When this club’s greatest finals footballer first heard of Dean Bailey’s untimely passing, Wayne Johnston first gathered his composure then cast his mind back some 15 years to when Bailey helped him through his own profound trauma.

It was 1999, the final year of Bailey’s tenure as senior coach of Queensland club Mt Gravatt, and the year in which Johnston coached Mt Gravatt juniors.

It was also the year in which the former Carlton captain and dual club Best & Fairest lost his 11 year-old twin boy Matt in the most shocking of circumstances.

Johnston was there when Matt suffered what proved to be a fatal asthma attack during the course of a game. Helplessly waiting for medical support and cradling the boy in his arms, Johnston heard his son’s final words “Dad, Dad, Dad”, as his other twin, son Tomi, went into shock.

Matt’s life support was turned off two days after that horrific episode, and Johnston, in reflecting on it now, says he is forever indebted to Bailey for being there.

As he said: “Dean was the senior coach, he was a great bloke and he was marvellous (when Matt died)”.

Numbed with the news of Bailey’s death from lung cancer this week, Johnston first learned of the former coach’s illness in hearing a recent radio interview with Adelaide Senior Coach Brenton Sanderson, whose first year as a player at Sturt was Johnston’s last with the South Australian club.

“I’d heard Brenton Sanderson mention in an earlier interview how ill Dean was, but I had no idea just how serious,” Johnston said.

“That was why I was so shocked to hear the news that Dean had gone . . . and he leaves behind a wife and a young family too.”