Howdy Partners Media

Rocket Science: The Rodney Eade Story

Rodney Eade has had an incredible journey in sport and in life. Growing up in Tasmania, sport was always an integral part of his life, with his dad playing state football and cricket. Early on, it looked as if cricket would be Rodney's game. Then the Hawthorn Football Club took him across Bass Strait as a 17-year-old to play VFL football.

Little did anyone know - least of all Rodney - what lay ahead: four Premierships with Hawthorn; coaching the first interstate team to win a premiership; coaching the Swans to their first Grand Final since moving to Sydney; and becoming just the 12th person in the history of the game to both play and coach 200 games.

Eade's life and career is an extraordinary story, and Kevin Hillier has interviewed a huge range of footballing talent and experience to fully do it justice.

Like Father Like Son

They are the names that helped shape the history of Australian Rules football: Whitten, Kennedy, Silvagni, Hudson and many more. But these stars also bring another dimension. Or more simply, another generation.

In the business world, it is Jamie Packer taking over the P.B.L empire from Kerry, or Lachlan Murdoch succeeding his father Rupert. In football, it is Gary Ablett junior running, kicking and handballing on the same Skilled Stadium turf his famous father did. Or Jobe Watson entering the Essendon change room via Napier street, as dad Tim had done a decade earlier.

This is a book about footballers, but it is not a football book in the strictest sense. Like Father Like Son tells the stories of personal sacrifice, parental dedication, family pride and hero worship.

This emotional rollercoaster takes you from a deathbed declaration of love to the thrill and exhilaration of premiership victory. The highs and lows, the joy and despair that come with being a father, a son and a sportsman.