This week on the Players Pod, Robbie Cornthwaite was joined by arguably the greatest strike partnership in domestic Australian football history. These were the best bits from a fascinating half hour with Perth Glory legends Damien Mori and Bobby Despotovski.
Jamie Maclaren is closing in on history.
The Melbourne City striker is now only four goals away from equalling Besart Berisha as the Isuzu UTE A-League’s all-time leading goalscorer, a milestone he seems destined to reach before the season comes to an end.
However, beyond that feat, there’s still another mountain to climb which may never be conquered.
Damian Mori sits a long way ahead atop the all-time leading scorers in Australian national league history with 240 goals – coming between both his stints in the National Soccer League (NSL) and early seasons of the A-League Men’s competition.
Mori, who is now an assistant coach of Adelaide United, comes up against Maclaren on Friday night to kick-off Round 19. The Australian football legend joined The Players Pod this week, where host Robbie Cornthwaite asked Mori if Maclaren could ever catch his incredible record.
In season 2022-23, you can listen to Robbie weekly on his new KEEPUP podcast – The Players Pod, with Robbie Cornthwaite. He chats to Damian Mori and Bobby Despotovski on the 17th episode. Listen below or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
His response was fascinating, labelling Maclaren the last of a ‘dying’ breed of strikers – who he believes were more prevalent in the NSL era including himself and his fellow guest and former strike partner at Perth Glory, Bobby Despotovski.
“That would be unrealistic (Maclaren reaching his record) but I’m being very serious when I say he is one of the dying strikers,” Mori told The Players Pod.
“I miss seeing people like this, playing on the shoulder, always hungry to get in the box, desperate to score. I mean we’re far and few strikers and that comes back for me… to juniors. I mean, I don’t see the hunger. We coach a lot of the stuff out of juniors, we just have.
You have a look in this league, besides Jamie where is another striker? There isn’t and that’s upsetting because I think when we were around with Bobby (Despotovski) there were heaps of strikers.
“You had Andy Harper, you had… David Seal. I could go through a number of players that you had scoring anywhere between 12 to 20 goals. Now, you’re struggling to get a striker to score eight goals in this league and that comes from junior development.
“It’s upsetting and it is, but we go back to the structures of 4-3-3, everybody plays the same way. You don’t create any individuality in players. When Bobby and I grew up, we had two up front so you had two strikers all the time. Now, you’re lucky to have one (number) nine.
“Robbie, it’s not a bad thing, my record will never be beaten!”
Mori was questioned over whether this was something he had spoken about with Adelaide head coach Carl Veart – a fellow striker in his playing days – and whether the Reds needed to coach bad habits out of their strikers to make them more clinical in and around goal.
“To be fair, I hadn’t really worked with Carl. He’s a very attacking coach,” Mori said.
“His philosophy on playing forward is fantastic. I enjoy it. I like the way we play. But sometimes you need to find those players that can play that and he’s looking all the time.
“His game is around getting forward, playing forward, keeping possession, maintaining high lines, and it is entertaining and you see that, we got 10,000 people plus I think we’d be one of the best supported (teams in the league).
“For him to improve, we need to get better players or to get players to make the standard higher. I think the players are doing a great job now. But you’re always looking to better and that’s Carl always looking to make the team better.
A number nine in our team… if we had a Maclaren and that’s nothing against Hiro (Ibusuki) and the boys that we’ve got. I mean that’s 20 goals a season, you’re a different team. Take Maclaren out of Melbourne City, they are a different team.
“Take Bobby and me out of Perth Glory, I’m being honest, it’s a different team. So you take 20 goals from anywhere, and that’s why I’m saying for our game to improve we have to make these players. And we have to find these players and we have to go back to finding out why we’re not producing these anymore and why things have changed.”
One of the players Mori works with closely is teenage phenom Nestory Irankunda, who continues to take the Isuzu UTE A-League by storm with his incredible cameos.
The Adelaide assistant was asked about the 17-year-old’s ceiling, believing he has all the hallmarks to go far with his football by putting in work and truly harnessing his raw potential, but also issuing a warning to the rising star.
“Nestory has got some ability, that he can be anything he wants to be, but he also can be nothing if he’s not careful and that’s the truth,” Mori said.
“He understands what he needs to do, but he needs to start doing it for himself because he has an unbelievable ability to score goals, unbelievable speed, strength, go one on one, he’d be best one of the best players I’ve seen.
“But for him to get to the next level. He has to start working extremely hard and putting all that sort of pressure on himself to get to where he wants to get to and again, he knows that. I know he’s young, but I hate when people say he’s young, because you can be old too and you can still play.
“I think Nestory can be anything he wants to be, it’s up to him and he’s been given a lot of good opportunities, being handled very well by the club, being looked after very well by the club and now it’s up to Nestory to take his journey where he wants to go.”
Perth Glory: Now and then
When Mori and Despotovski were forging one of the most potent strike partnerships in Australian football history at Perth Glory, they were the biggest team on the block.
Perth were dominant in the 1990s and early 2000s, becoming what was the first fully professional football club in Australia and going on to achieve all sorts of success – winning three NSL premierships and two championships.
“When it started… nobody knew how big it was going to be,” Despotovski said.
“It took us by surprise when the first game, there was eleven, twelve thousand people rocking up at the game and from there, there was no turning back. There were more and more people interested in the game. More and more people wanting to join the club, to play and honestly at that time Perth Glory was the was the club to be.
“Every single player, after first year I believe, was made full-time professional. So it was the first time that it’s been done in in Australia that every single player is full-time professional.
People all of a sudden start recognising you on the street, everybody wants to have your signature, you go into promotions and you’re promoting the game and practically living the living the dream.
However, Perth have been unable to recapture the same stature during the A-Leagues era, only winning one Premiership and making the Grand Final twice – losing on both occasions.
“Look you know what, the novelty was gone,” Despotovski said.
“Obviously, 18 months from the old NSL to the A-League was a long break and obviously every single club in the A-League fixed their own houses in order to be successful.
“Either (they) took maybe some of the early success from the Glory and copy it or whatever they did. They did fix their house, where the Glory was practically just waiting for things to happen.
“They didn’t progress and that caught them by surprise and it’s ever since been sort of a catch up game for the Glory.”
Mori also added what he believes has changed at the Glory, heaping praise at the way former owner Nick Tana ran the club during the NSL era – which he thinks was ran better than any A-League club right now.
“I think if you ask anybody about that man (Tana), he’s a successful businessman and he ran it like a business,” Mori said.
“I mean, it was business and he ran it in such a way that he brought the public in, he made everybody feel part of the club and I think when when that changed, things changed at Perth Glory.
“I haven’t been privy to what Tony Sage has done there. But I think you have to give credit where credit’s due and I think Nick Tana and I think Bobby would say the same was the driving force behind that club… He set the standard.
“What he had in place there was far in advance than any other club in the NSL.
“I think if it was still ran the same way, with the same passion and the same people that were involved, Perth would be one of the best clubs.
“Perth Glory was one of the wealthiest clubs as well… they were able to attract the best players. So what’s happened now is people always come back to the field because all the clubs have similar salary caps.
They have to find extra money and your Melbourne Victory’s, Melbourne City’s and all that they’ve got the money. So what Perth Glory is now competing with is not only the money but everything else.
“I think maybe, and I’m not having a go, but maybe they’ve dropped the ball in that marketing side where it was really a good family environment.
“I still remember the first games when I came down, and I know the a stadium wasn’t built but you had families everywhere, kids, it was an unbelievable atmosphere going to the games and for me that’s missing.”
The tactical switch that unlocked the best in Sam Kerr
Bobby Despotovski is no stranger to what can take a quality striker to the next level.
After his retirement from the game, Despotovski entered the world of coaching, returning to his beloved Perth Glory as the coach of their Liberty A-League side between 2015 to 2020.
And Despotovski had a hand in the development of one world football’s most talented players – Sam Kerr – a player he coached for four of those seasons.
The Glory legend was responsible for a switch which took Kerr to another level, moving her centrally to play as a nine instead of out wide.
The rest is history.
“Look Sam Kerr as an individual player, unbelievable ability,” Despotovski said.
“She’s fast and we needed to change her position because she was stuck on the wing because of her speed. And this is where it starts with me and Damian (Mori) playing as two strikers, that’s where I changed the system at Perth Glory to play 4-4-2 with a diamond and two strikers to work with her.
“She developed into a fantastic striker that can play at the highest level at Chelsea and score goals every week and she is now nominated in the World XI.
Good luck to her, she can be a best player in the world.
As Despotovski wrapped up his answer, Mori chimed in: “if it wasn’t for Bobby, she’d still be on the wing and she’d be playing for Perth Glory!”
