played – I'd rather get the pill. That's what you're there for, and 99 per cent of players are the same.Our best chance for a flag at Geelong was in '92. We were a couple of goals up at half-time, and could have been four or five up, but the Eagles got a couple of goals just before half-time and we lost our momentum and belief. The Eagles sucked us dry – they were a great team. Then, in '94, the Geelong toughness, always questioned, came to the fore with three of the best finals wins I was involved in. But when (Eagles captain and now coach) John Worsfold picked off Garry Hocking in the first quarter of the Grand Final, itwas a really bad sign. Everything that could have gone wrong did. It was a great time at Geelong bar one thing – we just couldn't win a flag.I hated when players fell over. It was belted out of me when I played and, as a coach, you realised the importance of not going to ground. It irked me when a player was barely touched and he fell over because of the implied pressure. It's something you can learn. It's just a mindset. As a player, I was as guilty as anyone until I learnt it. If you can keep your feet longer, you'll be a much better player.I'm a great believer in trends. Teams and individuals generally have a trend, and when they start to emerge, that's when you can understand how to beat them. Working out just what those trends are is a great challenge.The premierships with the Crows (in 1997-98) were bonus wins. We had nothing to lose. I reckon if you asked people which premiership team had no hope once the finals started, most would say those Adelaide sides. We looked to be completely irrelevant to the whole situation. We had a lot of injuries and nothing seemed to be going right. We were the first team to win four finals (in 1997) – each one was a real struggle – and it wasn't until the final siren in the Grand Final that you got to enjoy it. It was the same thing in '98, when we became the first team to win the flag from fifth. Along the way, we discovered we had some fantastic players, and some fantastic young players who were a bit unknown back then but are still going strong now.The so-called "pathetic Pittman" thing was partly a beat-up and partly my fault. When I was interviewed by Neil Kerley on TV, I said: "That was a pathetic quarter by (David) Pittman. We'll have to live with that but he'd want to improve on it." In the press conference after the game, I said the same thing but didn't specify that I was just talking about the first quarter. I think David went off injured in the end. We had no talls, we were a pretty small side, so that hurt us. But David became a dual premiership player.Ninety-five per cent of me thinks I'm sane; the other five per cent is still wondering. But my wife (Patsy) and my close friends are negotiating the 95 per cent – they think it's a lot less than that! It's not premeditated; it just seems to happen. When you look back at the incidents I've been involved with – there are probably too many to count! – at the time, and this is my quandary, I have logically and sequentially analysed what we should be doing and it sounded good to me. But like most of us, sometimes these little people start talking inside your head. I've been repeatedly referred to as eccentric, and I'm probably starting to believe it myself! It usually came to the fore when we were losing. I've heard people say: "Oh, you're just blaming someone else." It's not about that; it's about trying to find a key to why things are going wrong. If you say this or do that, does that unlock the door so we can get back to some good form?Coaches need to back off when things are going well. When the team's flying, the ball is hardly hitting the ground at training, and the whole place is abuzz, you don't want to interrupt that by saying or doing anything to mess it up. Just let them play. People would say: "Gee, he's easy to get along with when we're winning." There's two reasons: one, the team's in form, and two, why mess it up? It's only when we started losing that all these strange things started happening!The game is about winning. The enjoyment factor of playing and the thrill of coaching well means nothing unless you win. The irony of that is you'll be a lot better off if you can keep that fact out of your mind, and out of your conversations.The thought of moving Darren Jarman to full-forward came to me while lying in bed the night before the 1997 Grand Final. You never sleep much before a Grand Final anyway, so I was just mulling over some what-ifs. With (Tony) Modra out, I was hoping Shane Ellen would do the job at full-forward, but we needed a contingency plan. Darren had always been capable of kicking multiple goals, so I figured: 'If Darren starts in the centre square and drifts forward, his opponent will follow him and we can throw 'Goody' (Simon Goodwin), who no one knows, on to the ball.' Only a couple of those moves might work a year, and it just so happened that it worked in a Grand Final. (Jarman kicked six goals, including five in the last quarter.)The St Kilda experience was the equal to every bad game you've ever played, or missing out at North Melbourne as a coach. It was five-and-a-half years ago, and I wouldn't change anything. We just didn't win enough games. The way you rationalise it is: you walked into Geelong and made a Grand Final; you walked into Adelaide and won two premierships, but all of a sudden that didn't happen. Was my way the best way? I never said it was. Did I do it my way? Yes I did. There's a lot of difference.I was very lucky. I never got major injuries like knees. I tweaked one once but it didn't pop. That's luck. Knowing what we know now, fancy being invited to play at North Melbourne in the early '70s. Fancy coaching Adelaide and in another lot of first-ever premierships. I played in five Grand Finals (for two flags) and coached in five (for two flags). That represents a lot of luck and timing.Playing footy has given me a wonderful opportunity. I've met a lot of great people. I still love the game and am lucky to be still involved through commentating for Channel Ten. But I've never taken any of it for granted, because the ball doesn't always bounce your way. I'm not one bit envious of anybody – the rewards the players receive now are fantastic. The game has had its hiccups, but then it always has, and it's in a pretty healthy state. I only visited it for a short while. It was like visiting an old aunty: it was always comfortable, always nice and she always had something for you.