Age journalist Michael Gleeson this week releases his new book, Cakewalk, celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the 1990 Collingwood premiership. In a series of excerpts, Gleeson recounts the memorable path to one of the most revered flag successes in club history.

Click here to purchase the book through the club's online superstore.


Bushwhacked
A gruelling Gippsland bush camp and the long hike that followed was said to be the making of the team that would eventually win a premiership. Midway through the hike, the playing group became completely lost, to the point where food and water was running perilously low. Some players became ill, others distressed, a period when the true leaders of the group became obvious.

Darren Millane was a central figure in taking charge of a desperate situation. Mutiny is an unusual method of expressing leadership and creating bonding, but the moment the Collingwood players seized control of their destiny was the moment many players have since nominated as a turning point in the development of the premiership team.

“We eventually decided that we were going to mutiny. The guides were ‘out’ and we were going to hike back out the same way we came in,” said Mark McKeon, the club’s fitness coach of the era. “It was tough to agree to turn back because there were guys who wanted to keep going - they thought, ‘We have come this far, surely there must be a road up ahead somewhere.’ Plus, if we agreed to walk back we knew we were facing three days of (hiking), or whatever it was to get out, and we didn’t have any food.”

In a last ditch effort to break through, it was decided one of the guides should go ahead with two players, Matt Ryan and Graeme Atkins, with one of the two “walkie-talkies”. They would push on for a further 45 minutes to see if fresh water was available, or if they hit the mysterious road, or even caught sight of Lake Tarli Karng.

Eventually, the radio crackled.

Nothing.

No water. No road. No lake.

Nothing.

“The gist of it was that the map was s--- and the track went over the river back and forth with about four crossings. We were at the wrong one but didn’t know it at the time. So we walked for the three days that we were supposed to walk for and had no idea where the f--- we were,” Crosisca said.

Click here to purchase the book through the club's online superstore.

The main group woke at 6am and ate what little food they had. They lit a fire and burnt any unnecessary clothes and two broken packs to unburden themselves. The group set off and was quickly spread across a long distance. Some players lapsed into delirium and began hallucinating; others were suffering from diarrhea and lost control of their bowels. Ordinarily, a teammate struggling with the runs would get players laughing, but not on this occasion. To make matters worse, the temperature - which had been moderate, in the mid-20 degree range for most of the trek - on that fourth day of trekking rose above 30 degrees.

Tim Harrington and Graeme Atkins pushed ahead as another advance party. They had set off at 4am and were still going late in darkness at the other end of the day. While they knew they were close to getting out as they passed over Mount Margaret, equally they knew they had no packs or food to get them through, even if they wanted to abandon the walk for the night and camp.

“We just kept going,” Harrington said. “We were hungry and we were stuffed, but physically we weren’t too bad because we didn’t have packs and knew we just had to keep walking.”

Unknown to anyone, Harrington and Atkins made it out that night. They had walked until they reached the place the buses had dropped them off on that first day. Waiting for them was a group of drivers and organisers who were worried about the missing players. “We just told them that the others were further back along the track and we needed to get people to go in there to help them,” Harrington said. “I am not sure if they went in that night or got people in there the next morning because they took us straight off to the camp to get us something to eat. We were starving.”

“A lot of the players thought for years - I still get players saying it to me - that the whole thing had been a set up by the club. But I can honestly say, categorically 100 per cent, it was not a set up. We genuinely got lost,” McKeon said. “It was amazing what it revealed. Shane Kerrison could have turned around and done the whole thing again. Darren Millane was just really strong and he had brought them all together.”