There he was outside the Arts Centre at the start of the Toyota AFL Grand Final parade, dandling a mini-Malthouse on his lap, smiling benignly at the crowd and chatting affably with reporters.
The sun was shining, the supporters' numbers were skewed heavily in Collingwood's favour, Magpie captain Nick Maxwell was by his side, and Malthouse seemed happy to enjoy his last trip through the streets of Melbourne as a coach.
They paraded, they were presented on the steps of the Old Treasury building and then they went inside for the media conference with their Geelong counterparts, Chris Scott and Cameron Ling.
As Malthouse took his seat behind a table on which the premiership cup rested, and in between Scott and Maxwell, his face grew stony, his mouth became taut and his eyes narrowed as he stared into the middle distance.
And all this match-day hardness was before a hapless reporter asked if Alex Fasolo was a chance of selection.
There was a kind of collective shudder at the question, given that Malthouse had already given curt one-syllable responses to a couple of inquiries. To ask whether a player already selected in the side was a chance of selection was a kind of journalistic suicide.
Everything had started out so well …
St Kilda Road resembled the start of the Le Mans 24-Hour race in the good old days, vehicles all in a row just waiting to be unleashed.
At the head of the parade were three police horses, perhaps a nod to the great tradition of coppers charging onto the ground at the end of a match to protect the umpires. They were followed by a brewery dray led by four Clydesdales, a nod to another great football tradition, that of getting mildly inebriated.
Then there were NAB AFL Auskickers, led by Dipper, who took pictures of the crowd as he walked, then football volunteers, then a tribute to the game's multicultural flavour, with West Coast's towering Nic Naitanui among the marchers.
There was a pipe band followed by Brett Kirk in the back of a Toyota Hilux, the premiership cup being carried behind him on a sedan chair like some modern-day Roman emperor.
The umpires were there, and NAB AFL Rising Star Dyson Heppell, but all of the crowd was waiting for what followed.
First came Collingwood trailing the Moorabbin Brass Band. Darren Jolly sat with his daughter, who wore a tiny Magpies guernsey with 'Dad 18' on the back. Alan Didak and Heath Shaw were paired - interesting, given their colourful history when sat together in the same vehicle.
The Cats drove behind the Kew Brass Band, with Steve Johnson, who sat with Travis Varcoe, the subject of most interest … although other Geelong players grabbed the attention of some vociferous Magpie fans: "You're overrated Scarlett!" and "Duck your head, Selwood!"
The crowd was 10 deep outside Flinders Street Station and grew bigger as the parade reached the turn into Collins St.
People stood on balconies or gazed from office block windows as the cavalcade passed. One group gathered above a jewellery shop doorway, glasses of beer in hand, cheerily toasting the players. Even the curtains at the august Melbourne Club parted as members watched the show.
At the parade's end, Scott posed for photos and signed guernseys as Mike Brady sang One Day in October [the footy's nearly over] and Lord Mayor Robert Doyle declared the crowd 100,000 strong.
When Ling walked to the microphone a few tried to start the 'COLL-ING-WOOD' chant, but they were shushed by MC Craig Willis, and fell silent until everyone launched into a stirring rendition of Up There Cazaly.
It was all going so well …
At the media conference Malthouse, with eerie calmness, pointed out that Fasolo was a pretty big chance of playing given that he had come into the team at the expense of Dayne Beams, and we moved on.
The outgoing Collingwood coach waxed philosophical about the burden of expectancy that often enveloped his club and he even seemed to be enjoying himself until the same reporter piped up again.
Did Dane Swan's Brownlow win mean the midfielder would be under greater pressure to perform in the Grand Final?
Was that a trace of pity that flashed across Malthouse's face before the familiar steely gaze zeroed in on the questioner? "No," he replied, and that was where 28 years of pre-match media conferences ended. The post-match reprise promises to be a doozy.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs
