But it is not just his frame that has earned him his reputation while coaching half-a-dozen clubs in the northern-eastern suburbs. It is his big personality, full of wild glares and volcanic outbursts, a dry wit and an approach to life and coaching you do not often see.

"Easto", as he is known, says coaching suits him because he does not have to try.

A lot of coaches put a clipboard in their hands and play a role. Easto has no clipboard. He makes no notes and thinks tactical plans are overrated. Players trust his game plan through repetition and success.

Easto likes the social side of footy. Every Thursday night after match committee meetings, he tells himself he will have a couple of beers and head home. But seven hours later at, say, 3am, it is nothing for him to be standing at the bar talking about footy and the universe. He figures that footballers who play at the club where they've grown up, with little experience beyond that world, have a need for entertainment as much as they need discipline.

Easto talks like a hick and has a penchant for flannelette shirts. Few would know that he began an arts degree at La Trobe University, studying subjects such as the history of the French Revolution, only to give it away in part because exam time coincided with footy trips.

His approach to footy can be gleaned from the fact that he had the cartilages in his left knee removed when he was 11. When he joined North Melbourne after leaving school, it was a bonus. He played 31 senior games, black mane flowing as he led out from the goal square, before joining Carlton. On his first night at training with the Blues, his knee had a meltdown. Easto played one game and thought his footy days were done.

He was lured into coaching at Diamond Creek aged 26. The next year, he was playing again. He played for another decade on one leg at centre half-forward, but it was as a coach that he made his mark.

At another Diamond Valley club, Lalor, Easto coached three premierships, from 1991-93. In an era when clubs had a mania for club-issue shirts and bomber jackets, Easto turned up at the ground every Saturday wearing greased-up overalls, following a morning of changing truck tyres, with his footy gear in a towel.

The water boy for Easto's Lalor teams was Lance Whitnall. This Saturday, Lance returns to the Bloods club to play his first game in the old jumper. Easto, who is 48, is also returning to Lalor to coach the club after a decade at Northcote Park and Bulleen-Templestowe.

Lalor plays Heidelberg, the division-one premier, at the Northcote oval on Saturday. Easto will coach the club as he first coached it, with no particular outside influences. He will coach as himself.

By Paul Daffey

Article first appeared: The Age April 9th, 2008