Draft, The: Inside the AFL's Search for Talent

The DRAFT the draft 8-7.indd i 10/7/08 12:03:13 PM the draft 8-7.indd ii 10/7/08 12:03:14 PM The DRAFT )...

Author: Emma Quayle

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The

DRAFT

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The

DRAFT

)NSIDE THE !&,SSEARCH FORTALENT

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First published in 2008 Copyright © Emma Quayle 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Quayle, Emma. The draft : inside the AFL’s search for talent. ISBN: 978 1 74175 518 3 (pbk.) 1. Australian football. 2. Australian football players. 3. Australian football teams. 4. Professional sports–Australia. 796.336 Cover design by Design by Committee Text design and typesetting by Pauline Haas, Bluerinse Setting Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

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‘ Sometimes I think we forget

these boys are 16 and 17 years old ’ Alan McConnell, coach of the AIS-AFL Academy Squad

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contents

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Preface

1

1

Draft Day 2007

3

2

The Dream

9

3

The Draft

11

4

Hawthorn

16

5

Trent

27

6

Junior

35

7

Brad

43

8

Ben

47

9

Pat

53

10 South Africa, Part One

59

11 The Bushrangers

69

12 South Africa, Part Two

75

13 Scotch College

84

14 The Recruiter

88

15 Trent

92

16 Ben, Junior, Brad

96

17 Pat

102

18 The Magpies

108

19 Hawthorn

115

20 The Trials

123

21 Thunder

132

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22 Vic Metro, Part One

138

23 South Australia v Vic Country

147

24 Hawthorn

153

25 The Nationals

161

26 Vic Metro, Part Two

168

27 Back to Reality

175

28 Hawthorn

187

29 The Finals

191

30 Hawthorn

201

31 The Eagles

208

32 Grand Final Day

215

33 Draft Camp

222

34 Hawthorn

236

35 Old Lives

246

36 Draft Day 2007

255

37 Draft Day 2007: Hawthorn

264

38 Draft Day 2007: Junior, Trent, Ben, Pat

269

39 Draft Day 2007: Brad

274

40 2008

277

National Draft and Rookie Draft Player Lists

286

Picture Credits

292

Acknowledgements

293

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Trent and Junior

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Preface

30 July 2001 Trent Cotchin was tiny. He had big, baggy shorts and a buzz cut, and socks scrunched down to his ankles. He clapped his hands together twice, then placed them on his knees, looking up over his shoulder as the umpire bounced the ball. Victoria was playing the Northern Territory, and Trent had a big job to do. It was the Under-12 schoolboy championships and he’d been asked to play on the captain of the Territory team. His name was Cyril Rioli but people called him Junior Boy. Junior, for short. The kid had two famous uncles, and a cousin who played for Essendon. In a television report, he’d been called the best 12-year-old footballer in the country. Junior was taller than Trent, and quicker. He thumped the ball forward five times in the first few minutes, dancing around the Wodonga oval on his nimble, bouncy feet. He played like he had not one care in the world, swinging his long, floppy arms and paying no attention to anything but the ball. Trent chased, blocked, tackled and stuck as close as he could, but stumbled, and at the quarter-time huddle was berated by his coach for falling down and letting his opponent slip away. Then things got better. In the first few seconds of the second quarter, Trent gathered the ball on the wing, glanced briefly to his right, took a bounce and kicked the ball deep into the forward line. Later, he was slung while hovering over a loose ball, and scored a goal from the free kick. Victoria won by 55 points and Trent was named best player. But on their way back to the local caravan park, his mother remembered the reprimand, and wondered if he was thinking about it too. ‘Are you OK?’ Kath Cotchin asked Trent. He looked back at her and nodded. Of course he was. 1

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THE DRAFT

‘It was a team rule to keep your feet,’ he told her, ‘and I didn’t. I deserved to be told off.’ The answer surprised his mum, and made her feel much better. Oh well, she shrugged, looking this time across at her husband. If Trent could handle it, it shouldn’t bother them.

2


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1

‘ It’s going to happen now ’

Saturday 24 November 2007, 9.59 am In Darwin, it’s only 8.29 am. Cyril Sebastian Rioli the Third is in the middle of the St Mary’s club rooms, surrounded by his family. The plan was to hook someone’s lap-top computer up to the new big screen and follow the draft on the internet, but no-one can get it to work. The Saints are Junior’s football team, not that he ever had much say in it. Most of his uncles and cousins have played there, and a few of them still do. His father, Cyril Junior, played 263 games and would have played more had he not broken his leg four years ago, and been told it was time to retire. He was in his late thirties, after all. One of Junior’s uncles, Maurice Rioli, started at St Mary’s in the 1970s, eight years before becoming an instant star at Richmond. Another uncle, Michael Long, whipped down the wings before heading to Essendon to do that and much more. Uncle Mick kicked 2 goals a few weeks ago, playing for the St Mary’s reserves. Now it is Junior’s turn, a day many people have been waiting for. The kid has Rioli blood and Long blood, which makes him the little prince of Territory football. He could kick goals from the pocket when he was five and hadn’t yet turned two when the legendary St Mary’s coach, John Taylor, saw him waddling around in his tiny green and gold guernsey, and asked his mother if she realised just how good he’d be. Today – finally – he is old enough to be drafted. In a few more minutes he’ll have a new club. Junior woke up feeling nervous this morning, which surprised him; he’d been so calm all week. He got up, went into the bathroom and started 3


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to cry. That was even more strange: he never cries. His grandfather came in from Melville Island last night, and maybe that’s what made things bubble over. It all felt like too much; there were so many goodbyes to say. The computer problems might have unsettled him more, but instead they’ve eased his mind. Junior would love Essendon to pick him but the Bombers haven’t made any promises, or said anything different to the 12 other teams that interviewed him. He’s been wondering whether Adelaide will draft him, and would rather play for a Melbourne team. But if the Crows call his name, that’s fine. He’ll go, and be grateful for the chance. This is what he has been waiting for; this is what he was born for. Right now, he just wants everyone else to calm down. ‘We’ll find out,’ Junior says, as people fiddle with cords, wires and buttons. ‘Someone will tell us what happens.’

In Dederang, three and a half hours from Melbourne, Ben McEvoy is sitting in front of a computer screen inside his family’s farm house. His plan was to follow the draft live on the AFL website – to find out which club picks him when it picks him – but he should have thought to trial it first. He still can’t get the page to load. Ben has been up since 7 am, wandering the farm and wondering. He checked on a few cows, shot a few rabbits and then went down the road: there’s a federal election on today, which meant voting for the first time. Before heading home he stopped to watch his younger brother, Pete, bowl for the Dederang Under-17s. This time last year Pete could barely move from the couch, let alone run around a cricket field. This day feels different to others, but Ben isn’t nervous. Ben rarely gets nervous; he’s usually been able to detach himself from the things he has no influence over, and not stress out for no reason. He wasn’t anxious at all until he spoke to one of his teammates, Dawson, on the phone early this morning. Dawson might get drafted, but he might not, and Ben can’t imagine what that amount of uncertainty would feel like. He knows enough to believe he’ll be chosen, it’s just the ‘where’ part he’s waiting on, and determined not to think about. Wherever he goes, he’ll have to get used to being around more people, and having less room to move in. 4


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DRAFT DAY 2007

If he worries about anything, it’s whether someone at his nameless new club will understand the life he’s left behind. This isn’t only his moment, though. Ben’s mother, Sharon, is on the phone in the hallway, already close to tears. Pete’s still playing cricket, hanging out for the tea break so he can find out who his brother will be playing for next year. Their father, John, is underneath the chestnut trees, mowing a small patch of grass. He wants Ben to be drafted, and is ready for it to happen. But Ben being drafted means he’ll lose a mate, not to mention his best farm hand. He’ll go inside when it’s over. In a few minutes, it will be. ‘It’s actually going to happen,’ Ben thinks. ‘It’s going to happen now.’

In Mill Park, deep in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, Patrick Veszpremi has a camera in his face and some strong dramatic flair. A Fox Sports crew is filming him and his family as they listen to the draft on the radio, and he’s planning to trick everyone by jumping in his seat and calling ‘yes!’ when some random player’s name is read out. Just to break the tension, and make people smile. His mother Jennie is beside him, his brother Matt is next to her and Jennie’s partner Rob is listening in from the kitchen. Pat slept well last night, thanks to a handy head cold. His mother, on the other hand, was awake early, staring up at the ceiling. She went out for a walk at about 5 am, and a memory jumped into her head. Pat was a little boy, and they’d called in to a newsagency on their way home from footy training. The man behind the counter had looked down and asked Pat if he’d like to be a football player one day. Pat had nodded and said yes, that he wanted to play for an AFL team. ‘So does every kid in Melbourne,’ said the man, smiling as he handed back their change. As they left, Pat looked up at his mother. ‘Yeah, but I will,’ he told her. Today he’ll inch a lot closer. He hopes. Pat has spoken to most of the clubs now, a few of them seem keen, and he only needs one to want him. He’s been thinking that Richmond might pick him, or maybe even Melbourne. Sydney came around last night and that was a little bit strange, having Paul Roos sitting at his kitchen table, sipping a glass of water and chatting to his brother like he’d already met him five times. ‘That could 5


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be a chance,’ he thought to himself when they left. Jennie sensed the same thing. But the Swans have pick 11, and surely he won’t be drafted that early. Pat had been feeling nervous, but he’s not anymore. ‘I just want to know when and where, and then it should be good times,’ he says, pausing. ‘Hopefully . . .’

In Melbourne, Trent Cotchin is full of nervous energy. His legs are shaking, he keeps tapping his toes on the floor and he can’t stop smiling, or focus on anything for more than a few moments. This is what Trent was like when he was nine, and hadn’t played footy all summer; it’s what he was like last month, when his foot was stuck in plaster and he wasn’t allowed to run around. Trent is at the draft itself, in the front row of a Telstra Dome function room with his parents on one side, his girlfriend Lilah on the other, and his sisters just behind. Every time someone important is introduced to her brother his little sister Tess slowly raises the small ‘Cotchin Family’ sign that showed them all where to sit. It’s a cute, quiet reminder that Trent isn’t the only one who’s been waiting a long time for this day. The Cotchins are one of seven families invited along today by the AFL, a good sign they’ll know his fate nice and early. Even if Trent could focus, it would be hard to know where to look. There are player agents roaming the room with their mobile phones close, hoping to deliver more good news than bad to the boys they represent. A television crew is doing laps of the room and in almost every corner are AFL coaches, chatting casually to each other. The 16 club tables are arranged in a large rectangle and the recruiting managers are at the top of them, pouring glasses of water and glancing over their notes. This is their big day too. Trent had woken up early, just after 6 am. He couldn’t manage much breakfast, and whenever someone spoke to him he seemed to snap straight back. He’s not entirely sure why, because he hasn’t been feeling nervous, and has a fair idea what will happen today. Everyone expects Carlton to choose Matthew Kreuzer, one of Trent’s close friends, with the No. 1 pick. Richmond, which has the next pick, hasn’t said anything definite but last 6


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week Terry Wallace called his home, to find out how Trent’s injury was and have a quick chat to his dad. As he called his father inside and handed over the phone, Trent wondered why the Richmond coach would call if he wasn’t planning to pick him. Still, nothing is official yet. None of it matters until they read his name out, and maybe that’s why his legs won’t stop shaking. ‘I just want to know,’ he keeps thinking. ‘I just want to know.’

Across the aisle, Brad Ebert is nervous too. He flew in from Adelaide last night with his father, sister, aunty and mother, who is feeling more anxious than all of them. She’s worried they’ve come all this way for nothing – that they’ll be sitting there all morning, waiting, and no-one will call out Brad’s name. It’s an irrational fear, Chris knows, but that doesn’t make it less real. The draft has been on Brad’s mind a lot in the last few weeks. He’s been having dreams too, about sitting here this morning and not getting picked. He spent a few days last weekend at a friend’s place up near the Adelaide Hills, riding motorbikes with his mates, helping out with some farm work, and sitting up into the night, imagining what might happen next for each of them. Brad is lucky, in a sense: he knows he’ll be playing football next year. He just doesn’t know where he’ll be playing next year. Any club could draft Brad today, and he has no idea which one it will be. Some people have said Essendon might pick him and he likes the thought of that. Other people have said Brisbane, and that sounds pretty good too. He’s spoken to Adelaide a few times, and they seem keen, but they also said they’d call again this week, and haven’t. Brad’s not quite sure what that means, if anything. The Power will choose him if they can – Brad’s great-grandfather, grandfather, father, uncle and cousin all played for Port Adelaide’s successful, self-assured local club – but they’re sure he’ll be gone by their first pick. At least one fear was eased on Monday, when the Fremantle recruiters flew into town and asked for an interview. They spoke for an hour at the Hilton Hotel and when they were finished Brad asked where he sat in their plans. The Dockers said they’d pick a local kid first, at No. 7, but would consider Brad at their next selection, if he happened to still be there. 7


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‘Phew,’ said Chris out loud on the drive home. Perth is a long way away. ‘Phew,’ Brad mumbled quietly. Perth is a long way away. The only thing Brad wants is to be drafted, and when you grow up in Adelaide wanting to play AFL football, you know you’ll most likely have to leave home. A part of him would like to move to a new state, to experience a club he doesn’t know as well as Port Adelaide. But in one small corner of his mind Brad knows that if the Crows don’t choose him at No. 10 there are five more picks before the Power can call his name. If the Crows don’t pick him, he probably won’t get to stay home. He really could end up anywhere. He doesn’t know how he’ll stay in his seat, how he’ll stay in the room, if that happens. In a few more minutes, he’ll know. At 10 am, the AFL’s 2007 national draft starts. Brad’s heart starts beating faster, so hard it almost hurts. Trent still can’t sit still. Pat leans forward with his elbows on his knees and two fists pressed to his face. Ben isn’t anxious but his mother is, as she listens down the phone line to the radio at her brother’s house. Junior isn’t anxious because the computer still won’t work. He has no idea if the draft has even started. It has. ‘Here we go,’ says AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, from a raised table at the front of the function room. ‘Selection one; Carlton . . .’

8


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2

‘ I just wish I knew . . . ’

Wednesday 28 February 2007, 8 pm Patrick Veszpremi had a sore shoulder, and a decision to make. It was a Wednesday night in Melbourne, just starting to get dark. Pat had left the surgeon’s office and was on his way back home, sitting alone on a train. He was trying not to cry, or at least not let anyone notice him cry. His mind felt filled with a thousand thoughts, but as soon as he began to resolve one, another jumped up and he had to start all over. He kept coming back to one question: Did the doctor just give me good news, or bad? As soon as he hurt himself, at training last week, Pat knew he’d done something bad. He’d been holding a thick, padded tackle bag tightly at both sides when a teammate had lurched into him. He felt a sharp jab of pain in the back of his left shoulder, the rest of his arm went numb and he fell heavily to the ground, screaming so loudly that everyone turned around, wondering what he’d done this time. In his dreams that night he was at footy training, but all he could do was walk around the boundary line, watching everyone else run around. He woke up more than once, sweating. Pat was 17, and wanted badly to play AFL football. He’d wanted it ever since he was eight, when he went to the MCG for the first time to see a Collingwood game with his grandfather. Nathan Buckley kicked a goal from the 50-metre line that day, right in front of where they were sitting. The crowd roared and Pat glanced around, imagining how amazing it would feel if all those people were cheering for him. He knew he had some talent, but he wasn’t sure how much. His coaches kept telling him he didn’t have enough endurance, that he was 9


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nowhere near fit enough. He had a habit of gaining weight, quickly if he wasn’t careful, and being out injured wouldn’t help with that. Pat’s final junior season was just four weeks from starting, the draft was nine months away and he felt like he needed everything to go right for a club to give him a chance. It meant he had a decision to make. Pat’s ears started to feel fuzzy as soon as the doctor said ‘surgery’ and he found it hard to concentrate. It was as though he could see the words being formed but not hear any of them. He didn’t really want to hear them, if it meant he couldn’t keep playing. Put simply, his shoulder had dislocated. Not fully − it had popped straight back in – but enough to cause some cartilage damage. It was safe to keep playing and the surgeon didn’t think it would get any worse, even if Pat got knocked again. But it was bound to happen again at some stage, and would need to be fixed up soon. So did he have it done now, and miss playing for Australia on a trip to South Africa next month? The Australian Institute of Sport’s AFL Academy had organised the trip for the best young players in the country, and ever since he’d been picked Pat had wondered how he could possibly be considered in that company. If he couldn’t go and play he’d feel further behind. Another option was to wait until July and have it done then. That way, he could play for Victoria in the Under-18 championships, in front of all the talent scouts, and convince them once and for all that he could play. Or, he could wait until the season was over, so that he could play in the finals and not let his teammates down. But Pat’s side, the Northern Knights, might not even get that far. And if he did it that way, he’d miss the start of summer training should an AFL club draft him, and trail his new teammates from day one. Tucking his legs up underneath him as the train rattled down the Epping line, Pat felt the tears harder to hold back. Did he have a huge amount still to prove this year? Or just a few small, simple things? Why did decisions seem so much easier when people made them for you? How was he supposed to know what would happen in the next six months? His mind kept whirling, all the way home. ‘I just wish someone would tell me how it turns out.’ 10


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3

‘ The draft changed what it meant to dream of a big-league career ’ 1986–2007 The first VFL draft was held in a small room in the league’s old Jolimont headquarters late in 1986. There were no television cameras, only a couple of keen newspaper reporters and no young hopefuls sweating it out in the front row. Martin Leslie, the 24-year-old No. 1 pick, was on his way to join a Darwin dole queue early the next morning when he picked up a newspaper and found out he was a Brisbane player. At the time, interstate recruiting was on the rise and transfer fees were rocketing, as were sign-on fees, salaries and inducements – all of which were making the wealthy clubs more talent-rich. Just five teams had shared the previous 20 premierships, the Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles were about to enter the league and the VFL’s new, independent commission wanted its expanding competition to be a more even one. The league’s hand had also been forced in 1983 when South Melbourne player Silvio Foschini – who didn’t want to go to Sydney with the Swans – was refused a transfer to St Kilda. He took his case to the Supreme Court, which found the VFL’s zoning and transfer rules constituted an illegal restraint of trade. The draft was introduced with a salary cap, to further limit the big clubs’ pulling power, and a player-trade system, with the idea to help the worst-performing clubs improve by giving them first call on the best players outside the competition. In the 20 years after the draft started, all 16 clubs had played off in at least one finals series, and 10 had won premierships. In its first 20 years, the draft was revised and revamped, regularly. It was sure to keep evolving: the draft eligibility age was up for constant 11


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debate, some clubs were pushing for draft-day trading and others wanted to be able to trade draft picks from future years. A mid-season draft came and went in the early 1990s and the rookie draft was introduced in 1997, with the players picked able to be upgraded to the senior list should another player be injured long term, and to be permanently promoted at the end of a season. The pre-season draft was introduced in 1989, so that out-ofcontract players had a way to change clubs if they were unhappy, and their club hadn’t been able to trade them to another. The clubs’ interest in it, however, had diminished over time. Almost 50 players were picked in the first pre-season draft but by 2006 that had dwindled to a small handful, with clubs starting to use their picks on the best kids overlooked in the national draft a few weeks earlier, rather than recycle players. There were only a few ways to recruit players without finding them through the draft. In 2007 clubs were able to sign and nurture several New South Wales teenagers, as part of an AFL scholarship scheme designed to boost the number of draftees emerging from its deadest patch. If the players became good enough, clubs could place them directly on their list using their final national or rookie draft selection. Clubs could also sign international players outside the draft and place them straight on their rookie list; the Lions and Swans had first call on undrafted local kids ahead of the rookie draft and the father–son rule, introduced in 1950, allowed clubs to draft the sons of 100-game former players. A modified version of the rule gave the West and South Australian clubs access to the sons of former West Australian Football League (WAFL − 150 games) and South Australian National Football League (SANFL − 200 games) players until they had built their own pool of fathers to draw from. Then there was the ever-contentious priority pick system, which gave perennial poor performers a bonus draft choice in an effort to help get them up the ladder. For years, priority picks were awarded at the start of the draft, but in 2006 they were moved to the start of the second round so that the other teams weren’t disadvantaged by being pushed too far down the first-round order. Teams were granted a priority pick if they won less than five games in a season; if they were that bad for two years running, the pick was placed at the start of the first round. In 2007, two clubs were in line for that after having terrible 2006 seasons: Essendon and Carlton. 12


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The draft changed what it meant to dream of a big-league career. Before it began, Victorian boys grew up in either the country or city zone of a VFL club, knowing that was where they would end up if they were good enough. Country zoning, introduced in 1967, had seen each club assigned a rural area to develop, spend money and find players in. The last of the country players were signed up in the months leading up to the 1986 draft. Metropolitan zoning ended in 1992, when the club-based Under-19 competition was replaced with an independent Under-18 feeder league called the TAC Cup and AFL list numbers were trimmed. Though Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Fremantle were all granted access to local players and other draft concessions when they entered the league, the 1992 draft was the first truly national draft – when any club could draft any player from anywhere in the land and any young player could end up anywhere, at a club they had never had anything to do with and with a handful of other young players who might have been their rivals just a few months earlier. The following year, in 1993, players had to nominate for the draft; by 2006, more than 1200 players were registering each year. Before 1993, clubs had simply picked the players they wanted, knowing they had two years to talk them into coming. That was tricky, especially in the first few years of the draft and particularly with Adelaide-based players – the SANFL was so determined to keep its best talent in town that it invented a ‘player retention scheme’, basically paying players to stay home. Since 1993, signing a nomination form meant agreeing to join whichever team picked you, at least for two years. And then waiting – waiting and waiting to see which club called your name on draft day, if any. In any year, only 60 to 80 players would be picked. Despite the few chances there were, the road to the AFL had become much better lit. When Kevin Sheehan retired from his 102-game Geelong career and joined the VFL as its development manager in the mid-1980s, his half-a-million-dollar budget covered everything from coach education to school football and elite junior programs, among many other things. Only a few years later his full-time focus was the talented-player pathway, which the league invested huge amounts of money in and which even had its own sponsor. In fact it was more a funnel than a pathway, with the best young players being drip-fed first from their local junior clubs 13


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through to teenage development squads with either their state league team or, in Victoria, TAC Cup clubs. The AFL’s programs kicked in then: the best Under-16 players were invited to play in the national championships, the best players at that level were offered scholarships to a nine-month grooming program called the AIS-AFL Academy, and the national Under18 championships were the next, biggest plank. It was still possible to draft someone who had not been heavily exposed, but true ‘smokies’ were rare; in 2004 St Kilda drafted James Gwilt from Noble Park and the next year they found Justin Sweeney in Tyabb, but both had decided against playing in the TAC Cup, not been left out. The introduction of the draft, and the AFL’s own increased emphasis on identifying the right talent, meant that recruiting had become more about knowing all you possibly could about the 200-plus most elite young players assembled in front of you, than beating another club to the signature of a big fish or unearthing an unknown superstar somewhere out in the bush. The draft in itself didn’t turn bad teams into good ones. Only two No. 1 picks, Drew Banfield and Des Headland, had played in premiership sides by the end of 2006 and the players chosen at No. 3 in the 10 years leading up to 2006 had collectively delivered more finals, grand finals and flags than the No. 1s – just, but still. Fremantle made six top-5 selections from 1995 to 2006 but had played in just two of the nine finals series since 1995. The Saints made five early choices in that time, too, for four finals campaigns, while Collingwood had four top-5 picks for four finals series. Every club that had called at No. 1 had made the finals since, bar Hawthorn, which had chosen Luke Hodge in 2001. West Coast and Essendon had made just two top-5 choices, but both had played in seven finals series in that 10-year time period; neither Geelong nor Adelaide had a single top-5 selection, yet the Cats had made three finals series and the Crows had played off six times. Still, none of the No. 1 picks in that time frame had flopped like they had in the early days, when the likes of Richard Lounder, Anthony Banik and Stephen Hooper became better known for how few senior games they played. Clubs were no longer making mistakes with very high picks, but high picks alone didn’t guarantee success. Setting aside the New South Wales scheme and the international rookie system, clubs had just two basic ways of getting players into their club: by trading players, draft picks or a combination of both, or by drafting them. In 2007, 14


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clubs had player lists of only 38 players, plus up to six rookies. If you made enough mistakes on draft day, for enough years in a row, your club was going to suffer. Recruiting, therefore, was a lot about minimising risk. By 2007, it was a process that some clubs were pouring considerably more money and resources into than others: an article in The Age newspaper revealed that in 2006, Collingwood spent almost $800 000 on recruiting during 2006, a figure expected to surpass $900 000 in 2007. The figure was $250 000 more than the next biggest spender, Fremantle, had devoted to it; $643 000 more than Richmond had spent and $573 000 more than St Kilda. Clubs not only watched players play, they interviewed them – as well as their parents, teachers and coaches in some cases. Statistics company Champion Data provided them with detailed, AFL-style analysis on all parts of a player’s game, as well as a computer program that enabled them to call up a prospect’s highlights with a simple mouse click, rather than scroll through hours of VHS tape. The annual draft camp told recruiters precisely how quick a player was, how much endurance he had and how high he could jump, while psychological profiling revealed more about their personality. Not every player drafted would or could make it. Some would have to deal with injuries, some wouldn’t get opportunities and others would simply not be good enough. In some ways a recruiter’s job was to reduce a player to a series of qualities – their kicking, their marking, their competitiveness – and try and work out if they’d have the height, speed or even the attitude to do the things they did well in an AFL game. Would they get taller? Could they get any stronger? How would they cope in an intense, ultra-professional and heavily scrutinised first job? With good coaching, could they fix that one, tiny flaw in their kicking technique? Should you pick players who had proved they could perform or who had the potential to perform? What had never changed was that the draft was about making decisions. They were more informed decisions, but when it came their turn on draft day a recruiter still had to make a choice. They still had to call someone’s name out, and they could never change their mind.

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4

‘ For a football club, the long term is its future ’ In 2004, Hawthorn was the second-worst team in the AFL. Just three years after the Hawks had lost a preliminary final to Essendon, falling 9 points short of a shot at their tenth premiership, the one-time powerhouse was no good at all. Hawthorn had won four games for the year, the club’s worst result in four decades, and finished ahead of Richmond by less than one percentage point. The bodies began dropping before the season was out. With six games to play, coach Peter Schwab agreed to see out the year after being nudged by the club he had helped win three grand finals as a player. The following week, after an 80-point thrashing, Schwab told a second media gathering he was leaving there and then. The chief executive resigned and the team’s star full-forward, Nathan Thompson, struggled for form before revealing his long wrestle with depression. Shane Crawford handed in the captaincy after battling through a serious back injury in the first half of the season, only to break his arm in the second half. Recruit Danny Jacobs and teammate Lance Picioane were fined $5000 – and Picioane was suspended for one match – after the pair lied to the club about Jacobs’ arrest for drink driving, and the dubious highlight of Hawthorn’s on-field year was what became known as the ‘line in the sand’ clash with Essendon. After players were encouraged by club officials during the half-time break to stand up to the more physically imposing Bombers, Richard Vandenberg, Campbell Brown and Picioane were suspended for multiple weeks after a wild brawl at the start of the third term. The result, a 74-point belting, didn’t seem to matter as much as the supposedly restored pride. The off-field season 16


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ended in December when president Ian Dicker warded off a challenge by club greats Don Scott and Graham Arthur. By the middle of November, the club had already begun to move on. Seven players were dumped, including Picioane, stalwart defender Mark Graham, and Thompson, who had requested a fresh start and been traded to North Melbourne. The rest of the coaching staff were cleaned out and replaced, Mark Evans arrived from Melbourne as the new football manager and Ian Robson, a former St Kilda reserves player turned sports administrator, became the new chief executive. To a combination of disbelief and disapproval, the club refused to jump the gun in its search for a coach and after premiership heroes Terry Wallace and Rodney Eade were snapped up by Richmond and the Western Bulldogs, the Hawks turned instead to an untried 36-year-old with no brown-and-gold connections. Alastair Clarkson, a feisty 134-game rover at North Melbourne and Melbourne, was appointed for two years, becoming Hawthorn’s twenty-eighth senior coach, and the youngest senior coach in the league. He brought a panel of young, inexperienced assistants with him and came on the promise the club would find him a batch of fresh young players to grow with. The process started at the national draft in November 2004, where recruiting manager Gary Buckenara had three picks inside the first seven. Buckenara, another Hawthorn premiership player, was in his first year in the job and one of only two members of the previous football department to survive. At No. 2, the club chose Jarryd Roughead − a big, bulky keyposition prospect from the Gippsland Power − in what was seen as a surprise move considering Richard Tambling, a speedy midfielder from Darwin, had bunked at Buckenara’s house during a pre-draft trip to Melbourne. At No. 5, the Hawks picked the talented but erratic Lance Franklin, while Jordan Lewis, a strong-bodied onballer from Warrnambool, was chosen at No. 7. Later in the draft, Hawthorn added youngsters Matthew Little and Tom Murphy, while Simon Taylor, a 22-year-old ruckman from Box Hill, came in to complement Peter Everitt, the Hawks’ best-and-fairest player in 2004. Bo Nixon had crossed from Collingwood as part of the Thompsonto-North Melbourne trade – a three-club deal – while Doug Scott, the son of Don, was the club’s sole choice in the pre-season draft. Hawthorn’s first three picks were sandwiched between those of Richmond and the Bulldogs, with all three clubs granted a priority pick 17


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at the start of the first round. With picks 1 and 4, the Tigers chose the dynamic Brett Deledio, widely considered the best player on offer, and the skilful Tambling. At 3 and 6, the Bulldogs drafted classy South Australian midfielder Ryan Griffen and tall Queenslander Tom Williams, a rugby union convert who had played literally only a handful of Australian Rules games. In Franklin and Roughead, the Hawks were sure they’d picked the two best young key-position prospects. ‘It was an enormous decision for our club to bypass some of the other talent in the draft, like Tambling and those sorts of kids,’ Clarkson told his post-draft press conference. ‘It was something where we went in thinking, “If we can get these two boys, we’ll go a long way towards making the spine of our football club strong for a long time.”’ There was one last person in the puzzle. Having filled his football department with so many new, young people, Ian Dicker did not want their inexperience to expose them. At the end of January 2005 he made contact with Chris Pelchen, the club’s former recruiting manager, who had recently left Port Adelaide after nine years as its Melbourne-based operations manager. Pelchen, who began his career as a teenage VFL trainee, had a strong belief – instilled in him by long-time league boss Alan Schwab – that while coaches and players were supposed to entertain, an administrator’s job was to make logical, non-emotional decisions and keep an organisation stable. During his time at the VFL, Pelchen had been part of a committee formed to study player movement systems in sports all over the world; the VFL draft was based primarily on America’s football and baseball drafts, and he had never understood why clubs hadn’t structured their staff and operations in ways that would better suit the system they were now bound to. He had also learned a lot at Port Adelaide, the 2004 premiership club he’d helped start from scratch after its admission to the AFL during 1996. In his conversations with Dicker and Robson before rejoining the Hawks, Pelchen put forward a proposal – that Hawthorn effectively split its football operations department into two separate divisions. His belief was that the football manager, coaches and fitness staff should look after the team’s immediate needs – each week’s match preparations, tribunal matters, injury treatment and player welfare – while the longer-term, big18


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picture direction should be set by people who were removed from the emotional, everyday matters of running a football team and were therefore better placed to make strategic decisions on things like salary cap models, list management, recruiting and opposition analysis. ‘I remember sitting down with Ian Robson and saying, “If you compare the short- and longterm priorities of the club against the short- and long-term priorities of the coach, they’re often very different things,”’ Pelchen said. ‘The more time that passes, the greater that gap can become. If you’re giving the decisions about long-term planning to your coach, who is and rightfully should be concentrating on the immediate term, then you’re going down the wrong path. For a coach, the “long term” can be the length of his contract. But for a football club, the long term is more than 10 years. The long term is its future.’ Entering 2005, Hawthorn had some big short-term problems and some more significant longer-term issues. Since 1998, Pelchen had analysed the structure, experience, positional make up, draft history, skill and psychological characteristics of each premiership club, as well as the 22 individual players who had played on grand final day. Compared to each of those ‘premiership models’, the Hawks were in no man’s land. In 2005, they had the fourth-youngest list in the competition; they were neither a mature team nor a young, developing one. Port Adelaide, by comparison, had just won the flag with an average list age of 25. Hawthorn was the second-lightest club in the competition, and the third shortest club. Its average height was only 186 centimetres; the average height of modern premiership teams was around 188 centimetres. On paper, that did not seem a massive gap, but had Hawthorn’s best 22 players in 2005 run out against the average premiership team of the previous 10 years, at least six players would have been exactly the same height as their opponent; meaning that, on average, the opposition would have boasted an extra 30 centimetres in height somewhere on the ground. If those 30 centimetres were shared between four opposition players, rather than six, it would have made those players 6 or 7 centimetres taller than their Hawthorn opponents, most likely in key parts of the ground. That was when it became a big problem. Not only were they small and light, the Hawks also had some skill issues. During the first eight weeks of 2005, Hawthorn was ranked by 19


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Champion Data as the team with the worst kicking efficiency in the competition, and it loomed as a huge problem. Good kicking, Pelchen’s research had made clear, was a common trait of premiership teams. The Hawks were bad; really bad. Pelchen re-joined Hawthorn in May 2005 as general manager of player personnel and strategy. The board handed him the right of veto on every player that went on or off the club’s list, as well as a simple brief: to devise a deliberate six-year plan that would take Hawthorn back to where it had not been since 1991, 14 years earlier. To a place it had lost sight of: the top of the AFL ladder.

First things came first. The most pressing problem at Hawthorn was its salary cap: despite finishing fifteenth, the Hawks were paying their players less than only one other club. Contracts were trimmed there and then, according to a detailed contract graph indicating the length of each player’s current contract, when they were expected to hit peak form and when any predicted injury problems might start to affect their value. Pelchen and Mark Evans also set about adjusting which players were earning the best money. In 2005, the Hawks paid more than a quarter of their total player payment allowance to players they did not see being there the next season. By 2006, that figure had been reduced to a healthier 10 per cent, with the club’s middle-range players collectively earning more than any other group on the list. To get a better sense of who deserved what, and to also understand what sort of talent the club was working with, Pelchen then assessed the 640-plus AFL listed players according to both some objective data (such as height, weight, position, games experience and injury status) as well as some more subjective opinion (current form, character, skill and psychological profiles). It was an exhaustive exercise, which he had begun while at Port Adelaide almost 10 years earlier, with the rankings revised in the middle of each season and again at the end. Every player in the competition was assigned a rating between 1 and 5, with the rating-4 players separated into two groups, the 4As being fresh debutants in the early days of their career, and the 4B players on significant decline. At the halfway mark of 2005, Pelchen figured Hawthorn to have three rating-1 20


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players, three rating-2s, 16 in category 3, eight 4As, eight 4Bs and three untried rating-5 players. That made the Hawks, along with Carlton, the lowest-ranked team in the league. All eight names in the 4B ‘trap door’ category were cut at the end of that year except one, Harry Miller, who got a late reprieve. In the end-of-year analysis, one rating-5 player moved into the 4A category, having debuted during the season, and one of the three elite players – Peter Everitt – dropped back to level 2. The next step was to bring new, young players in. But they had to be the right young players. When Pelchen started at Hawthorn he had the coaching staff draw up their best possible line-up from the list at their disposal. The team was picked in position and Pelchen then pulled it apart, moving players into positions he believed they would fill by the time he saw Hawthorn genuinely contending again, around 2010, and removing those he didn’t consider either a prospective or possible part of the next premiership line-up. Ten players remained on the page when he was done. Five – Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge, Lance Franklin, Jarryd Roughead and Jordan Lewis – were listed as ‘prospective’ premiership players, with five more considered ‘possibles’. That was nothing against the other young players on the club’s list – all were there because they had potential, and the ability to improve – and it was certainly no slight on the likes of Shane Crawford. On ability, Crawford would have clearly been a ‘probable’ but he was soon to hit his thirties. Casting ahead several years, to when he thought Crawford’s teammates would be ready for success, Pelchen had to consider the possibility he simply might run out of time. By the start of 2007, just one player on the 2005 list, but not picked in the coaches’ best team, had forced himself into contention: Brad Sewell had worked hard, improved and proven himself as a genuine senior player. He’d done it after almost being traded to Melbourne, who wanted badly to get their hands on him at the end of 2005, but couldn’t talk defender Ryan Ferguson into making the move to Hawthorn. Roughead, who had debuted in 2005 and played his early games in the forward line, was named as a defender in both the coaches’ team and Pelchen’s long-term review. Subsequently, Pelchen made two significant positional moves, keeping in mind the team’s future structure. Of the 12 players not expected to be part of the next flag, two were gone by the end of 2005. Jonathan Hay had been traded to North 21


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Melbourne, while Angelo Lekkas had retired. At the end of 2006 another pair − the traded Peter Everitt and the retired John Barker – had moved on. In 2007, the eight other members of the match committee’s original team remained at the club; a couple of them had improved and Pelchen had seen no logic in moving the others on immediately, simply for the sake of change. As part of his analysis of premiership teams, he examined when each player had been recruited to their team and found that some had been there for 11 or 12 seasons before contributing to its ultimate success. The road to a premiership was a long one: if you went around thinking you had only three years to contend for a flag, or five years to win one, you’d eliminate players or personnel who could help you get there, even if they didn’t end up a part of the eventual success. The 12 ‘open’ positions formed the basis for Hawthorn’s new ‘recruiting model’, one Pelchen based on previously successful teams, and which he split into two parts. The first, three-year phase would include the 2005, 2006 and 2007 draft and trade periods; by the end of phase two, in 2010, he believed the Hawks would be in genuine premiership contention. He nominated kicking as one of two key qualities of any potential recruit, given the club’s poor kicking statistics compared to past premiership teams. As a rule, every draftee also needed to have strong character or, more particularly, on-field intelligence and a ‘team-first’ attitude. Pelchen had never subscribed to the theory that clubs should simply pick the ‘best available player’ at each selection in a draft: if the best player available at each pick was a ruckman, or a small midfielder, a list would have no balance. And picking the ‘best player’ was still a subjective thing – research aside, you still had to make a judgement call. He simply wanted there to be reasons behind why a certain player was the player they should choose. The Hawks entered the 2005 national draft with five picks in the first 22, having traded Hay to the Kangaroos and cleared some significant salary-cap space. It was a deal that saw Nathan Lonie cross to Port Adelaide and Hawthorn gather two extra first-round picks. Before the draft, the club also nominated Travis Tuck, the second son of club legend Michael Tuck, as a father–son selection. With all 12 positions on its new recruiting model to be filled, the recruiting team had more room to move than they would have in future drafts. The basic plan was to tick off on as many of the identified player ‘types’ as possible. 22


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• • • • •

Two ruckmen (one ‘endurance’ ruckman, the other a ‘tap’ ruckman). Four utilities (three tall utilities and one short ‘crumbing’ utility). Three midfielders (two ‘outside’ players and one ‘run-with’ midfielder). Two key forwards (one ‘lead-up’ forward, the other a ‘marking’ forward). One key defender.

On draft day 2005 Hawthorn’s first pick was No. 3. Carlton and Collingwood had the first two choices that year, with all three clubs having qualified for a priority pick. It was well known that the Blues had committed to Marc Murphy and so the Hawks resolved to take either Dale Thomas or Xavier Ellis, whoever was overlooked by Collingwood. That became Ellis, who was drafted as one of the four utilities. At No. 6, Hawthorn considered two players: Beau Dowler, an Oakleigh Chargers forward, and Patrick Ryder, a young ruckman from East Fremantle. Key forwards were a priority, which made Dowler the priority: looking ahead to the 2006 and 2007 drafts, the club had identified that there were very few key forwards on the horizon. The Hawks had some late work to do before calling the teenager’s name after he was involved in a car accident shortly before the draft, breaking his pelvis in three places. Dowler spent 12 days in hospital, arriving at the draft in a wheelchair. The Hawks’ medical team had kept constant tabs on his injuries and recovery, and the club was certain he would have no ongoing problems. Dowler was drafted as one of the recruiting model’s two forwards, the ‘lead-up’ player. At pick 14, the Hawks would have loved to draft Marcus Drum, a tall defender from the Murray Bushrangers. He was gone, chosen by Fremantle at pick 10. The next two names on the list were Grant Birchall, a tall, running defender from Devonport, and Darren Pfeiffer, a South Australian midfielder. Clarkson had been impressed with what he’d seen of Pfeiffer, but Birchall was chosen because he was ranked higher on talent and had a stronger psychological profile. A tall utility, he played 16 games in his debut season, 2006. 23


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Hawthorn’s next pick was No. 18. The club’s research into the next two drafts had also revealed that there were few quality ruckmen on the way – except for a couple of exceptional ones in Matthew Leuenberger and Matthew Kreuzer, both of whom fitted the recruiting model but would require very early draft picks. Pelchen was determined that the club start nurturing some young ruckmen of its own, having bought its last three – Peter Everitt, Shaun Rehn and Paul Salmon – for first-round draft choices from other clubs. As a result, the club drafted Max Bailey, a raw but very tall ruckman from West Perth, choosing him earlier than most other clubs would have in a move the Hawks could afford to make given they had so many early choices. They didn’t have to risk missing out on him. Luke McEntee, a South Australian ruckman and their next ruckman in line, didn’t get drafted at all, and was later nabbed by Hawthorn at No. 3 in the rookie draft. At pick 22, Hawthorn drafted Beau Muston, a hard-running outside midfielder from Shepparton who had dominated the first part of the TAC Cup season before having a knee reconstructed and missing the rest of the year. In the lead-up to the draft there had been speculation that the graft in his knee hadn’t taken properly, that he would need the operation re-done. Hawthorn was in touch with Muston’s surgeon right up until the night before the draft. ‘I think we knew more about Beau’s knee than Beau did himself in the end,’ Pelchen said. The club had considered drafting two other players at that pick – Richard Douglas, a hard-nosed onballer had been chosen by Adelaide at No. 16 but Sam Lonergan, an in-and-under type from Tasmania, was still on offer. Again, Muston won out because he fitted the model better than Lonergan would have. Two weeks after the draft, he had his knee reconstructed for a second time. A player already on the Hawthorn list, Sewell, was promoted into the premiership model after playing 12 games off the rookie list. The club had found its ‘run-with’ midfielder from within.

In 2006, Hawthorn again played a key part in trade week and again cleared one of its big earners. Peter Everitt had offered himself for trade at the end of the previous season, only a few months after extending his contract by 12 months. The club chose to keep him, believing neither Robert 24


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Campbell nor Simon Taylor ready to handle the ruck without him, but at the end of the following season sent him to Sydney for a second-round pick. The Hawks’ other interest was in Carlton full-back Bret Thornton, as the checking defender they were looking for. The 23-year-old was out of contract and keen to join Hawthorn; Carlton, however, would accept nothing but a first-round draft pick for him and Hawthorn wasn’t willing to part with that. Thornton could have nominated for the pre-season draft, but there was no guarantee he would get to Hawthorn’s pick. He signed a new two-year deal with the Blues, and stayed put. That left the club with picks 6, 24, 33 and 56 in the national draft, with one more saved for the pre-season draft. The club’s third-round choice, No. 40, had been set aside for another father–son recruit, Josh Kennedy. He became Hawthorn’s first third-generation player, with both his grandfather, John Senior and father, John Junior, club icons. Kennedy was drafted not to fill a specific spot in the recruiting model but to provide midfield reinforcement for Sam Mitchell and Sewell as an in-and-under type, and also because the club was determined to re-establish its culture. What better way to do that than by recruiting one kid called ‘Tuck’ and another named ‘Kennedy’, in consecutive years? At No. 6, Hawthorn drafted Mitch Thorp, a ‘marking’ forward from Tasmania. The club had a midfielder, Joel Selwood, listed higher on their talent order (Selwood was behind Bryce Gibbs, Matthew Leuenberger and Scott Gumbleton at No. 4, with Thorp at No. 6 behind Lachlan Hansen) but they had some concerns over the knee injury that had caused him to miss almost all of the season. Pelchen also believed that unless there was an enormous gap in talent, clubs should bolster their spines before looking elsewhere on the ground. Hence Thorp the forward was chosen over Selwood the midfielder. ‘Joel was an excellent player with genuine talent and outstanding character,’ said Pelchen, ‘but we had other positional priorities.’ At pick 24, Hawthorn expected to be choosing between a pair of West Australians: Eric Mackenzie, a key defender and the twenty-first player on their talent order, and Jarryd Morton, twenty-sixth on their list and more of a utility. Both players were available but so was Brent Renouf, a hardrunning ruckman the club had ranked at No. 15 and did not expect to get with their second pick. They decided to go with him after requesting extra 25


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time to discuss the decision. Did they leave Mackenzie sitting there? Was Renouf, as the only genuine endurance ruckman available in this draft, too hard to pass up? He was, so they picked him. Mackenzie was chosen by West Coast at No. 29, but Morton made it to Hawthorn’s next pick, No. 33. The club’s final choice at No. 56 was Garry Moss, a West Australian midfielder who didn’t fit a specific position on the recruiting model but was the player they thought would bring most to the club. Moss was the forty-eighth player on Hawthorn’s list of its best 56; the five they had listed directly above him had all been picked already. From there, the club took one pick to the pre-season draft, hoping to choose Ben Ross, a quick and clever crumber who had been overlooked in the national draft. He would have filled the ‘crumbing forward’ role, but the Kangaroos had the choice ahead of the Hawks, No. 3, and snaffled him. In the absence of players who could fit their model in other ways, the Hawks chose to re-draft Josh Thurgood, a player they had only recently delisted, to reinforce their backline.

Hawthorn became a better team in 2006. From fourteenth on the ladder in 2005, the Hawks inched up to No. 11. Heading into 2007, the player list had grown more than half a centimetre in average height, and was approaching the middle of the pack. For the second consecutive year they had the youngest list in the league. They were stronger, fitter, heavier and their kicking had improved. In 2007, 26 members of the 2005 list remained at the club and Pelchen considered only two of them ‘elite’. Two of the category 3 ‘foot soldiers’ had moved to level 2, and an injurystricken rating-2 player had dropped to level 3. Five of the original 16 rating-3 players had been traded or delisted at the end of 2005 or 2006 and seven of the 4A players had graduated to category 3. One player started the season in the ‘trap door’ category. Pelchen’s ratings recognised the Hawks as having the tenth most talented list, behind Geelong, West Coast, Fremantle, the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, Port Adelaide, Melbourne, Collingwood and Sydney. Three spots on the recruiting model still needed to be filled. In 2007, Hawthorn went looking for a small, crumbing forward, a key defender, and an outside onballer with speed. 26


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5

‘ I really wished it was me ’

Wednesday 21 February 2007 It had just gone 8 pm when Trent Cotchin burst through the back door, dropped his bag and headed for the kitchen. His stomach was rumbling and he had a pile of undone homework to get to, but that wasn’t why he felt edgy. Summer training had always meant spending long nights with either his school side or the Northern Knights, while still tending to other parts of life as a 16-year-old. ‘Like studying in spare classes . . .’ his mother reminded him, as she served up a slab of lasagne. ‘You’re my mum and you’re not even supporting me . . .’ Trent replied with a mock sigh. The thing worrying Trent most was his injured right leg. He had strained his hamstring a few weeks ago, running for too long on hard grounds, and while it was only a small strain, the timing was terrible: after training together for more than three months, the Knights had chosen their squad and were playing some practice games. Trent hated missing matches; he hated it. Even missing the most meaningless game made him feel restless, impatient and, now that the draft was getting closer, nervous. If something small could go wrong, he figured, something major could too. His leg had felt much better in the past week, not that he had much to compare it to. Trent had never injured a hamstring before but he felt more relaxed when he ran, like he could trust his body to stretch out and do the things he wanted it to. Even so, he wouldn’t be playing footy on the weekend. Again. At training, the Knights’ team manager had told Trent and one of his teammates, Matthew Kreuzer, to sit out the next trial 27


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Trent 28


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game. Peter Kennedy had been around TAC Cup teams since the Under18 competition began. He saw enough in 2006 to know both boys would be important players throughout the next six months, not to mention very high draft picks. Some people were already tipping they’d end up picks 1 and 2, and PK didn’t need them to prove anything in the final week of February. ‘You’re in for a big year,’ he told them. ‘We don’t want to overload you.’ Trent appreciated the gesture and saw the sense in it. He wanted to enjoy the year but had told his mum a few days earlier that he already halfwished it was over. Partly because when he had watched the 2006 draft and saw Bryce Gibbs being interviewed, he thought about all the kids starting out in the AFL and wanted it to be his turn already. But also because he had so much still to do. At the start of each season, Trent and his dad drew up a list of what he could achieve in it. They had a motto – to make every post a winner – and so far he’d been able to tick off on everything. The room in the back of their house at Wollert had a framed Victorian jumper on almost every wall, from Trent’s Under-12 team and up, but this was the big year. Unless the Knights had a change of mind, his season would probably now start in Perth with the Under-17 Australian team. In second term, he’d play for his school team at PEGS – Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School − and in the TAC Cup when his schedules didn’t clash. Trials for the Victorian Metro Under-18 team began during May, they were followed by the national championships in June, and Trent wanted to play well enough there to make the All-Australian side. Once the school season finished, during third term, he’d finally be a full-time player for the Knights. If the team was as good as people seemed to think, he could play in a few finals. It meant he would be busy, but when PK suggested sitting out one more practice match Trent didn’t feel quite right about it. He wanted to be good, and he tried hard to be. If people thought he had talent, he was happy. But he didn’t like to be treated like someone special, or separate to the group. It was hard not to notice how careful PK had been to tell him and Matthew away from the rest of the players; and it made him feel uncomfortable. He knew the other boys picked up on those things, and didn’t want them thinking he’d asked to be looked after. He’d rather just play. 29


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Trent was driven, and always had been. He was never a kid his parents couldn’t get to sleep; if they were having a party and he had footy the next day, he’d slip off to bed unnoticed and yell out if they got too loud. He played his first game when he was four and a half, sitting in the forward pocket for the Reservoir Under-9s, finishing up at half-time and taking his footy to bed with him that night. Trent was always one of the little kids – he’d have to be as good as Tony Liberatore to make it, he used to tell his big sister Stephanie − but he saw things the others didn’t. On some days, it was like he was thinking a few seconds faster than anyone else on the ground; in some games, he seemed to decide what would happen next. He still did the same things these days; the difference was he was taller. He got measured at a training camp last month, and came in at 183.1 centimetres – 6 foot, finally. It seemed a silly thing to have worried about, but it was one small load off his mind. It was hard to get drafted if you were little, these days. Trent’s sixth sense used to make his father laugh. Peter Cotchin played some handy football himself, mostly in the rough-and-tumble Diamond Valley league. Peter was a ‘run-with player’ before the term was ever really invented, and was invited one summer to try out at Collingwood. It was an interesting idea, but Peter had recently turned 18. He had a brand new panel van and girls to chase. He asked the club when training started, they told him to be there next week and he told them they were joking. The season had only just finished. Trent was different. His mind looked further ahead. After an Under10s game at West Preston one weekend, Peter asked his son how he’d managed to chop off so many opposition kick-ins. ‘Easy,’ Trent told him. ‘I just watched the kid’s eyes.’ Even when Trent was 15 his dad would ask what he planned to work on in a game, and he would never say something obvious, like kicking 5 goals or taking one of those big marks that made people catch their breath. Instead he’d want to work on his awareness, or improve his agility, or play with more poise. Before each game he stood in front of a doorway at home and kicked a series of small, soft indoor footies through it. ‘If I get this,’ he’d think, ‘I’ll have so many handball receives, or so many goal assists.’ Then he’d kick. The world had expanded in the past year, and become a little bewildering. By the start of 2006, the Cotchins had received a dozen 30


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letters from nine different AFL player agents. The first one arrived in May 2005, three months before Trent captained the Under-16 Vic Metro team, and a year and a half before he’d be old enough for the draft. The manager’s name didn’t mean much to him but the string of clients in the third-last paragraph did: one of them was Brett Deledio, the No. 1 draft pick from 2004. During one of his Under-16 games, a commentator had said Trent reminded him of the young Richmond player, and a picture of Deledio had since been taped to the front of his bedroom door. In it, the onballer had been Photoshopped into Geelong colours: Trent’s favourite team and the player he wanted to be like. He kept the letters tucked away in a drawer, still in their original envelopes, and wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them. If managers were writing, it must mean he was on the right track, and surely that was a good thing. But he had never heard of these people, so how could he tell who the good ones were? The last thing he wanted was for his friends to know he had heard from them, let alone hired someone. The attention had taken his parents aback even more. It was easy to get caught up in at times; out of nowhere, people wanted to know them. Most of the agents seemed like nice people, but at times they almost seemed too nice, acting like they already knew them. After ducking off to the toilet during one of Trent’s school games, Kath came back out to find an agent standing right by the door, with his hand stretched out to greet her. It felt like he’d been waiting for her and she was embarrassed, because there had been no towel to dry her hands with. Peter was always up for a chat − with anyone. But when he went to Queensland to watch Trent play in the Under-16 championships, he got tapped on the shoulder so many times that he decided he’d tell the next agent where to go. He wanted to watch the footy. Then he saw John Turnbull, a part-time Adelaide recruiter who also worked for an agent called Paul Connors, sitting with two men on the other side of the ground. John and Paul had been around for dinner, to explain how they could help Trent, and John had seemed very genuine. Peter wandered over for a half-time chat, and one of the men kept asking what sort of a kid Trent was, and how he was going at school. The questions seemed strange but Peter answered them as best he could and then headed back to where he’d been sitting, wondering what all that was about. 31


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Later in the day it made sense. Flicking through his program, Peter realised that the man had been James Fantasia, the Adelaide recruiting manager, who also happened to be one of the selectors for the AIS-AFL Academy Trent was desperate to make. ‘Phew,’ Peter thought. You never knew who you were talking to. ‘I’m glad I didn’t tell him to piss off.’

Trent was about to turn 17. To play for an AFL team was the one thing he had always wanted and slowly he could sense himself getting there. The day before the 2006 draft, he’d been invited to a breakfast at the AFL’s headquarters to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Academy, heading along in a shiny new pair of shoes to represent the most recent group of scholarship holders. He sat beside Scott Gumbleton, who was drafted the next day by Essendon, and across from Mitch Thorp, who was about to become a Hawthorn player. ‘I felt like a nobody,’ he said. ‘They were all getting drafted and I was the little kid that nobody knew.’ A few weeks after that, some mysteries were solved. As part of the Academy, each boy in the program spent the first week of January on work experience at an AFL club. Trent went to Richmond and did everything the Richmond players did, understanding for the first time how constant and demanding every single day at a league club was and would be. It made him believe that he could do it, and he wanted it even more. As part of his homework that week, he interviewed Brett Deledio, asking how he’d handled the physical demands of his first season, what part of his game he thought still needed work and what it had been like, being drafted so high. In his notes, Trent wrote: ‘Think that you are just another draft pick.’ He wasn’t the only person with wide, open eyes. Terry Wallace, the Richmond coach, had seen Academy kids come along during previous pre-seasons and shy away from the parts of training that might expose or embarrass them. He noticed how Trent looked people in the eye, wanted to shake everyone’s hand and did every single thing the other players were doing. One morning, the squad did some beach sprints: eight players would charge at seven flags, then seven players at six flags, and so on. They kept going until there were four players left: Nathan Foley, Nathan Brown, Brett Deledio and the last man standing, Trent. ‘He beat all our guns and by the end they were all trying to get body on him and knock him 32


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off the line,’ Wallace said. ‘He loved the competitiveness. He didn’t miss a beat.’ Trent made another impression on a treadmill at Monash University, where a group of players had their Vo2max levels tested. In a Vo2max test you had to run for as long as you could on a treadmill, with a mask covering your nose and mouth. The test measured how much oxygen you breathed in while you were running and how much you let out. The difference between the two told you how much oxygen your muscles were getting to use. The more you used, the greater your aerobic fitness should be. And the bigger ‘tank’ or ‘engine’ you had, the longer and harder you should be able to run. The elite midfielders in the AFL usually measured somewhere between 65 and 70. When Trent started at Richmond, Wallace told him he had silky skills and was smart, but that if there was one question mark hanging over him, it was whether he had enough endurance to play as a full-time onballer. He wondered if being told that would tempt Trent to sit out the Vo2max test, which was optional, but Trent was curious and recorded a 60, which put him in the top four or five players at Richmond. ‘It told us he had a motor,’ Wallace said. ‘He had a V8 in there; he just wasn’t using it yet.’ In some ways, it was a shame. Without being entirely across the upcoming draft, Wallace knew Trent would be one of the best few players available. To get him, Richmond would have to finish at the bottom of the ladder, and the top end of the draft day order. But entering 2007, the Tigers had finished on the edge of the top eight for two years in a row. To be bad was not the plan.

Draft day. It felt like a long way away, then in other moments so close. Trent was about to slice open his lasagne when the phone rang and Kinnear Beatson, one of the Sydney Swans’ recruiters, invited him to a pre-season game between Carlton and Essendon. It was no big deal, Kinnear assured him. We just want to get to know you a bit better. The brief conversation didn’t dominate dinner. Steph had started a new university course and was already a little dissatisfied with it. Peter threw some Tone Loc on the stereo, and his taste for dodgy hip hop music was very quickly howled down. Trent had met a few recruiters before, but 33


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mostly in passing. This was the first time one had actually called his home, and it made him think. What would they all talk about for so long? How should he act? What if he said the wrong thing? That gave way to other thoughts, not all his own. ‘What happens if you get drafted to Sydney?’ asked Tess, Trent’s 12-year-old sister, scooping salad onto her plate. ‘So what? I’d be fine,’ Trent replied, reaching over to pinch the bowl from her. That concept felt a very long way off. ‘It’s my dream. I’d go anywhere.’

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6

‘ It’s his destiny ’

The first time Rob Smith met Cyril Rioli the Third was on a sweaty Darwin day early in 2004. Junior was 14, wore a cap pulled over his eyes and did not have much to say. Scotch College was expanding its four-week exchange program for Tiwi Island boys into full-blown scholarships, and Junior was first in line. He was to start Year 9 at the private Melbourne school in second term, but Rob wanted to meet Junior and his parents before he flew down. ‘What would you like us to call you?’ Rob asked first, thinking he might like to leave his nickname, Junior Boy, behind. Junior tugged his cap further down over his face, and shrugged. ‘Junior,’ he said simply, almost turning away as he spoke. ‘Are you looking forward to coming down?’ Rob tried. Junior didn’t answer, this time. But he did glance up, with a quick, shy smile. Junior wasn’t looking forward to it. No way did he want to go to Melbourne. Before he’d even hopped off the plane he was missing his warm, steamy home and wishing he could go fishing on the weekend. His 16-year-old cousin Steven came to the school with him, and they were supposed to help each other settle, but Steven had wanted to leave home even less than Junior did and had no plans to stay. He sat inside the boarding house for three days straight, and on the fourth day he rounded up his cousin. They arrived in Rob’s office wearing casual clothes, dropping their re-packed bags heavily to the floor. ‘We’re ready to go,’ said Steven, as Rob looked up at them. As in, right now. 35


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Junior and Cyril 36


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‘OK, well . . . let’s work this through . . .’ Rob replied. ‘If you really want to go home, we’ll have to organise flights. It’s going to take a few days. Go back and have a think about it.’ As soon as they left, Rob hit the phones and called Michael Long, Junior’s uncle, who came out to the school with Derek Kickett and Sibby Rioli, another uncle. ‘The heavies are here,’ Uncle Mick joked when he got there. Michael, who had ended his brilliant career at Essendon in 2001, thought Junior Boy was certain to play AFL football one day. ‘It’s his destiny,’ he said. He had encouraged his sister and brother-in-law to send their son to Melbourne, largely because of what he had experienced when he was drafted to Essendon in 1988. He’d never been to Melbourne when he had moved down from Darwin, not even for a day. It was freezing cold, and he knew no-one. He came down with his brother Chris and the pair were billeted out to a local family, but felt so shy and uncertain they left the room almost each time a member of their host family walked in. ‘We were so shy that we wouldn’t even go to the fridge,’ Michael said. ‘I was 18 or 19 but I was still learning how to make conversation. I had to learn how to put two words together and be around other people. It took time.’ That was what he tried to tell Junior and Steven, on the night they were ready to leave. It was a difficult message to sell because Michael knew he would never have survived himself at 14. The idea of living in Melbourne, and actually doing it, were two completely different things and home really was a long way away. He knew Junior would have no trouble at all with his football, he’d make it playing in Melbourne, Darwin or anywhere else in the world. What he wasn’t so sure about was his schooling but he was sure that if Junior was somehow able to stick it out, he’d be grateful for it one day. The three men sat with the boys for over an hour, telling them to get out and meet people. ‘They all want to know what Junior Boy is about,’ said Michael, ‘and you need to show them.’ When they stood up to leave, Steven still wanted to go home. Junior said he’d think about it, and as Michael hopped into his car it occurred to him that, at 14, he was making a life-defining choice. ‘That was the big moment, whether he’d tough it out or go,’ he said. ‘It would have been easy to go home. That was the telling time for where Junior Boy was going in his future.’ Three years later, Junior was still there, living in a small room on the top floor of the boarding house; the name tag on the door still read ‘Junior 37


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Rioli’. When people asked him how he’d survived, he couldn’t really be sure. Junior was with Steven and Uncle Mick when Rob rang to say his cousin’s flight was booked and that he could go home that night. It made him feel jealous, and he wished he could go too, but for some reason he didn’t speak up. Instead, he found other ways to cope. Rob, a science teacher turned career counsellor, got used to Junior turning up in his office one, two or even three times a day after his cousin left. The room became like an extra locker; Junior would drop off books, pick others up and . . . oh, while he was there, ask if Rob had happened to hear from his mum. But gradually, he dropped by less and less. He found some friends, and found his way. Waking up each morning, he got through the day, then he woke up the next morning and did it all again. He was moved into a room with Charlie Blanch, a kid who had just moved down from Wangaratta, and started to understand that everyone in the boarding house had left home behind, not just him. Every morning when he looked out over Glenferrie Road, feeling cold and homesick, he told himself he only had to get through 10 weeks, a term, and then he’d go home for a break. It got easier. There was another reason he stayed, and it was a good one: his mum made him. Kathy Rioli had left home at just 16 herself. She moved from Darwin to Perth to study a business course and be close to Cyril, her soonto-be husband, who was playing football for South Fremantle. She spent a year in a hostel, studying with a good friend, and had an incredible, independent time. Then she went home and found out her mother had cancer, and hadn’t let on how bad it was. When Agnes Long died, Kathy felt guilty for a long time that, as the eldest daughter, she had not been there to help. Or simply just been there. When Junior kept calling from Melbourne, sobbing, she wanted to cave in and let him come home. But she remembered how lethargic and unmotivated he’d become, how hard to drag out of bed in the mornings, and she thought about her own mother. ‘It takes a special kind of person to do what she did, an unselfish kind of person,’ Kathy said. ‘She let her own children go and do what they needed to do even though she was so sick, and that stuck with me. I thought: “Well my mum did this for me, I have to do it for Junior.”’ Kathy cried often too. But never when he was on the phone. Instead it was Rob Smith, a man she had met only once, who helped her through it. 38


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While Kathy played it tough, Junior’s dad let him lean on him a little. Like his wife, Cyril Rioli Junior grew up in a big, close family that at the same time encouraged independence. He was raised at Garden Point on Melville Island, 80 kilometres across the Arafura Sea from Darwin, not far from the Longs. His parents, members of the stolen generation, had been brought up at an orphanage there. Cyril had never been able to ask them what they remembered of it, or how it had affected their lives, but felt he should know. All he knew was that they were taken, and that they struggled to talk about it. ‘I should make them,’ he said. ‘I should find out.’ Cyril’s family history effectively started with his parents, Cyril and Helena, who were one of the reasons Kathy and Cyril moved Junior and his little sister Kahlisha back to Garden Point from Darwin for eight years while they were young. They swam in the water holes, went fishing in the canals, bonded with their grandparents and understood where they came from. Junior was an asthmatic kid but never again had a problem after living in the island’s air. Cyril had left home when he was 16 too. Straight off the island he went to Perth to start Year 8 at Aquinas College. Boarding school lived up to its reputation back then; it was lonely and strict, and for the first two weeks he cried every day. Then, he got to know a few of the kids. When second term started, the footy season started, things were suddenly better, and that was what Cyril tried to tell Junior when he heard he was looking to leave. ‘Just give it another two weeks,’ he told him. He said he knew it was hard but that Junior had to try, and that he wouldn’t ring him for one week so he could make some friends and figure out in his own mind what he really wanted to do. ‘I left it two weeks and then I rang again,’ he said. ‘He was settled.’ To make sure, Cyril went back with Junior after the mid-year break. He slept in the boarding house, ate dinner in the food hall, sat in some classes and watched his tiny boy zip around the big kids at footy training. To see the school and Junior’s emerging life there eased his mind; it made Junior feel better too. ‘He never looked back after that,’ said Rob Smith. That didn’t mean it was easy. One of the first things Rob noticed about Junior was his flexible sense of time. He would get to places if he wanted to get there, but not with any real urgency. Rob also noticed how he’d often agree to do things and then back out without telling anyone. 39


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A few times, parents offered to take him to the football on the weekend but, arriving to pick him up, couldn’t find him. ‘We had to tell him it was OK to say no,’ Rob said. ‘I think he felt some pressure with that early on, that he had to say yes to everything. He had to figure out that if he didn’t want to do something, it was all right to say “no thanks”.’ It was an attitude that helped him through other parts of his new life, though. The schoolwork was hard for Junior when he started, and he might not have bothered with it had he been left to his own devices. But from the first day he was conscious of what other people were doing for him, and quietly grateful. He got his work done because he knew the teachers were going out of their way to help him. Junior navigated his own way through other issues too. In one of his first days at the school, a student asked him if he’d lived in a hut up in Darwin. ‘I felt like hitting him,’ Junior said. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t.’ He wondered whether the kid had meant to be funny, hurtful or was just ignorant, then decided there was no point even worrying about it. As it turned out, it was the only time anyone ever said something like that. Back home, his scholarship had stirred up some family jealousies, which got worse when he stayed and Steven left. It was a difficult time for Kathy, a first cousin of Steven’s mother. She had to keep reminding Junior not to worry about his cousin, that if Steven had cared about him he would have stayed in Melbourne and not left him on his own. Kathy worried about the gossip filtering through to his 14-year-old mind from friends and cousins in Darwin, but Junior surprised her. He was aware of it all, but not affected by it. ‘He was so neutral. He always is,’ Kathy said. ‘He never gets caught up in anything.’ By 2006, Junior wasn’t on his own anymore: Stewie, Steven’s brother, started Year 11 with him. Desperate to be in on the whole thing, it took Stewie exactly one week to get used to the cold and the big city. He’d come armed with a tactic to make sure of it – he didn’t speak to a single person at home until he’d stopped missing them. Shannon Rioli, another cousin, flew down with them at the start of 2007, to begin Year 10. But Junior had found a kindred spirit before then. In 2005, a boy named Nathan Djerrkura moved into the boarding hall from Gove – the edge of Arnhem Land. Nathan, a year older than Junior, was starting Year 11, and they soon stuck together. Nathan’s father, Gatjil Djerrkura, the former ATSIC 40


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chairman, had died of a heart attack shortly before he started at Scotch, and he often longed to go home. At the end of second term, as Junior started thinking about his holidays, he became worried about Nathan, who had confided that he wasn’t planning to come back for third term. On this occasion, Junior dished out the advice. ‘Just stay,’ he told Nathan. ‘If you go, you’ll always be thinking about it.’ Nathan did go − back to the fish, the frangipanis and his family. But then he came back to Melbourne, and stayed, a warm coffee and a good, long chat with Rob Smith helping him change his mind. Nathan graduated from Scotch College in November 2006 and a few weeks later was drafted to Geelong. Few things had made Rob feel more satisfied in all his 20 years teaching. On the morning of Nathan’s draft, Junior had been standing outside the boarding house with Stewie, waiting for a cab. All morning they’d been nagging each other to hurry, and now they were going to miss it. By the time the pair made it to their cousin Dean’s place and switched on the radio, the draft was up to pick 40. They heard what felt like every name but Nathan’s read out, then one of the commentators mentioned the Cats’ fast and flashy new recruit, the No. 25 pick. Nathan came around later that day, already tucked into a blue and white polo shirt. Junior listened as he explained how tangled his emotions were in the moment he was drafted − so excited to be picked up, it had then felt a bit hollow, because he’d wanted to play for a Melbourne club. Junior stayed up late that night, drinking, chatting and celebrating. It didn’t cross his mind that in 12 more months he might be drafted, until Nathan pulled him aside, and reminded him. ‘It’s your turn next year,’ he said. ‘Make sure of it.’

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Brad 42


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7

‘ So much has got

to go right for you ’

Tuesday 20 March 2007 Brad Ebert spent the second week of January training with Adelaide. ‘Believe it or not . . . an Ebert at the Crows’, read the headline in the local newspaper. He could have gone to Port Adelaide, where his cousin Brett played, but decided it would be more worthwhile to see how another team did things. He got to see how intense, well-planned and fast-moving an AFL pre-season really was: there was always something more to do. He loved taking himself off to training each day, heading out for lunch, organising his own days – being responsible for himself for the first real time in his life. He felt like one of the players and it made him feel grown up. ‘I thought I might feel like a little kid,’ he said. ‘But it was good. They made me feel like one of them.’ The team had an early-morning running session near the Adelaide Hills on Brad’s last day. Equally worried about sleeping too long and not getting enough sleep meant he barely slept at all. Up by five o’clock, rubbing his eyes and gulping down some cereal, he backed his little red Corolla out onto the dark road, tired, but on time – and not the only person relieved that he made it. Brad’s father, Craig, was up early too. A few minutes after Brad left, he jumped in his car and followed him through the city, watching the players run from a distance until he spotted Brad jogging in the middle of the pack. It was Brad’s first long, early-morning drive since getting his licence a few weeks earlier; a little spy work was allowed. The Ebert family understood what it took to be good at sport, and also what could go wrong. Chris, Brad’s mother, grew up at the football 43


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because her father, Trevor Obst, played in a back pocket for the Port Adelaide Magpies. One of her earliest memories was seeing a player planting a boot in the top of her dad’s head, and watching him come off the ground with blood streaming from his skull. For a nine-year-old girl, it was strangely fascinating. Chris played state league netball in Adelaide, and for the South Australian state team. She was tough, sharp and didn’t like being beaten. But at 24, playing in a state league grand final, Chris’s foot stuck to the court just before half-time and as she lunged for the ball she felt the bottom part of her leg tear away from the top half. She had her knee reconstructed, spent six weeks in a brace, came back the next year and did it all again. Her career was over, so suddenly. Craig was five when his older brother, Russell, played his first game for Port Adelaide. He went to all his games, leaning over the fence to get a closer look and hearing people in the crowd talk about how good he would be. By the time Craig debuted, 13 years later, Russell was one of the greatest players in South Australian history. He’d won four Magarey medals, was in the newspaper most days, and Craig quickly learned that being Russell Ebert’s brother meant being expected to do, be and achieve certain things. Craig never sensed any pressure from his brother but their relationship shifted three years into his career. Russell took over as the Magpies’ coach and Craig, struggling to hold his spot, became frustrated, wondering if his brother was being hard on him because he felt he had to be, or because he considered Craig easier to let down than other players. He wasn’t even sure Russell was being hard on him; maybe he just wasn’t playing well. It was an uncertain, emotional time and he couldn’t even go to work and whinge: Craig helped out in Russell’s sports store. Then he broke his leg, and had even more time to think. He realised he was the one putting pressure on himself, not anyone else, and found a way to release it. Returning from his injury, Craig flittered in and out of the team again and, after captaining the Magpie reserves to the 1988 premiership, decided it was time to leave the only team that had mattered to him. At 26 and after 112 games he crossed to West Adelaide for three final, unburdened seasons, and therein sat the final twist. Craig finished on 172 games and had he reached 200, the draft would barely have been on his family’s mind. Instead, Brad would be bound instantly to Port Adelaide as a father–son 44


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draftee and his wait would almost be over. Isn’t it funny, Craig often thought. Brad was 12 months old when Craig accepted that he was losing his place in the Westies team too, and retired. He had no idea his son would play football, he had less idea he’d be good at it, and he had played for as long as he could. He knew he couldn’t have done more.

People often asked Brad what it was like, being an Ebert. It was a difficult question to answer; he’d never had another name. After he was born a small article appeared in the Adelaide News, pointing out his irresistible bloodlines: ‘Don’t be surprised if an AFL club tries to poach two-week-old Bradley Craig Ebert,’ it read. When he first started playing junior football Brad heard people reel off the reasons he wouldn’t be good enough. They never said those things to his face, but stood so close he was bound to hear them anyway; it was almost like some of them wanted him to fail, and he couldn’t understand why. It was hard for him to articulate how much he loved football, but when a catalogue for a sports store turned up in the mail, it was the highlight of his day. Brad could spend an hour looking at pictures of boots, easily, and sometimes couldn’t believe people played it for a job. He wanted it badly, but he had to be patient: so much had to go right. While Brad wondered what the season would bring, his parents were cautious. They’d had a few player agents call, which in itself was unnerving. What if they signed with someone, and people thought they were arrogant? What if they signed and Brad didn’t get drafted? That would humiliate, not only devastate, their 16-year-old son. Craig, an assistant reserves coach at the Magpies, had seen young players come into the team and either succeed or fall by the wayside. The reasons always seemed obvious, but he found it hard to figure out where Brad sat. It was only when other people started picking him − for the Under-16 state team in 2006 and then the AIS-AFL Academy – that he began to trust his own eyes. ‘We think every kick’s the best kick and that every mark’s the best mark ever,’ he said. ‘But we’re his parents. We can’t tell him what the clubs are thinking, what they might be looking for. We have no idea where it’s going.’ Chris was more anxious. She wanted to be positive, but when people talked about Brad being drafted, like it would absolutely, definitely happen, she almost 45


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blocked her ears. ‘I have this fear that all of this will have happened and he won’t be drafted,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him to be let down.’ Neither did Brad. But he didn’t want to be let down before the draft, either. In the third week of March, he rushed straight from his Year 12 camp to play in his first practice match for the Magpie reserves. Starting in the centre made him feel good, like he must have impressed the coaches over summer. What he didn’t know was how close he’d been to making the senior team. The Port Adelaide coach, Tim Ginever, wanted to play as many kids as he could in 2007 and had considered throwing Brad in straight away. Then he imagined the fresh headlines, the fresh pressure, and decided it could wait. ‘There’s a lot of expectation on him already, and if I put him up and he doesn’t play well or something goes wrong, he may well think, “Shit, maybe I’m not good enough for this,”’ Ginever said. ‘I didn’t want to put doubts in his mind even before the season started. I don’t want it to be something that’s eating away at his mind.’ Within the first few minutes of his first reserves game, Brad’s head was spinning, literally. Either he was exhausted after three long, late nights at camp, or the game was a lot quicker than he thought it would be. In the second quarter, running after the ball, his feet flipped out from underneath him and he landed on his head. ‘So this is what a concussion feels like,’ he thought, heading to bed that night with a sick stomach and a pounding head. His parents had even heavier eyes the next morning; after checking on Brad before they went to sleep, they set the alarm and hopped up every two hours to look in on him, just like the doctor had told them to. It felt like a wasted game to Brad, a wasted chance, and it made him a bit nervous. Brad’s goal was to be drafted, to any club that wanted him but before then he wanted to play at least one game for the Magpies and continue his family’s tradition. He just had to. It was only March, but it was already March. He felt like he was running out of time.

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8

‘ He wants things done right ’

Monday 12 March 2007 Ben McEvoy had been waiting. For a phone call, a text message or a knock at the door. Anything. The Murray Bushrangers had spent two days together in Cobram, training, talking and preparing themselves for the TAC Cup season ahead. Andrew Carson, the team’s new manager, had just moved up from Melbourne and took a few anxious looks at the fading light on the first night. He wondered how the boys were ever going to have their tents set up before dark and the boys looked at him like he was crazy, rolling out their swags and being ready for bed inside 20 seconds. It was a good few days, but at times it drove Ben mad. He liked order, and purpose, and there were so many kids on the camp it felt like ideas were flying everywhere, with no real thought put into them first. One night they worked on their mission statement, players coming up with words like ‘respect’ and ‘discipline’ without explaining what those things meant to them. Ben felt like they came up with nothing unique to them or their club but wasn’t sure how to say that without making it seem like he was putting people down. ‘Can’t we talk about this before writing it down?’ he kept thinking. It was good that people had ideas, but some of it felt phony. ‘That was the frustrating bit,’ Ben said. ‘I just hate bullshit.’ Then he saw it through other eyes. There were 52 players still in the Bushrangers squad, but it would be down to 40 any day now. Ben knew he was through, and had spent the summer thinking about how he’d like to play, not whether he’d get to. But he sat up late on the second night of camp with Luke Svarc, one of his best friends, chatting through the dark. 47


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Ben 48


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BEN

Luke had played well in the first two pre-season trial games, making it through both cuts, but he was small, and not particularly quick. It would be hard to survive the final chop, but that didn’t seem to be playing on his mind. Instead he told Ben how included and involved he’d felt, that he’d never been away with a team like this before, talking about things like ‘mission statements’. To think something good even might come of it was amazing. Ben hadn’t thought about it like that and, as he finally fell off to sleep, wondered if he’d started taking a few things for granted. And so the next week he kept reaching for his phone, wondering if Luke had heard whether he was in or out. He really hoped he made it.

Ben lived in Dederang, which had a shop, a footy oval, a primary school and a race track that doubled as a golf course. It was a big and bumpy stretch of land, more than an actual town. To get there from Melbourne you needed to drive for two and a half hours up the Hume Highway, take the Wangaratta exit and follow a few long, dusty roads until you spotted the McEvoys’ farm house, tucked against a hill. If you drove for another hour you’d be over Mount Beauty and almost to Falls Creek; if you headed one hour the other way you’d be in New South Wales. Ben did the second trip every morning for school, with his parents. His father, John, had taught at Wodonga Catholic College for almost 30 years and his mother had returned there once the kids were grown up enough. In Year 7, Ben’s father, John, took his class for sex education. ‘That was a little bit . . . strange,’ Ben conceded. People used words like organised and efficient to describe Ben and living where he did demanded a certain single-mindedness. He did his pre-season running alone in a paddock, sprinting between tennis balls, and dragged a bundle of branches down from the hills to set up some makeshift goal posts and practise his kicking. Then one hot, dry February morning, he glanced out a window, saw orange flames flickering up on a hill, and knew how he’d be spending the rest of his afternoon. Plans could change quickly in the country. After boarding at Assumption College, the football school in the 1970s, John McEvoy started at teacher’s college and was invited to train with Carlton Under-19s. He went to a few sessions and later wished he’d 49


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played a few games, to see if he was good enough, but hated city life and longed to be on his family’s farm in Colbinabbin, a small town between Bendigo and Shepparton. He’d never liked feeling tied down and Ben was similar, but in a different way to his dad, having inherited his mother’s discipline. Sharon McEvoy was a city girl, who converted to country life after spotting John during a daggy family trip to the countryside when she was 19, far too old for daggy family trips. After they married and moved to Dederang, Sharon started running around the hills near home, becoming a marathon runner almost by accident. She did her first one at 23, got her time down to three hours and six minutes, and immediately wondered how good it would feel to break the three-hour mark. She did her next one in two hours and 58 minutes, started thinking about making it in two hours and 50 minutes and eventually whittled even more time off. Sharon trained on a track around the farm house, while her kids rode bikes and climbed trees. She ran her best-ever time at the age of 37 and never stopped thinking she could do better; that was the addictive part. Ben got his buzz on the farm: checking on cows, working his two dogs or chugging around on a tractor. At times, it helped him escape school or footy and the other things on his mind. He loved to head up there and work hard, never knowing how much time had passed and reminding his dad why the word ‘efficient’ described him so well. There were times when John was working on something – the same way he’d always worked on it – and Ben would wander up, stand alongside him, take a quick look and suggest another, better way. He also had more instinctive talents. Most animals didn’t like to be moved on their own, but Ben could head out on a horse and bring a single cow home, no problem. ‘He’s got this philosophy, that you’ve got to make it attractive for the cow to go to a certain place,’ said John. ‘And he’ll get it there. He’s a genius with animals, he’s a very talented farmer.’

Growing up on a farm, you know that you will one day have to leave – at least for a little while. Ben’s sister, Kate, worked as a physiotherapist in Stawell and his brother Matt had begun an osteopathy course in Melbourne. Ben’s plan, to study agricultural science, would bring him home – depending, of course, on where football took him first. At 14, 50


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Ben played in a premiership team for Dederang and had 42 possessions, maybe more. It was the first time his parents heard people say that he was going places, and when they first started to believe them. Ben’s confidence grew when he played for Victoria’s country team in the 2005 Under-16 championships. Playing against kids his own age – the best kids in the country − he felt he could match it with them. He made the AIS-AFL Academy after that carnival and the coach, Alan McConnell, came up to meet him before the program started. He said something that lodged in Ben’s head: that 80 per cent of Academy graduates made it onto an AFL list. ‘OK then,’ Ben thought. If he knew what to do, there was no reason he couldn’t do it. He didn’t feel like he’d made it, but he felt like he’d met someone who could show him how to get there. Ben was one of the youngest members of the ninth Academy intake. In the end-of-program report sent to all the recruiting managers, McConnell described him as honest and upfront, saying his determination to seek feedback and analyse his own performance meant he would always gain from playing in a game even if he hadn’t done much in it, and that he rarely made the same mistake twice. ‘Ben’s his own man,’ he said. ‘He wants things done right. There’s almost a sense of angst for him if something isn’t being done properly.’ Ben wrote a Year 11 English essay about the first of the Academy’s three games against an Irish side − a tie underneath the Telstra Dome roof. ‘A great sense of helplessness was washing through me,’ he wrote of the tense final quarter, when the Irish side charged home. ‘I felt like I was chained at the ankles and sinking into the seemingly bottomless nothing of the ocean, I was so powerless. My heart was in my throat and I was so nervous and fidgety that my foot tapped the ground involuntarily. I tried to convince myself that I had done everything in my power to get my team over the line, and silently urged my teammates on the field to do the same.’

When Ben worried, it was about the things he couldn’t control. Like waiting to find out whether Luke had made the Murray squad, or wondering what would happen if he got injured, and didn’t know how to make himself better. Ben’s 15-year-old brother, Pete, had played in the same Under14 premiership team as him; while Ben ran amok, Pete rustled up four 51


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possessions. ‘Four quality possessions,’ he liked to point out. But the next year his knee began to hurt, badly, until one week it started swelling and didn’t stop. By half-time it was the size of a balloon and Pete hobbled off in tears, he felt so sore. Eventually a surgeon opened the knee up, took a look and decided the spongy bone would mend on its own in time. But he told Pete he could play no sport for six months, maybe 12, and at 13 years of age Pete got glued to the couch. He was frustrated, bored and the uncertainty struck his brother too. If something was going to go wrong for Ben, he wanted to know exactly how to fix it. Ben had never liked to be left wondering. When he was six, he went missing at the Royal Melbourne Show. He was walking through the show bag hall with his mother, brothers and sister, who turned and couldn’t spot him through the swarm of bodies. For more than half an hour they re-traced their steps, scanning the crowd for his small blond head, not finding it anywhere. The kids had a rule to follow should they ever become lost – to stand in the same spot until someone came to find them – which meant Sharon became more distressed with each second. Either Ben had kept walking, she reasoned, or something bad had happened. Reluctant to pursue option number two, she dragged the kids back to the main arena where they had left John sitting earlier. And there was Ben, perched up beside his dad, wondering why they had taken so long. After pausing for what felt like 10 minutes but was probably more like one, he’d pulled a small map from his pocket and found his own way back. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. Sharon had a new respect for Ben that day, but only after telling him to never, ever do that again. ‘I knew where I was going.’

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9

‘ I’m the kid who’ll eat the worm ’

The morning after he was cut from Victoria’s Under-16 team, Patrick Veszpremi woke up before it was light. He rolled out of bed, dragged his bicycle out of the back shed and rode around the streets until it was time to get ready for school. He did the same thing every morning for a month, then he gathered five sheets of plain white paper, wrote on them in black pen and taped them to his wardrobe door. ‘It starts now,’ said one sign. ‘No second chances. One chance, give it my best shot.’ ‘It’s not if they pick me, it’s when they pick me! I can do it! Mental toughness! Courage! 100%’ ‘ENDURANCE, SPEED, POWER, DETERMINATION, HARD WORK ETHIC.’ ‘You have to go that inch, sacrifice everything for that dream! Commitment! Desire! Take the right pathway! Make the dream come true! 2007.’

Pat was one of five players dumped on that night in 2005. It happened straight after training, it was the most humiliating thing that had ever been done to him, and he had no idea how to handle it. He had no way of defending himself − no response − because he never thought he would need one. He had been the best player in every single one of his junior sides and had never been left out of anything before, ever. He’d missed a couple of goals in the final trial game, but they weren’t terrible misses and he hadn’t thought he’d played badly. ‘I wonder who’ll miss out,’ Pat was 53


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Pat and Matt 54


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PAT

thinking, as he changed after the game. Then the coach called him over and started by saying: ‘It’s not good news.’ Pat listened, paused and then walked straight towards the toilet block, telling himself to act like nothing had happened. In the toilets, he cried for five minutes, then wiped his eyes and went back out. To get to his bag he had to pass back through the change rooms, in front of all the boys who had made the cut. It was obvious they all knew, and embarrassing, but that wasn’t the end of it. Walking to Rob’s car Pat had to pass a row of parents waiting by the door to find out which boys had survived, and who was in for a long ride home. Rob knew as soon as he saw Pat’s watery eyes that he was the unlucky one. ‘I didn’t make it . . .’ Pat confirmed quietly, keeping his head low and taking long, swift steps. As Rob started the engine up, he slumped in his seat, bursting into tears all over again. Pat was still sobbing when they got home, and it wasn’t a short drive from Clayton to Mill Park. Jennie Veszpremi heard the front door swing shut and knew something was wrong the second she saw Pat too. It was never hard to tell when something had made Pat unhappy; he’d always been an emotional and expressive son, the one who laughed, cried, screamed and drove people crazy at times. Matthew, born 10 months later, had a softer, more sensitive soul. He was more thoughtful than Pat, who tended to do things and wonder why later, talking to anyone about anything. Pat barracked for Collingwood and Matt had a Carlton sticker on his bedroom door but they were the closest two people Jennie knew. Pat was angry, annoyed and upset, all at the same time. The tears wouldn’t stop and Jennie felt like it was her fault. The boys’ father had left the day before Pat started kinder, and until she met Rob four years ago it had been just her and them. On the day she became a single mother, Jennie’s nearly-built house was filled with family and friends. They all said the same things, the right things − that it was all for the best, and that things would be better now. They meant well, and she appreciated it, but then they left, too. As her two small boys slept, Jennie looked around and realised no-one was coming back to help her mow the lawn. Or finish painting the walls. Or to fix the things that were bound to one day break. They were the smallest details of her new life, they were minor details, really, but together they felt overwhelming, so she decided to do something about it. 55


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First, she had to get a job. In fact, she got two: one part-time job in the Myer department store and another at the Bundoora Hotel. Some nights, Jennie would finish selling ladies wear and head straight to the pub for a night shift. On Saturdays she’d stay until six or seven the next morning, working the bar, fixing broken poker machines, cashiering and doing whatever else needed doing. When school fees were due, she’d book a week of annual leave from her Myer job and pick up better-paying shifts at the pub. She did both jobs for 11 years, and it meant missing out on things. It meant relying on her father to take Pat out fishing on weekends, and on her mother to take Matt to the movies. It meant asking friends to take the boys to basketball games, and that the boys had become used to everyone but them having a parent there to watch. ‘That was the hard part,’ Jennie said. ‘Pat would say to me: “We’re always with other people, there’s always people looking after us.”’ It made her hurt, but she kept telling him the same thing: life was tough, but kids had been through worse. While Jennie worked, the boys stayed mostly with her parents, Frank and Irene, and when she turned up to collect them Irene always noticed how connected they were. The boys loved their grandparents and were close to them too, but when their mum was around she was the only person in their world. They were a circle of three, always protecting each other. That’s what Jennie kept thinking the night Pat’s world caved in. Had she been too protective? She’d always wanted sport to be something the boys both enjoyed – something that gave them some discipline, without stressing them out. And here it was, making Pat cry. She’d noticed how some of the boys’ coaches spoke to them – ordering them around like they were men, even abusing them like men. That was never a problem, but she didn’t want them to come home and feel more pressure. She wasn’t a naturally pushy person, and because they were so close in age the boys had already had to sort out what football meant in their lives, to themselves and within their relationship. Pat was the gifted, gregarious one, the one everything came easily to, but it hurt him when people asked Matthew why he wasn’t as good as his brother. ‘It made me feel like I brought bad things on him,’ Pat said. ‘We never even used to compete, but it was like other people wanted us to.’ Matt loved football, too, and was in the middle of a pre-season with St Mary’s, the boys’ local club. But it had never crossed his mind to compare 56


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PAT

himself with Pat. Even as a youngster he was comfortable with his own ability, and filled with other ambitions: he wanted to be a firefighter. He found it strange when people assumed he only wanted to do what his brother did, although it was only when he tried out for the Northern Knights’ Under-16 squad that he felt like he was being judged on what Pat had already done. Matt liked to slip past people and use his skills; Pat preferred to smash packs. ‘They thought I’d play like Pat did, so I was a let-down to them,’ Matt said. He had no idea why people presumed all brothers would play the same, but got more annoyed when people said things about Pat, that he was arrogant and over-confident. As far as he could see, his brother lacked self-belief. ‘People don’t see that,’ he said. ‘They call him cocky and I think: you don’t even know him.’ Pat wasn’t prepared for his setback, in any way at all. He felt angry and defensive; that the people at footy were always on his case, looking for faults and always telling him what he couldn’t do, rather than what he was good at. At school it was the same. Pat was doing VCAL – a hands-on version of the VCE that let him spend a day each week learning plumbing – and the teachers weren’t giving him the same time they gave the smart kids. They were nice to him when footy season started but jumped down his throat over the tiniest things at other times. His mum had been called in a few weeks back, when all he’d done was talk during class, and it hadn’t been the first time. ‘I was a bit of a smart arse when I got spoken to, but I’m not really a bad kid,’ he said. ‘It’s not like I go around bashing kids, or doing things like that. It’s more like, if there’s a dare to eat a worm, I’m the kid who’ll eat the worm.’ As Pat shuffled off to bed that night, Jennie felt like she should have pushed him harder. Told him to get up off the couch when he collapsed in a heap after school or to go out for a run – to keep on his guard and not expect that things would always unfold exactly as he wanted them to. She felt naive, and grateful for Rob, who seemed to know instinctively how to be the boys’ coach, friend and sounding board. She felt she should have known this could happen, and so as Pat closed his bedroom door, still sniffling, insisting there was no way in the world he could possibly turn up to school the next day, Jennie promised she’d be in first thing to wake him. As it turned out, he was up well before her. People thought he wasn’t good enough, that he was unfit, and he wanted to prove they were wrong. 57


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Pat wheeled his bike out into the cold air, rode it almost every day for months and got fit. He joined the gym, and got fitter. He hung a poster of Muhammad Ali beside his bed for inspiration, and stuck reminder notes all over his bedroom door: Commitment! Desire! Make the dream come true! In 2006, Pat made the Northern Knights team while still 16, kicking 4 goals in a quarter in his first game and then holding his spot all year. He made the Victorian Under-18 team and was named in the back-pocket of the All-Australian side, even though he was too young to be drafted. He proved he could play and he proved people wrong. Everything felt so good, but of course it didn’t last. Pat’s 2006 turned bad on the same day everything went right. On the last day of the Under-18 carnival, before he was named All-Australian, he and a teammate decided to find out who weighed more. Pat stepped on the scales and the flashing fluorescent figure startled him: 89 kilograms. He hurt his shins soon after that, finishing the season in the forwardpocket, feeling like all his coaches wanted was to give him a hard time. The Knights lost in the preliminary finals and while Pat slumped on the change room floor, one of the coaches wandered over and told him the recruiters were outside, talking about how fat he looked. A few weeks later, Pat went to Canberra for the first AIS-AFL Academy camp. Looking at all the other boys, he thought about how talented they must be and didn’t feel anywhere near as good. His legs were sore and he was stressing out, worrying about how much weight he’d put on if he wasn’t able to run. He decided to delay his shoulder surgery, at least until the national championships were over in July. It hadn’t been an easy decision, everyone had different opinions, and he wasn’t sure who to listen to. He knew the Knights thought he should have the operation now, wanting him back for the second half of the year, and he didn’t want his teammates thinking he only cared about himself. But he didn’t want to ruin his draft chances, either. ‘Everyone has advice, but no-one’s telling me I’m definitely going to get drafted,’ Pat said. ‘That’s the thing that worries me.’ For now, he was happy to keep playing. He wanted to play for Vic Metro again, play well for Vic Metro, feel certain someone would pick him and then have his shoulder fixed. ‘That’s what it’ll come down to,’ he kept thinking. ‘That’s where I need to shine.’ 58


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10

‘ When competition comes

into play, the highs and lows start to kick in ’

Thursday 5 April 2007, Perth The AIS-AFL Academy gathered in Perth, for the team’s fourth and final camp before flying to South Africa in three days. On their first night in town the players had tests done to measure their body fat which made Pat, who’d dyed his hair blue-black just for the trip, slightly nervous. There was no lying to the skinfold callipers, and he knew the drill. First the dietician would pull some flesh away from his tricep and clamp down with the callipers. Then she’d do the same on his back, his bicep and the roll of skin just between his hip and pelvis, and finally his stomach, thigh and calf. When they were done, the millimetres would all add up to one number telling him how much fat he was carrying. At the first camp last October Pat’s skinfolds were 66.9, the second-highest in the group. Three months later he was down to just under 52. Better, but still nowhere near where he needed to be: the best AFL midfielders measured in the 30s and 40s. Pat felt like he deserved to be confident. He’d eaten a lot of salad over summer, and told his mum off whenever she brought pizza home. When he first heard the dietician explain what the boys should be eating, it was like she was speaking another language. Low GI? High GI? Protein? Carbs? He didn’t get it, but after emailing her lists of what he ate, she got back to him with advice and it slowly started to make sense. There was no need not to feel prepared but as the boys huddled around, waiting to see how each other went, Pat really had no idea how he’d go, and wished everyone would go and find something else to do. 59


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‘You’re just waiting to see me fail,’ he said, as he took off his shirt, sucked in his stomach and prepared for what would surely be bad news. It wasn’t too horrible. Pat’s skinfolds were 54, not his best, but not too bad.

Alan McConnell became coach of the Academy midway through the eighth intake, addressing the team for the first time on the day they flew to Europe at Easter 2005, to play three mixed-rules games against an Under17 Irish team. McConnell, a 38-game Footscray player turned school teacher, was already well used to stepping in at the last minute: he took over at Fitzroy when coaches were sacked in successive seasons, leading the Lions until they were merged with Brisbane in 1996. The Academy job appealed because it was a combination of teaching and coaching, the things he knew best. When he was asked a question about one of the boys he got a sparkle in his eyes, like he knew how special they were and couldn’t wait for the world to find out. The Academy was a nine-month, work-mostly-from-home scholarship program that the AFL ran with the Australian Sports Commission. The idea was to bring together the next batch of likely draftees for three training camps plus the games and help them understand what life would be like after draft day. Many of the boys would make it onto an AFL list some day, but not all of them, so it was a practical, preparatory course that also taught broader life skills. The tenth intake went supermarket shopping with Michelle Cort, the dietician, to learn what was best to eat and drink after games; their kicking technique was analysed by a bio-mechanist and a running coach broke ‘running’ down into several different things, such as explosive power off the mark and how best to change direction. A career advisor also taught them study skills, checking in to see how school was going and making sure they were thinking beyond football careers that hadn’t even started. There was more. An AIS psychologist helped the boys figure out and handle the things that were stressing them out. Players like Tom Harley, Matthew Lloyd and Robert Harvey taught them particular on-field skills; they were lectured on the AFL’s drug code and Peter Schwab and David Parkin came out to the January camp one night and grilled them on a 60


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SOUTH AFRICA, PART ONE

make-believe TV panel show. There were lessons in email competency, speaking in public, preventing injuries and they did some decision-making testing with Damian Farrow, a skill acquisition coach at the AIS. In one test, the speed with which they dodged an opponent was measured; in another, the boys had to indicate, on a frozen piece of play on a touch screen, where they’d pass the ball. A ‘pattern recall’ test required the boys to watch a passage of play and, after the screen was blacked out, remember where players on both teams were standing. Like kicking or marking, Farrow considered decision making a skill, one that could be taught and trained and that he often compared to weight training. ‘If you increase repetitions and weight and do it three times a week, you’re going to get bigger muscles,’ he said. ‘It’s the same with decision making. If you get plenty of opportunities to make decisions, and they’re relevant to playing the game of football, you’ll get better at it.’ Being included in the Academy was no guarantee of being drafted, but it was a handy place to be. It was elite: the players picked were the tallest, the most athletic and, above all that, the most talented. Alan McConnell chose the squad in consultation with Kevin Sheehan and a handful of recruiting managers: the plan, after all, was to select players they would one day want to draft. In 2006, 33 graduates were drafted and nine of the first 10 players picked had been through the program; by the start of 2007, almost a quarter of the players on AFL lists were graduates. Before playing in a premiership together for West Coast, Andrew Embley and Adam Hunter were in the original 1997 intake, along with Cameron Ling, Brady Rawlings, Mark McVeigh and Des Headland. Eighteen of that original 30 went on to play an AFL match. In 1999, Chris Judd, Kane Cornes and Daniel Kerr were midfield teammates; the next year, Luke Ball, Nick Dal Santo and Luke Hodge teamed up. Heading into 2007, 25 members of the 2004 team McConnell met midstream had found a place on AFL lists, Joel Selwood, Marc Murphy, Paddy Ryder, Travis Boak and Grant Birchall among them. By the time the tenth intake came together in Perth the group had started forming its own personality. Nick Naitanui was born in Sydney to Fijian parents, and raised in Perth. He caught eyes because he was big, because he had dreadlocks and because he could jump − really high. Like Brad, Marlon Motlop came from a football family; his cousin, Daniel, was 61


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in his second year at Port Adelaide after starting out at North Melbourne and back home in Darwin, everyone knew the Motlops. James Wundke was the team’s tall, lanky comedian; Jack Grimes was its calming source of common sense. Chris Yarran, a livewire on the ground, had barely muttered a word in the first few camps and struggled to make eye contact, but was slowly coming out of his shell. Addam Maric, Trent’s teammate at Essendon Grammar and only 177 centimetres tall, had kicked goals from about 85 per cent of his shots playing for the Calder Cannons in 2006. That was a better percentage than anyone in the AFL had managed. Some of the boys had a long wait still ahead of them. Dan Rich, Tom Swift and Hamish Hartlett were three of several who wouldn’t be eligible for the draft until the end of 2008; Ben McEvoy and Junior Rioli had been in the same position when they were part of the previous squad. Patrick Dangerfield would be old enough to nominate in 2007 but he was doing Year 11 and was already planning to finish his VCE at his high school in Geelong. He and his family had a decision to make: nominate for the 2007 draft knowing any club in any state could pick him, and possibly force him to move; or wait, get school done, and put his name forward in 2008, crossing his fingers he didn’t lose form, get injured or drop off the radar for other reasons. Then there was Clayton Garlett. During the second Academy camp in Canberra, Clayton had to go home to Perth; he was worried about leaving his foster mother, Valerie, on her own. ‘There’s a lot of violence and jealousy where I live,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to leave her around that.’ Valerie had taken Clayton in as an infant and when he was still a baby she had accidentally dropped him on a cement floor, thinking he was dead until his eyes flickered open. She had been drinking that day and had not had a single drink since. ‘I feel like I’ve maybe helped her too,’ Clayton said. To get on a plane and spend two weeks overseas would be a big challenge. He was looking forward to it, he just wasn’t sure how he’d do it. This group had been supposed to tour Ireland too. Since the program began in 1997, Ireland and Australia’s Under-17 teams had toured each other’s country alternately. But after a particularly feisty visit by the senior Australian side in October 2006, combined with some Irish angst over AFL clubs poaching their best young amateur talent, the Gaelic Athletic Association had placed both the senior and junior series on hold. To keep 62


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its federal funding, the Academy still needed to complete its program with some international competition; hence the trip to South Africa, where the AFL was making its first big international push. The boys would play in the first official ‘test match’ between Australian and South African teams, but before leaving, they’d take on the WAFL side Perth at Subiaco; partly to put all the things they had learned into practice against stronger competition and also to show the recruiters what they could do. McConnell looked forward to seeing what each of them came up with. Some would surprise him, in good ways and bad; others would be more predictable, and how Pat would handle the trip was difficult to anticipate. Pat was bright, bubbly and brought energy to the group; it was the role he felt he had to play and McConnell appreciated what he gave the team. But Pat was a kid who needed attention and direction. If his opponent kicked 4 goals he’d know in the back of his head that he’d be told off, but it wouldn’t change how he played. That was Pat, and where he was at, but it made McConnell wonder how vulnerable he would be to the bright lights and big money if he made it to the AFL. ‘He’s a very open kid and he’s never going to play cards with you,’ he said. ‘If he gets in trouble, he’ll tell you straight up what happened, and that’s a good thing. But what it means is that, by nature, he’s still very naive.’ Still, McConnell had spent enough time as a school teacher to know that if he compared Pat and the other boys in the squad to the teenagers he used to know, they’d be miles ahead, in terms of what was expected of them and how they lived their lives. ‘We talk about Patty being marginal in our group,’ he said, ‘but compare him to his mates at school and he’s a star. Sometimes I think we forget these boys are 16 and 17 years old. They’re kids.’

Friday 6 April 2007 For the first time in 2007, the Academy program included an official, organised leadership program. Before travelling to Perth the team had brainstormed a mission statement, voting in a leadership team and listing the things they thought leaders should do and be. The list was split into five sections – communication; commitment; respect; lead by example; and team first – with examples bundled beneath each one. Under ‘respect’ were things like sticking to team rules, looking people in the eye and 63


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even dressing neatly and tidily. ‘Lead by example’ meant working hard at training, being the first person to volunteer for something and never dropping your head. Putting the ‘team first’ meant being unselfish, having a positive attitude when things weren’t going your way and taking no shortcuts at training. Brad, Trent, Jack Grimes, Brendan Whitecross and Tom Swift were the five appointed leaders and after the team’s final training session dissolved into a frenetic game of table tennis, they disappeared into an adjacent room and dragged their seats into a semi-circle. Jason McCartney and Michael Voss, two of McConnell’s assistant coaches, sat across from them, Rosie Stanimirovic, the AIS psychologist who had worked with the team throughout the program, grabbed a seat too, and McConnell listened in from the back of the room. The meeting was about working out how to put the above qualities into practice, and McCartney got it started. ‘When you think of being someone who leads the group,’ he asked, ‘what does that mean?’ ‘Being responsible,’ said Trent. ‘You’re responsible for what the team does. And you’re looked at as someone who does the right things.’ ‘If we’re down, we can’t really show it,’ added Jack. ‘How do you do that?’ Jason asked. ‘If you’re not having the greatest day, how do you keep the group up and about?’ ‘We’ve got to make sure we’re all spending time together and getting to know each other again,’ said Brad. ‘We’ve been apart for a while now, since the last camp.’ ‘We have to make sure everyone’s involved,’ said Trent. ‘A few of the guys have been quiet. We need to keep an eye on everyone.’ ‘I think we’ve just got to focus on the team more, keeping talking about the team,’ said Tom. ‘To this point the program’s been about developing ourselves as individuals, but now we have a team to play for.’ ‘What about tomorrow then?’ said Jason. ‘We’re going to have 29, possibly 30 guys play. Guys are going to spend time on the bench. If someone does get withdrawn because they’re not on the ground, you guys will have to do something about that.’ Alan agreed, and asked another question. ‘What about you five?’ he said. ‘If you end up on the bench, will any of you struggle with that?’ 64


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‘If you have to do it, you have to do it . . .’ said Trent. ‘I know that,’ Alan said. ‘But that’s different to admitting you’d struggle with it. It’s easy to talk about other people’s shortcomings, but it’s not so easy to talk about your own. If you’re going to struggle, you have to be able to talk about that, because it’s fundamental to looking after the others.’ ‘What about actions?’ asked Michael Voss. ‘What are some actions you want to see, some things you can do to display a team performance? Do you know what I mean by that?’ ‘Following team rules would be the first one . . .’ said Tom. ‘That’s a major one,’ said Michael. ‘But what about some actions? Like, when you run on or off the bench, you give a high five? That’s something we can literally see, rather than watching someone wandering on, wandering off. It’s an action everyone can see.’ ‘What about protecting the ball carrier?’ suggested Brad. ‘That’s doing something for your mate, not for you.’ ‘And keeping your head up,’ Brendan added. ‘Having good body language by keeping your head up and your chest out.’ ‘You also have to remember that other things will crop up,’ said Michael. ‘When you’re away on a trip, the lure is there to do things you wouldn’t normally do, like go out after a game. How you guys influence that is going to be very important because we won’t be around all the time. You’re going to see things that we as coaches don’t see.’ ‘I think we have to be honest with everyone,’ said Brad. ‘You have to be constructive with what you say. Don’t just say, “You’re a dickhead,” find a positive way to say it.’ ‘I think we should be really encouraging from the start,’ said Trent. ‘Guys don’t like it when you tell them what not to do.’ ‘Some of the boys have also said that when they get stressed what helps them is to talk,’ said Jack. ‘That’s something we should think about.’ Before the meeting wrapped up, Rosie made one last point. ‘I don’t want any of this to make you worry about your own performance,’ she told the boys. ‘Remember that this group chose you five guys as the stand-out leaders. You already have the skills, we’re just helping you develop them. By doing these things, you’re looking after your own performance because you’re focusing on the team.’ 65


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Saturday 7 April 2007 AIS-AFL Academy v Perth, Subiaco Trent was on the massage table when Alan told the team that he’d be captain. As he walked into the meeting room everyone started clapping, he had no idea why, so he started to join in and wondered why they were looking at him strangely. It was his seventeenth birthday, and an excellent present. ‘I suppose it’s a goal I’ve always had,’ he said. ‘Every team I try out for I try to think of myself as a leader. All it can do is make you a better player.’ McConnell chose Trent because he didn’t think having a title would affect how he played or behaved, and because the other players effectively chose him. When they voted for their five leaders, Trent had more nominations than anyone, by a long way. Before the game, a curtain raiser to the round 3 West Coast– Collingwood match at Subiaco, the boys ate brunch upstairs with the parents who had flown over to watch. Addressing them all, McConnell warned that things would now start to get hard; that, from here, more doors would be closed on the boys than opened for them. ‘Some of you boys are probably feeling as high as you ever have right now,’ he said. ‘But the reality of this competition is that it’s ruthless. It’s how you respond when someone tells you your performance isn’t good enough, or that something isn’t right, that will determine how far you go.’ Later in the rooms, he spoke again, telling the boys to play with instinct, to live in the moment and not worry about making mistakes. ‘This is exciting,’ he implored them. ‘I want all of you to show us what you can do. If you’re a dancer, I want to see you dance with the ball. If you’ve got grunt, I want to see it. If you’re a runner, run.’ After leading the team down the race, Trent stopped to slap hands with the other players running past. Pat headed onto the ground feeling edgy, full of energy and Brad was a little nervous. The enormity of the occasion had hit him when he shrugged inside his Australian guernsey: he was representing his country with 29 of the best young footballers in Australia. It was hard to believe, it made him want to play well, and he had the first clear kick of the day. ‘Phew,’ he thought, pushing the ball forward. The boys stuck with Perth early, and almost to half-time. Cale Morton and Joey Daye made some clean one-handed pick-ups, Nick Naitanui took a big mark on the goal line and Chris Yarran snapped a goal over his 66


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right shoulder. Whenever Trent was on the ground, you could tell – the team was better for having him there. There was a brief break, near the end of the first term, after Tom Swift sprinted into the centre circle, went to change direction and felt his left knee buckle and snap. He said two words – ‘oh no’ – as he hit the ground and was carried off on a stretcher, thinking his knee had gone, along with 12 months of football. By the end of the first half, Perth was 2 goals up and scoring with much less effort than the Australians. It wasn’t a good sign. In the second half the gap widened; Perth’s pressure stayed the same but the Academy boys started rushing, more and more uncertain. Adelaide’s new recruiting manager, Matt Rendell, was one of many scouts watching from the stands. Having only recently started the job, he was looking at every player with completely fresh eyes. He thought only two dug their heels in when Perth began throwing them around: Daniel Rich and Patrick Dangerfield, both fresh on after half-time. The result was a 6-goal loss. ‘I was really pleased with our intent,’ McConnell told the team, crammed back inside the small meeting room. ‘But what I saw was young minds wavering in the pressure of the game. They exposed us. They exposed our decision making and our ability to evaluate situations. They controlled the game.’ Before sending them off, Alan had an individual comment for every single player in the room. ‘You showed us how exciting you are,’ he told Nick. ‘But you also found out how much work you have to do.’ To Marlon Motlop: ‘I loved your footwork, but your starting points weren’t good enough. You gave your opponent a start, and it cost you.’ To Trent: ‘You were excellent.’ To Brad: ‘There’s nothing glaringly weak in your game, and there’s nothing exceptionally great. And that’s not a criticism in any way at all.’ Then he came to Pat, who had played most of the game in defence. ‘They kicked a goal in a passage of play where you made two or three fantastic efforts in a row. Do you remember it?’ Alan asked. ‘I remember,’ said Pat. ‘I thought I was going to get moved because they kicked a couple of goals.’ ‘But you made three great efforts,’ Alan said. ‘Your assessment shouldn’t be based on the scoreboard, or how many possessions you have, or how many goals you kick. Your assessment should be based purely on what happens in your part of the ground.’ 67


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Tom Swift sat on a chair in the doorway during the post-match address, his left knee tightly strapped. The team’s doctor had just told him he’d torn his anterior cruciate ligament, but Tom had known that the second it happened. He’d heard AFL players talk about doing their knees and the snapping sound was just like they had described. Michael Voss had sat with him for a few minutes in the rooms before the other boys had streamed inside; Tom didn’t really want to be around them but knew as a leader he should be. ‘It was hard,’ he said. ‘But I had to be with them.’ He left the ground to have his knee scanned, a specialist confirmed the damage and Tom fell asleep that night with a choice: he could stay at home in Perth, wait for the swelling to go down, have the knee reconstructed and start his long rehabilitation program. Or, he could get on the plane the next morning, have a blood-thinning injection each day and see the trip through. He had no idea what to do. The good news, if there was any, was that he was still a year off being old enough for the draft. He wasn’t going to miss out because of it.

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11

‘ You feel like the most

horrible person in the world ’

Saturday 21 April 2007 When Peter Dean became coach of the Murray Bushrangers at the end of 2005, there was a saying among the other TAC Cup teams: ‘Watch out for the Bushies in the second half of the year.’ Country teams usually started slowly and finished fast but, in his first season, Dean wondered where the theory had gone wrong: the Bushrangers lost four of their last five games and missed out on the finals. In the last half of 2006, Dean had thrown a bunch of new, young players into the side, knowing they’d be better for it the next year. The Bushies lost their first game of the 2007 season by 20 goals to Geelong, which wasn’t a great start, but Dean added three smart, speedy players to the round 2 team, and reminded himself he was coaching kids. A boy he had bawled out after the first match had quit, and only come back after some top-level cajoling. Murray lost again in round 2 but the margin was much less depressing. If they beat the Northern Knights in their third game, today, things wouldn’t seem so bad. Ben McEvoy had his fingers crossed. He’d played the first two games at centre half-forward, a position he was still getting used to, having grown up in the ruck. The ball seemed to whiz over his head, fall at his feet or spend too much time at the other end of the oval, where he could have no say in what was going on. It had been a frustrating few weeks and worse still was the fact that the Bushies hadn’t actually felt like a team yet. Not even close, and Ben found that difficult to deal with. 69


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Before retiring from Carlton, at the end of 1999, Dean, a lean, hardnosed defender, knew he wanted to coach. Before the Bushrangers, he had coached in the Diamond Valley League and spent a year assisting the Northern Bullants in the VFL. He had ambitions beyond the TAC Cup, hoping one day to coach in the AFL. But first, there were things to teach his team of country kids, and to learn from them; although even before taking the job he understood a lot of what their lives were like. Dean was recruited to Carlton from Bendigo, and after his first reserves game, he got in his car and drove straight home. He did the same thing the next week, and the week after, but gradually managed to kick the habit. If you didn’t keep asking what your mates back home were doing, he came to understand, you didn’t want to be with them as much. One of the first things Dean realised after taking on the job was that before you could coach country kids you had to track them down. The Bushrangers drew players from the north-east of Victoria, and just up over the New South Wales border. From Seymour, their zone ran up to Deniliquin, across to Wagga Wagga and back down to Bright and Mansfield. It was a huge area that included Shepparton, Wangaratta, Albury, Benalla and every little town in between, which meant players came from all over the place. In 2007, half-forward Matthew Deledio lived in Kyabram, four hours from defender Dean Terlich in Osborne, two hours from onballer Josh Bryce in Jerilderie and three hours from Ben McEvoy’s Dederang farm. The club relied on coaches and secretaries at clubs throughout the region to send in nomination forms for their most promising kids, listing their height, weight and ratings for their kicking, marking and handballing. About 100 kids generally turned up for a tryout session at the start of December and Dean whittled the list down from there. He wished he could be out on the road looking for players himself but it was impossible to be everywhere and he appreciated the passionate junior coaches determined to push their kids’ case. Lesson number two was that when you coach a TAC Cup country team you can’t get your players together nearly as often as you’d like. The Bushrangers’ new regional manager, Andrew Carson, had worked at the Dandenong Stingrays before taking the Murray job. It didn’t surprise him that players were travelling four or five hours to get to and from Wednesdaynight training, but it did amaze him that no-one ever complained about 70


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it. It was what they did, what they’d always done. Andrew had also come to understand that when kids said they couldn’t train because of a flood, bushfire or some other natural disaster, the dog really had eaten their homework. The Bushrangers got together only once each week before game day, in Wangaratta. An after-school bus collected kids all the way from Albury, and another one ran from Shepparton. Dean constantly wished he had more time with them, envious of how the city teams trained together two times a week, if not more often. Then he’d remember that the boys were 16, 17 and 18 years old. If they weren’t at school they were working, or doing an apprenticeship. ‘You have to make the most of every minute you have with them,’ he said. ‘You have to be organised.’ And to have faith that they would fuse. People watched out for the Bushies. There was a third lesson: coaching in the TAC Cup meant playing the bad guy at times. Picking players meant leaving others out; it was the least fun part of the job in Dean’s first year and not much better the second time around. Dean chose the boys he thought AFL clubs would most like: tall ones, mostly, who could run fast. There was still room for smaller kids but you needed to be very quick or have one exceptional quality − a point of difference. If there was a choice between a borderline kid who was too young for the coming draft, and a borderline 18-year-old, Dean usually went with the younger kid, who had more time to improve and often more scope to. But he knew that every single boy who came to a preseason session imagined an AFL career, and when they were cut thought it was all over. His rules were to tell the player in person, to look them in the eye and be honest. If they were 17, he’d tell them to go back to their local club, do their best and try again the next year. If they were 18, there was less hope, and Dean did not try to hide that. He’d tell them it would be tough – impossible, most likely – but that players matured at different rates, and you never knew where the AFL clubs were looking. Then he’d send them a letter reinforcing what he had said; when a kid heard the word ‘unfortunately’ he didn’t tend to take in much of what came next. ‘You know it shatters them, but there’s no way around it.’ Dean said. ‘You watch them trudge across the oval after training and you get a real lump in your throat. You feel like the most horrible person in the world, but I suppose it’s a harsh part of footy. If you don’t make a TAC Cup list, it’s going to be very, very hard for you to get drafted.’ 71


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In the middle of March, Dean cut a small midfielder who had tried his heart out all summer, but who he thought might struggle for pace. Luke Svarc didn’t make it.

Ben was one of the Bushrangers’ three co-captains. He shared the job with Sam Livingstone, a running defender who lived a few valleys over from him, and Luke Morgan, an onballer from the Wangaratta Rovers. Peter Dean chose Ben because he was organised, forthright and demanding, without being overbearing. ‘He’s an old-fashioned person in some ways,’ he said. ‘He’s a very balanced, very level kid. He’s not into any hoopla.’ He picked Ben knowing he could do the job without thinking, but decided to turn him into a forward for other reasons. The first was a big blond boy from Barnawartha who Dean first spotted at a summer session shortly after he became coach. At 16, Dawson Simpson was 204 centimetres tall and difficult to miss. As he walked across the oval that day, with his bag slung over his shoulder, he got bigger, and bigger and bigger. Watching him train, it was clear he hadn’t had much coaching. He didn’t really know where to go on the ground. But he could kick well with both feet, handball with both hands and he was less gangly than a lot of the really tall kids. Dean thought he had something to work with but at the end of the session Dawson wandered over, thanked him for the invitation and said he wouldn’t be back. Instead, he was joining the army. ‘I was dumbfounded,’ Dean said. He went silent for a second, not sure what to say, then told Dawson he had enough talent to do something in footy and to have another think about it. After Christmas, his phone rang. It was Dawson. ‘Is it OK if I come back down to training?’ he asked. Dawson was a laidback, amiable kid. He had lots to learn and tried to do what Dean told him to in his first season, but it wasn’t easy: as a junior, all he’d had to do was take the ruck tap, then run wherever he wanted to. He had friends in the army, a couple of them were on duty in Iraq and while he sometimes wished he could be there with them, he was immersed in a new dream and happy with Dean’s plan to teach him how to play in the ruck. ‘I want to see how far I can go,’ he said. ‘The army will be there forever but you only have a short time to try and make it in footy.’ Dean knew Dawson was coming from a long way back, but he also knew 72


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recruiters were human, that their eyes would be instantly drawn to the biggest player on the ground. Ruckmen were important players and good ones were hard to find, so why not give him a chance? With Dawson thrown into the ruck, Ben was spending most of his time in the forward line, enjoying the challenge and change. He enjoyed playing in the ruck because he felt comfortable there, and because playing there let you have your greatest possible influence on how a match turned out, but it was a draining position and he didn’t like that side of it so much. ‘It’s a physical thing,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to get to every contest but you’ve also got to prepare yourself mentally, because you’re jumping into another bloke time and time again. And if you’re winning the tap and your teammates aren’t getting it, you start thinking: what the hell can I do next?’ Happy with how he’d played in the first two practice games, Ben hadn’t done as much as he wanted in the first two weeks of the season. In the second-round game he got a bit of the ball, but kicked a few points, and Dean thought he’d been a bit too honest, or unselfish. He’d worked so hard to get up the ground and create space for his teammates to kick into that he hadn’t gotten as much of the ball as the coaches wanted and the team needed. After that match, Dean decided to push Ben a little closer to goal, urging him to be greedier and a little bit more aggressive. ‘We need to get a bit of devil in him,’ he said. ‘He got a lot of sore thighs last year because people kept jumping into him. We need him to crash some packs.’ Ben just wanted to win, badly, knowing how quickly seasons could start to slip away. It was pouring rain at Preston when the Bushrangers played the Knights, and he started in the ruck for the first time all year. His opponent, Matthew Kreuzer, snapped 2 identical left-foot goals in the first 11 minutes but Ben started to piece together some possessions through the second half of a soggy, slippery game. The Knights led for most of the day and the Bushrangers lost Dawson, who had his feet swept from underneath him, whacking his head on the ground, early in the last quarter. But they stayed close, snatching the lead late in the final term and clinching their first win with 2 late goals. Standing on the edge of the centre square when the final siren sounded, his team in front by 9 points, Ben raised his fists to the sides of his face, then wrapped his arms around a group of relieved, 73


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tired teammates. For the first time, he felt like his team had really wanted to win. For the first time, he’d seen it in their eyes. Finally, he thought. Maybe this season wasn’t a write-off after all.

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12

‘ Life ’

Saturday 14 April 2007 Australia played South Africa for the first official time on a cricket oval in Potchefstroom, an hour and a bit from Johannesburg. The university town was where the AFL had set up its South African headquarters; there were 100 registered teams in the north-west province, more than 2500 players, and by 2009 the AFL hoped to push that number past 25 000. In the change rooms, Alan McConnell was agitated. Making sure his sides were switched on for games against Ireland had never been a problem, they hated each other, but this had been a much friendlier trip. The night before, both teams had danced around a bonfire at Vilakazi Street in Soweto, down the road from where Nelson Mandela used to live. On the ground before the game, the umpires had warmed up by dancing in the centre square, and a big group of local kids sang in the stands. The boys watched on from a balcony, relaxed, and McConnell wanted them to snap out of it. ‘Don’t let this trip suck you in!’ he warned them in a jarring prematch speech. ‘The people making judgements about you today want to know who will compete and who won’t, and they don’t give a rat’s arse about who you’re playing against. So I’m putting you on notice. Take it lightly, be in the wrong frame of mind and you’re sitting with me. Got it? The catch is that this program is about you understanding what you need to do and owning it. It’s what we’ve talked about all week and nobody today – NOBODY TODAY! – has accepted responsibility for that. And it’s bloody time to deliver, boys, I mean it . . . it’s time to deliver.’ The room went quiet after that, and the match was lopsided, like 75


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everyone knew it would be. Australia scored in the first minute, kicked 2 goals in a hurry and won by 150 points. The South Africans plucked high marks, ran in waves down the ground and liked their football physical, but the Academy boys had them well covered for skill. Patrick Dangerfield won the best-on-ground award, and Tom Swift was water boy. Watching the team line up for the national anthem made his heart ache, but he was glad he’d come on the trip: being injured hadn’t meant being an outcast or an invalid at all, and that had surprised him. The next day, the team flew to Cape Town.

Monday 16 April 2007 Brad Ebert was with Michael Voss, sitting by the pool at their Cape Town hotel. Each assistant coach had a small group of players they mentored, and Brad was on Michael’s list. Voss had joined the program after retiring from Brisbane in 2006; he had ambitions to coach one day and thought understanding young players, recruiting the right ones and developing them properly would be an important part of the job. He had an easy, friendly rapport with the boys and a way of making them think. ‘What do you reckon we’ve got to work on?’ he began by asking Brad. ‘Maybe my desperation?’ said Brad. ‘That might improve me around the stoppages, and things like that.’ ‘OK . . . desperation. How do we achieve that? Can you do something at training about that?’ ‘I think I could be more urgent. Get real angry at the ball, maybe?’ ‘I reckon your intensity levels are fine. But what can we do about desperation? Say you’ve got the ball in your hands and you’re travelling . . . what can you do to get that bit more desperation?’ ‘Maybe sprint a bit more? Pick up the pace and then steady and look up?’ ‘So what do you think you do now? In training, I mean . . .’ ‘In training I sort of kick it, then go for a couple of steps . . .’ ‘And fade off? So what happens? If you train at one pace, what happens in a game?’ ‘I’d probably play at that pace, I’d say. Instead of getting to the next contest quicker.’ 76


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‘So what are some things we could focus on? Desperation isn’t just about going in hard and low, it’s also about training your habits. Think about it: you get the ball, you’ve got possession . . . now what do you do?’ ‘I don’t know. I’d look up . . .’ ‘But what do you do? We’re talking about intensity levels. You grab the ball . . .’ ‘I’d just go . . .’ ‘What do you mean, go?’ ‘I’d sprint for 5 or 10 metres . . . then look up and spot someone up.’ ‘And then after the disposal?’ ‘Then I’d sprint after them and try and get up to the next contest. Help the person I’ve kicked it to, or get to the front of the pack.’ ‘That’s good. And look, these are little bits and pieces but if you train that way, session after session, it’ll become habit. You’ll do it in games and you won’t even realise you’re doing it. But if you’re just motoring along at the same pace, that’s how you’ll play. Does that make sense?’ ‘Yeah, that’s good,’ Brad said. ‘Do you reckon there’s anything else I need to do?’ ‘There was one thing . . .’ said Voss. He flicked through Brad’s diary, to where he had written down some goals for the first two games. ‘We need to have a think about how you break down your goals. We use the word “goal” as if it’s the end – the end result – and that’s not really right. Say you had a goal of getting five clearances. If I said to you right now: how are you going to get five clearances, what are you going to tell me?’ ‘I’d say I’d work into space at the stoppage.’ ‘Keep space open, do you mean?’ ‘Yeah. Then I’d work into it at the right time and give it off.’ ‘Keeping an eye on the ball?’ ‘Yeah, keeping an eye on the ball. But if I was the sweeper I’d have an eye on the player as well, I’d say.’ ‘I think the key is to work out the two or three things that are really important. And they might be little things. It might be keeping on your toes so you’re ready, up and ready to go.’ ‘That’s a good one.’ ‘You might have four of them. It might be engaging your opponent, keeping on your toes, watching the ball and keeping your space. It’s 77


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something you’ve got to work out for yourself, I’m just saying they’re four things that worked for me. They might not work for you, but they’re fairly generic principles.’ ‘They make sense . . .’ ‘They make sense for everyone and they were four things I concentrated on whenever I was at a stoppage. So have a think about it. If you want to get five clearances, come up with a list of things that will help you do that. And write it down. To get drafted, you have to play well every week. And playing well means getting five clearances. And getting five clearances means keeping on your toes . . . do you see what I mean?’ ‘Like, break it down to really simple things?’ ‘Yeah. If you can do that, you’ll get to the end of a game and say, I didn’t have five clearances, I had eight and I didn’t even know. That’s the difference between a process and a goal. So when you write your goals from now on, I don’t care if you write: I want to get five clearances in this game, or five tackles . . . whatever; but what I want to see written beside that is: this is how I’m going to get my five clearances, and this is how I’m going to get my five tackles. Sound good?’ ‘Yep, sounds good. Thanks Vossy.’ ‘You’re going really, really well mate. You’re doing a great job. Everyone’s been really impressed with the way you’re going. Keep up the good work.’

There were eight strangers on the trip. ‘The main men’, Trent had called them at the airport back in Perth, nodding in the direction of the recruiting managers as they slipped inside the Qantas Club. Stephen Wells from Geelong, Matt Rendell, Francis Jackson from Richmond, Fremantle’s Phil Smart and West Coast’s Trevor Woodhouse had flown home after the South African game on Saturday, but Kinnear Beatson, Collingwood’s Derek Hine and John Turnbull were seeing it all the way through. John had joined the group at Johannesburg after a trip to Europe, his teenage daughter Olivia in tow. Mark Kleiman was also on the trip, as well as several of the boys’ parents and families, who had paid their own way over. Alan McConnell loved to have them along and, in understanding the parents, some of the recruiters felt they could understand the boys 78


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a bit better. Mark, a former Footscray recruiter who had also worked in the Collingwood football department, had recently joined Velocity Sports, one of the newer player management companies. He was trying to get a foot in the door, to get a sense of who the good kids were. The recruiters’ presence had created some talk among the team: mostly about who had been talking to which boys. ‘You sort of think, I wonder which players they’re keen on and who they’re looking to draft,’ Brad said. It was hard not to. Trent had a heightened sense of their presence too, but had tried not to let it affect what he did or how he played. ‘I try to think that I’m not being watched. I’m out to impress in a way, I guess, but it’s not my focus, if that makes sense. They all seem like pretty normal people though. I think they just want to get to know what we’re like.’ Pat was more wary. ‘I thought they’d be trying to trick us, but most of them seem OK. It surprised me,’ he said. ‘You do have to keep your wits about you though. You don’t want to open up too much.’ For the recruiters, the value of the trip was more about what happened before and after the South African game than during it. Some of them preferred not to get to know the players as people until late in the season, when they were convinced either way of their football ability; others found that meeting them earlier helped them understand why they did certain things on the field, and how they’d adapt to football as a full-time job. ‘We get feedback from their local level coaches, school teachers, regional managers, state level coaches and they all have their different opinions,’ said Beatson. ‘But if you’re able to spend quality time with them then you’re in a better position, or a more accurate position, to form your own opinion on what they’re like as kids.’ Kinnear had changed his mind about one of the boys: Pat. ‘You hear so many different things about Patty,’ he said. ‘One of the things that’s won me over is just how much he’s into it. He wants to be involved in everything. You can tell how much he genuinely loves to play footy.’

Tuesday 17 April 2007 It was eight o’clock on a Tuesday night in Cape Town; in two days it would be time for the long trip back to Perth. Outside the hotel meeting room, Brian the piano player was bashing out a Celine Dion ballad. Inside, 79


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30 teenage boys were sitting in a circle, talking about what they had seen, heard and felt during the past two weeks. Asked earlier what the meeting would be about, Alan McConnell had simply replied: ‘Life’. The trip had been about more than football. On some days it had barely seemed about football at all. The team went on a safari, stayed in a wildlife park and visited Robben Island, where Mandela had been imprisoned. Their tour guide was a former prisoner, who’d been about their age when he had begun to rebel against apartheid. They’d also launched ‘Footy Wild’, the South African version of Auskick, at clinics in Potchefstroom and Soweto in the north-west, as well as Khayelitscha and Cape Flats, shanty towns on the outskirts of Cape Town. At the end of each clinic they were chased, tackled and swamped by kids, and then serenaded with song. After the Cape Flats clinic, the boys went on a walking tour through the streets, where people lived in shipping containers and had rocks holding their roofs down. Clayton Garlett gave away his necklace and an earring, and wished he had more to give. Alan began the meeting by asking what was at the front of their minds and Brad Ebert was first to speak. He’d found it difficult to reconcile how happy the kids had been with how little they had, and he wasn’t the only one. Steven Gaertner felt guilty, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. ‘I haven’t done anything bad,’ he explained, ‘but it made me feel bad.’ Marlon Motlop felt ungrateful. ‘I always want more than I have,’ he said, and the separation of black and white people had made Cale Morton feel naive. ‘You see it today, in today’s society, and it shocks me,’ he said. ‘It makes you reflect on how bad it must have been. I can’t imagine what it would have been like, and it wasn’t all that long ago.’ The segregation, and the colour-based pecking order, had struck many of the boys. After the Cape Flats tour, the team bus had stopped off at a small tavern. The boys jumped off, took photos of each other and got back on the bus. Pat posed for more pictures than anyone and as he went to walk away an old, local man had tugged at his shirt sleeve. ‘He said he hates how people do that, how they just go in there and treat them like animals,’ Pat said. ‘I didn’t really like how we did that. It seemed to be classifying them, like saying we were better than them.’ ‘So what did you say to him?’ asked Alan. ‘I didn’t really say anything. I was speechless,’ Pat said. ‘It didn’t hit 80


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me until then. They’re just living their lives and we’re taking photos of them like they’re in the zoo.’ ‘What would you do differently, then? If you were running the tour next year . . .?’ ‘I’d still walk through the streets,’ Pat said. ‘That sort of opens your eyes. But I probably wouldn’t go into those sorts of places and make them feel like they’re worth nothing.’ Because of their skin colour, and at times because of their own childhoods, Nick Naitanui and the Indigenous players had a slightly different take on some of the boys’ experiences. Nick went back to Fiji now and then and had realised that tourists there did the same thing people visiting South Africa did – went to the nice, pretty places and based their understanding of the country on that. At one of the clinics, a black man had come up to Marlon Motlop and Joey Daye. ‘He was saying that even with the history of what white people had done to black people, don’t hold it against them, just move on,’ Marlon said. ‘Why do you think he told you that?’ Alan asked him. ‘I’m not sure,’ Marlon said. ‘He might have thought we could relate to him, I don’t know. That we might be on the same path.’ Where most boys were confronted with a completely new world in Cape Flats, Chris Yarran had identified with some of what he saw. ‘I felt like I’d sort of been where they are,’ he said. ‘Does that make you feel proud about what you’ve achieved, or bring back bad memories?’ Alan asked him. ‘Bad memories really, from when I was young,’ Chris said. ‘Stuff I don’t want to go through again.’ ‘So what do you do to make sure you don’t go back there?’ ‘Just stay on track.’ ‘How do you stay on track?’ ‘Have the right friends. Have good people around me, influencing me. Listen to my parents.’ Tom Swift described the trip as a chance to understand the ‘finer points’ about his teammates and the players spent the last part of the meeting talking about what they’d learned about each other. Many mentioned Chris Yarran’s smile and the fact he had crept so far out of his shell. ‘I don’t want to go home,’ Chris told them. Many of them spoke of 81


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Tom, who in turn thanked Hamish Hartlett for convincing him to come away. Jack Grimes mentioned Steven Gaertner, who had been badly homesick, and it was the quiet Clayton Garlett who reminded everyone not to forget Lachie Henderson. Lachie had aggravated a leg injury during the first game in Perth and had not played on the tour. He hadn’t sought to draw a single bit of attention to himself or his plight, which turned out to be a significant one. He got home to find out that his sore calf was in fact a fractured leg. Half an hour after he asked for last questions, Alan was finally able to wrap things up. ‘We’ve been talking about culture,’ he said, ‘and football is a very tough culture. You all aspire to play AFL football and if you think you’ve had it tough with the expectations on you in this program, wait until you find out what a footy club is like. Not only do you have coaches telling you what to do, people are going to know who you are. If you play for the Geelong Footy Club and go out on a Saturday night, by the next day someone at the club will know everything you did. You become public property, literally. It’s going to be a very different world to what any of you boys have known.’

Saturday 21 April 2007 Back in Perth, there was one last game to play. Before the Academy took on Swan Districts in a twilight game at Leederville, Alan McConnell asked them if they had brought their experiences home with them. ‘Bring to the team something you’re good at,’ he told them before they ran out. ‘Stop being afraid to show the team who you are.’ The team played like a team, this time. The boys knew how each other moved, thought and played, which meant they had more flow and purpose. They were up by 7 goals at half-time and won by 86 points. Brad played on a wing for the first time and after the match asked why. ‘I wanted to show the recruiters you can do more than they think you can,’ Alan told him. Late in the last term, Pat kicked Australia’s twenty-first goal. He clapped his hands together, had a little bellow and ran back to position, feeling for the first time like he belonged. At the post-match dinner, the boys had a final job to do. Each player had been assigned a quality and had to vote for the team member that best 82


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personified it. The award was named after Ben Mitchell, a member of the 2001 intake, who had died in a car accident the following year aged only 17. The qualities were things like pride, patience, poise, care, trust, skill and sacrifice; the boys could interpret these things any way they chose to and the winner was Jack Grimes. The next morning, a tired-eyed Alan McConnell sat in a corner of the hotel foyer, spending a few minutes with each of the boys before they went home, making sure they weren’t intending to float through the rest of the season. By his side was Trent, who had plans. ‘I want to make the Vic Metro squad,’ he said. ‘I want to have a good carnival and make the AllAustralian team, but that’ll only come I suppose with doing the right things and playing well for the team. I want to get invited to draft camp and go on to have a successful career, not just be happy with getting drafted. If I get to an AFL club I’ll work harder. I’m always going to work hard.’

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13

‘ On the field he has belief ’

Friday 27 April 2007 Scotch College, a private, all-boys school, was one of the oldest Presbyterian schools in Australia. On 7 August 1858, seven years after it was founded, the school played Melbourne Grammar in an experimental, three-hour game of ‘foot-ball’ out the back of the MCG, returning in September and October for more games. The first official ‘Australian rules’ were concocted soon afterwards. Scotch College’s first game of the 2007 season was also its biggest. The school had lost only one match in 2006, winning an Associated Public Schools premiership for its best result in 10 years, but to make another good start it had to beat its oldest rival for the third year in a row. ‘Today’s match should be a keenly contested affair,’ predicted the school newsletter about the clash against Melbourne Grammar. ‘Junior Rioli’ was listed at No. 7 on the team sheet, with Stewie in the No. 8 jumper and Shannon to debut in No. 5. ‘There is no real form line and both sides will probably be rusty. The forecast wet weather adds a further twist to the plot. Free kicks to the player who plays in front could be crucial in the final result. Go Scotch!’ Even before the school bell rang on Friday afternoon, students in their striped blazers were streaming from all angles of the Scotch campus to watch the game. The Grammar drum began an immediate duel with the Scotch bagpipes and the cheer squads switched ends at each change of quarter, marching clockwise around the oval and chanting all the way. The crowd was filled with students, teachers, parents, talent scouts, old 84


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boys and more recent former students. At quarter-time, Xavier Ellis and Tom Hawkins − Melbourne Grammar teammates turned Hawthorn and Geelong players – had a kick with Nathan Djerrkura, a one-time rival turned Hawkins’ teammate at the Cats. There was colour, noise and chaos, with afternoon tea served in the half-time break. The first time Junior saw all this he was in Year 9, new to the school and too tiny to play with the big kids. He didn’t know the history of the rivalry and had never heard bagpipes played live in his life. He wandered out after class for a look, and liked what he saw. ‘I felt like I was in another land,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be like that every week.’ Steve Holding, coach of the first-18 team, had seen Junior play for the first time as a Year 9. Like everyone else, he’d heard all about the small, flashy superstar, and wanted to see for himself what the fuss was about. From the start, Junior starred, taking big marks, kicking impossible goals. He was so good he could almost have played in the top team that year, had there not been a blanket rule against exposing any 14-year-old to the emotional pressure of playing against kids four years older than them, never mind the physical strain. The next year, in 2006, Junior became one of only a few Year 10s to ever play in the first 18, kicking 10 goals in one game and 8 in another. He belonged there from day one. In 2006, he played off a half-back flank and was probably the team’s best player; in 2007 the plan was to move him up into the midfield. Steve Holding knew that what Scotch did would depend largely on what Junior could muster. The other boys knew it too, but Steve didn’t expect that to intimidate his instinctive, gifted star, who also happened to be one of his best listeners. Junior could come across as casual and in some ways he was; nothing much tended to fluster him. But Steve had not met many kids who understood their own ability quite like Junior did. ‘On the field he has belief,’ he said. ‘He’s never going to get around telling people how good he is, but he believes he is. He knows that he is. I think he knows it’s the thing that’s going to get him where he wants to go in his life.’ By the time Scotch played Grammar, Junior was desperate for a game; he hadn’t played since February in Darwin. He never needed much motivating but was determined to play extra well today because his parents and sister were in town, staying up the road in Hawthorn. It was the first time Kathy had visited the school since Junior had started there 85


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and, seeing his room in the boarding house, she thought of all the things she should have thought of already. ‘Why didn’t I think to bring a spare doona?’ she wondered, peering through the door. ‘I wonder if he’s got enough to eat . . .’ Kathy had been nervous about coming down – an uncomfortable flyer to start with she was also unsure about how she, Cyril and Kahlisha would fit in. They were invited to a luncheon before the match and at first she didn’t want to go, concerned they’d be looked at like they didn’t deserve to be there because their kid was on scholarship. Her heart raced walking in but the parents introduced themselves and were nice, really nice. She was glad she made herself go. The trip filled in other missing details too: where Junior ate breakfast, how long it took him to walk from his room to class in the mornings, what his teachers were like and where Rob had been sitting when he’d taken her anxious, early calls. She understood for the first real time how strong Junior had been to survive, and in a way she was glad she’d waited so long to come down. ‘If I’d seen it all at the start,’ she said, ‘I might have let him come home.’ To a soundtrack of beating drums, wailing bagpipes and the Scotch College war cry, the game started. Junior cut diagonally through a cluster of players fumbling for first possession, scooping the ball off the ground, looking up and sending a long, quick kick forward. A few minutes later, the ball was thrown in on the half-forward line, Shannon squeezing a handball up into mid-air as he was tackled towards the boundary line. Exploding through the jumble of red and blue guernseys in a sudden, certain movement, Junior lunged at the loose ball, tucked it under his left arm and pushed through a tackle, scoring from the pocket and making the crowd gasp. ‘That’s sensational!’ gushed one of the commentators. ‘It’s the Junior Rioli show,’ said another. ‘No one can touch the man.’ With 10 minutes left in the first half and the opposition coming, Junior was in the forward line again, planting his feet on the ground and bracing to bump a Grammar defender. He collected the player front on, just beneath his shoulder, then turned, sprinted up the ground and flew for a wonky throw-in before taking himself off the ground. He knew his collarbone was broken even before anyone looked at it; he just knew it. At half-time, he stood by the side of the oval while a lift to hospital was arranged, his right arm wrapped in a sling, staring straight ahead. Junior 86


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was in pain – absolute, agonising pain – and he was angry at himself. He hated that his parents were there to see this, that they’d come all this way and he hadn’t lasted a half. And in the back of his mind was another thought: when you broke your collarbone you missed eight or nine weeks, maybe more. His season might have just ended with that one, stupid bump.

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14

‘ Will fit in very quickly at an AFL club ’ In his eight years as Hawthorn’s recruiting manager, John Turnbull had drafted the likes of Luke Hodge, Mark Williams, Nathan Thompson, Jonathon Hay, Luke McPharlin, Campbell Brown and Sam Mitchell. Three of the club’s big improvers – Chance Bateman, Rick Ladson and Tim Boyle – were also his calls. In 2007, after a season working for Adelaide, Turnbull joined Melbourne’s recruiting team. After the South African trip, he filed his thoughts on all 30 of the players with the Demons’ list manager, Craig Cameron. ‘JT’ Turnbull hadn’t found the game against South Africa to be particularly useful, although he did note which boys struggled to find the ball even against such poor opposition. But the Swan Districts match – at the end of a long trip and after a long flight home, when a number of players were unwell – revealed plenty. His notes covered everything from running intensity to tackling technique, as well as some more general observations. Brad Ebert General: Earnest. Polite. Spreads himself. Good lad. Teammates rate him. Professional approach. Surfer (was a state level swimmer). Was into everything. Will fit in very quickly at an AFL club. Friendly, without being over the top. Can be a bit of a worrier at times, but he appears to be able to switch off. At Perth Airport (when squad flying back ‘home’) he organised the SA boys to leave their departure gate and go over and farewell all the Victorian boys who were in the boarding queue. Thoughtful. Aware. 88


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THE RECRUITER

Additional comments: From a football point of view there may have been a lack of a burst of pace. Is clearly a future AFL player but I need to see more of him – particularly in the U18 Nationals – before a final rating. He is a tremendous young bloke. Trent Cotchin General: Confident without being over the top. Relates well to coaching staff (especially Michael Voss) and jokes etc. with them. Will fit in very quickly at an AFL club. Seen by Alan McConnell as the best in the squad at understanding the midfielder’s need to be accountable – and how and when to do it. An absolute jet – difficult to find a flaw – on-field leader and very good off-field. #1 2007 National Draft. Additional comments: Self to Trent, when introducing our daughter: ‘Trent’s a gun’; ‘But he’s always injured!’ Trent replied. This is my only concern – back, buttock, hamstring issues (but appears to be OK at present, 12/6). Incidentally, he was terrific in bringing daughter Olivia into the group – perhaps reflecting the fact he has both an older and younger sister. He did it subtly but it was impressive and demonstrated thoughtfulness and awareness. He was an ‘interested traveller’ – took a lot of photos, asked questions. Has an element of the outgoing larrikin as well. . . easily led by group? Probably not. Patrick Veszpremi General: A real mixture! For all his obvious flaws I’d take a chance at round 2. He has some tremendous qualities − gets in hard, excellent at stoppages (reads ruckman’s hands well), has a burst of pace and power, kicks with depth and mostly with control. Exuberant but needs attention from coaches etc. Will require constant development coaching!! A harmless, affable semi-clown who has a need to be noticed, loved and re-assured. Cannot sit still. He won’t alienate future older teammates, but will need time to be accepted. There is a possibility that he could be led astray in his need to be ‘loved’. Excellent at clinics. Saw need to be extroverted at the Cape Flats clinic when the children’s response was lukewarm. Not an academic. Coaches will need to take ‘alternative’ approaches in teaching him . . . and be sensitive and hard. 89


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THE DRAFT

Australia v Swan Districts: Trent, Brad & Pat

Australia v Swan Districts: Trent leading the team down the race 90


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South Africa: Brad at a footy clinic in Potchefstroom

South Africa: Pat at a footy clinic in Khayelitscha 91


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15

‘ Everyone’s out there, flying their flag ’ Thursday 17 May 2007 Trent was back at school just two days after flying home from Perth − in body, if not mind. He had exams and assignments to do in each of his five Year 12 subjects but by third period he could barely stay awake, let alone focus on the page in front of him. He was sent off to the sick bay, sleeping for two hours until his mum could come and pick him up. Trent’s hamstring was annoying him again. It had played up during the South African trip – sore behind the knee like when he first hurt it – and the doctor had said that if it didn’t start to feel better in the next few days he could give it some cortisone – the strongest anti-inflammatory you can find. At first Trent was fine with that, but a few hours later he felt a little uneasy, thinking about cortisone and remembering his dad’s tennis elbow. He asked the doctor more about what it did, but still didn’t feel completely comfortable. ‘I didn’t want to be someone who developed a need for it, or who needed it to get through every single game or something,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to panic about it.’ As it turned out, he didn’t need it. His hamstring relaxed and felt fine for the rest of the trip, but now it was sore again. Trent played for the Knights on his first weekend home and ached everywhere by the end of the 5-point win. When he played for his school side the following Friday, the pain had narrowed back down to his hamstring. Today, he’d spent 45 minutes in an MRI machine having what felt like 85 different scans taken of his right leg and enduring some ordinary dance music. He fell asleep in the waiting room, and again on the way home. The scans showed the same thing he’d been told back in 92


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TRENT

March: he had some tendonitis behind the knee and a slight hamstring strain and that rest, some stretches and a few anti-inflammatory tablets would fix it up easily. In another week he should be able to play again, which was good news, but if it didn’t fix itself this time, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. ‘I don’t want to even think about it,’ Trent said. ‘Hopefully that’s it for me and injuries from now on.’

Since starting at PEGS in 2006, Trent had become a better, more motivated student, but it had been difficult to combine the school’s demands with what the Knights wanted. The school had given him a 75 per cent scholarship, so they came first on the weekends, and Kath got on the front foot by sending Peter Kennedy and Ken Fletcher, the PEGS coach, copies of each fixture; if there was some sort of clash they could sort it out themselves, rather than trap Trent in the middle. Still, even working out who to train with was tricky at times. Trent trained lightly on Mondays at school, spent Tuesdays with the Knights, was back at school on Wednesdays and, if he was playing for the Knights on the weekend, he’d train there again on Thursday. ‘They’re both pretty good, but it can be hard,’ Trent said. ‘One coach tells you one thing, then you go back to the other one and they want you doing something different.’ His approach was to just do what he was told, wherever he was. ‘It’s easier than saying no to people.’ Not long after arriving home Trent dealt with another hassle, signing Anthony McConville as his manager. He probably would have done it earlier in the end, just to get it out of the way, but the AFL Players Association had recently ruled that agents couldn’t sign kids until they had turned 17, and were in that year’s draft. They made it official over a family dinner at Docklands, and Trent was glad. He’d found Anthony easy to talk to and had the feeling he’d stick around should things not work out how he wanted them to. ‘It’s good to have it sorted, even just for Mum and Dad,’ he said. ‘They want to try and keep me in Melbourne and he said he’d do as much as he could. And he’s someone my dad can turn to for advice, that’s the main reason I decided to do it now. I don’t want my parents stressing out.’ The one thing Kath and Peter wanted to be sure of was that Trent felt comfortable with whoever he chose. ‘If he goes somewhere and 93


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he isn’t happy, I want him to be able to say: “I’m not happy, can you help me?”’ Kath said. ‘If Trent’s not happy, he’s hard to get talking. He’ll never complain.’ In 2007, AFL player management was a more restrained, more legitimate and more respected part of the industry than it was in the late 1990s, when it was self-regulated and managers were at worst considered fast-talking, opportunistic sharks and at best looked at with slight scepticism. In 2000, after the AFL had signed a huge new broadcast rights deal that delivered footballers a big pay rise, the AFL Players Association introduced an agent accreditation system, to make sure the people who looked after the players knew their stuff and were bound by ethical guidelines. Any person could still become a manager – and players were also able to negotiate contracts themselves, or have a parent do it − but to be an agent involved applying for accreditation, sitting an exam that covered things like the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and the player union, the AFL’s rules, the standard player contract and various codes of conduct. Keeping your accreditation current meant attending an annual professional development workshop, and since 2003 agents were required to hold professional indemnity insurance – worth a few thousand dollars – which helped flush out those who weren’t serious. In 2003, there were around 80 to 90 accredited agents; it was closer to 70 in 2007, with 57 representing around 90 per cent of the league’s 640-odd players. The agents were nonetheless very competitive. They had to be. There were a few major players on the AFL scene – Elite Sports Properties (ESP), the International Management Group (IMG), Flying Start and Paul Connors, as well as Stride, athletes1, Anthony McConville, Top Dog and Velocity – and the only real way to replace retired or delisted talent was with fresh draftees, which meant getting in early or missing out. The race had increased in pace since 2001, when Connors signed three teenage boys called Luke Hodge, Luke Ball and Chris Judd in the months leading up to the 2001 draft. Brendon Goddard signed the next year with ESP and in 2003 Rick Olarenshaw, the former Essendon premiership wingman running athletes1, snapped up Adam Cooney. Anthony McConville’s big day was in 2004, when Richmond drafted Brett Deledio at No. 1 and in 2005 it was Connors’ turn again: he went to draft day with Marc Murphy and Dale Thomas, the first two picks, on his books. Bryce Gibbs, the 94


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TRENT

No. 1 pick in 2006, had joined ESP, which also snared Matthew Kreuzer early in 2007. Trent was the next big fish. There were rules, of which some were followed more closely than others. Agents had to make their first approach in writing, after they’d told the players’ state league club they planned to get in touch. They weren’t supposed to talk to players before, during or straight after games or training sessions or when their exams were coming up and they weren’t permitted at the draft camp, which bugged some more than others. They also had to figure out which boys they actually wanted to sign. Everyone knew who the stand-out players were, but the agents had to back their judgement on the rest and effectively figure out who would get drafted before the clubs made their own calls. For them, draft day could be bittersweet; the good news matched by the miserable kid who didn’t get picked, and didn’t know where to turn next. As a teenager, McConville had injured his knee playing in the Under19s for Footscray in the early 1980s. He was in Year 12 and it was a difficult time; there was no such thing as club welfare managers and player agents back then. His dream hadn’t come true but when he retired from suburban football at 30, the TAC Cup was about to start and he saw the chance to be more than a mere accountant for kids coming through. A good agent could be a good, independent sounding board but it was a tough industry to break into, the other agents protective of their turf. ‘You need time to build relationships and at the same time it’s a race to the finish line,’ said McConville. ‘You need players and everyone’s out there, flying their flag.’ When McConville met with families, he told them what he could do for their sons – he could help them budget, help them buy their first car or help them relocate interstate. He didn’t only go after the likely high picks – if he did, he figured he’d miss a lot of other good players along the way. At the end of any meeting, he wondered whether the kid and his family thought they’d clicked; but he also had to decide whether the kid was for him. ‘You may have the best company set up and a million people working for you but if your personalities don’t fit together it won’t work out,’ he said. ‘I’ve walked away from families and kids thinking, yes they’ll get drafted but they’re not for me. With others, the dynamic has been there from saying hello. If I’m wavering, I’m not going to be able to build a relationship with the kid. It’s not just about the numbers.’ 95


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16

‘ I want the young fella . . . ’

Monday 14 May 2007 Ben had been busy, but not on the farm: it was already getting too dark at night to get much work done before dinner. The Bushrangers had last weekend off, after more frustrating games, but that was only because the first state team trials had been on, which meant no break for Ben. Because the Victorian Country selectors had fewer kids to pick from than their city counterparts, they chose a big initial squad, then whittled it down after a few training sessions. To Ben, the games felt different, like there was a little more pressure, like he was playing more for himself than a team. ‘At the moment there is no team,’ he said. ‘You’re out there on your own, in a way, and there’s that tiny little bit extra riding on what you do.’ The good news was that Dawson had been picked in the squad too, albeit with a secret – when he was knocked out in round 3 he also broke his wrist, having had it checked out the next week when it wouldn’t stop hurting, and deciding not to tell his coaches. If he did tell them, they’d make him have surgery, he wouldn’t play for Vic Country and he wouldn’t get drafted. He’d just have to grit his teeth for a while, and Ben was glad to have him along. Dawson was good, laidback company and someone he knew. The first time he went to Canberra on an Academy camp he’d sat alone in his room on a Friday night, thinking about his Year 10 formal, which was on that night at home. He felt like a loner and had to keep reminding himself: you’re better off being here. Things had been busy at school, too, where Ben was school captain and had four Year 12 subjects on his plate. English, economics, chemistry and biology – all the easy ones. He was hoping to score no less than 80 for 96


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BEN, JUNIOR, BRAD

his Tertiary Entrance Rank and was so far feeling confident. A few exams were coming up, but they hadn’t really been on his mind. Ben wasn’t a crammer, something that bothered his brothers and sister because he always got good results anyway. Cramming wasn’t studying to him; it was reading. He preferred to just learn things in the first place. The season was eight weeks old and Ben’s body was feeling it. Even playing in a home game for the Bushrangers meant driving a couple of hours, and his back was sore from all the travel, though his brothers liked to tell him he was lucky. Pete was moving better than he had been on his wonky knee, but was still stuck swimming and boxing. Matt, who was playing for East Keilor, down the road from where he was staying with one of his aunts, had hurt his back working as a labourer in his year off after high school, and it was still causing him trouble. Still, Ben never liked leaving things to chance. If he woke up with a sore spot, he’d ice it on the way to school in the morning, leave the ice pack in the staff room freezer and grab it again at lunchtime. The morning after every match, he’d head down to a small stretch of the Kiewa River and walk straight into the snow water. He’d stand there for a few minutes, shivering, then dunk his head underneath and get out. It was cold, really cold. But he knew that in his next game he’d be feeling much better for it.

Sunday 20 May 2007 When Junior first moved to Melbourne he spent most weekends with Michael Long and his wife and kids, getting his fix of family. More recently he, Shannon and Stewie had lobbed most Saturday nights at Dean Rioli’s place in Keilor Downs, staying until late Sunday. Dean’s wife Sam would cook some curried chicken, Darwin style, before dropping them back at the boarding house. Dean was Junior and Stewie’s cousin, and the big brother Shannon was only just getting to know properly, having been only three or four years old when Dean had left to play football in Perth and then Melbourne. Dean, who played his last game for Essendon in the second-last round of 2006, began coaching Keilor Park in 2007. The club had looked after his father and brothers in the past and the challenge also appealed: Keilor Park hadn’t won a game in 2006. Since retiring, he had started up a mentoring 97


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program for young Indigenous apprentices through the Electrical Trades Union, and begun promoting a federal program that encouraged rural Aboriginal communities to take their children for regular health checks. He didn’t miss football, his knees had been so badly damaged by the end that he couldn’t even train, but he missed having teammates, and looked forward each weekend to the three teenage boys invading his lounge room, emptying his fridge and making a mess wherever they went. Dean’s last AFL game was also his hundredth game, which gave the Bombers first call on his son as a father–son pick. Now he just had to have a son. He believed Junior was destined for bigger things than anyone else in his family. ‘Michael and Maurice were good,’ he said. ‘But I think Junior will be the best of us all.’ Junior was feeling much better. Four days after breaking his collarbone, he had an 80-millimetre screw inserted into his shoulder to pull the fractured bone back together. The bone would have healed on its own in time, but that would have meant missing six weeks, maybe more. It would almost certainly have meant missing the Under-18 championships, a prospect that had kept Junior awake for almost as long as the pain had on the night he hurt himself. He got sent to see his surgeon, Martin Richardson, by a doctor he knew of through school. Martin told him the titanium pin would be even stronger than his own bone, but Junior’s eyes lit up more when he mentioned the recovery period: in three or four weeks he’d be able to play football again. ‘It made me feel alive,’ he said. The operation was another matter. It was the first time Junior had ever had surgery and he was nervous. He got to the hospital just after 11 am, filled out some forms and waited for more than two hours before he was taken in. ‘All I could think about was needles,’ he said. Drifting off to sleep felt strange, but waking up was stranger; all he could think of this time was how itchy his face felt. In the end he was glad his parents were around when he got hurt: his mother’s week in Melbourne turned into two so that she could look after him and they got to spend their first real time together − just the two of them − in a long time. Kathy didn’t like to see Junior in pain but grabbed her unexpected chance to fetch him drinks, tuck him in and take care of the son that had suddenly become so self-sufficient. ‘He was a little boy again,’ she said. ‘It was good.’ This time, Junior went to the airport to see his mum off. As Kathy said 98


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goodbye, she realised how difficult it must be for Junior, no matter how used to it he had become, to constantly leave the people he loved behind. The opposite thought crossed Junior’s mind. ‘It was hard to wave her off,’ he said. ‘I thought about it a bit because they’re the ones saying goodbye to me all the time.’ After a week of rest, Junior was able to run again. In another week he planned to train, and in two more weeks he hoped to play. He hated watching Scotch play, and lose, and not be able to do anything about it. ‘When I play football I’m not worrying about things,’ he said. Without football he was thinking about what he was eating, how much fitness had slipped away and about his school work. The Indigenous boys at Scotch weren’t flung into the deep end when they started: as part of their program, Michelle Linossier, a teacher in her sixth year at the school, managed the boys’ academic load. The first thing she showed Junior was a copy of the school Annual – so that he understood the place and realised that it was, in the end, just another school. And the first thing she noticed was that he’d have a go, at anything. ‘Early on, you had to draw things out of him. He didn’t speak much and Junior doesn’t like to put people out,’ she said. ‘When you get to know him, you can tell when he’s not sure about something.’ As part of his program, Junior was able to do his exams in the education support office, and get a bit of extra time at the end. He took that option in Year 9 but the next year he was in the main room. ‘That came from him,’ said Michelle. ‘He got himself settled, and footy was so important with that. Once footy started, he really started to connect with the other boys and feel comfortable. Footy was his way of fitting in.’ Junior wasn’t worried about what score he would get for his VCE. The goal was to get it, but for the first time all year he could barely be bothered. He was finding it hard to get up in the mornings and possibly wouldn’t have gotten up had Stewie not kept hassling him to. ‘I’ve lost it,’ he said. ‘I don’t have the energy for it. I’m keeping up but I just don’t want to be there.’

Tuesday 22 May 2007 Brad was back at school after the South African trip, studying an eclectic mix of Year 12 subjects: nutrition, studies of society, tourism, geography 99


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and physical education. He had a week off before being due back at St Michael’s College, so he churned through some homework and spent a few days up at his uncle’s place in the South Australian riverland, making a ‘Getaway-style’ show for his tourism class. He knew he would have started stressing had he had to go straight back, so he was glad for the extra time. ‘I always worry about catching up,’ he said. ‘Then I worry that I’m worrying too much . . .’ Being back at school meant playing football for the school, which had also been on his mind. Brad played for the Magpie reserves on his first weekend back and felt good on the ground, but sitting in the rooms afterwards, he started to feel woozy and began to throw up. Diagnosed with another concussion he was told to take a weekend off, and the week after that the school season started. St Michael’s played in Adelaide’s Independent Schools Sports Association and the rule of thumb was that unless you were playing senior football for a SANFL club − playing ‘league’ − you had to play for the school. Brad and his dad had met with St Michael’s principal and the school had been understanding: it would let him play with the Magpies for all but their biggest games. That was good, but Brad still felt anxious: on Monday the South Australian Under18 program had started and between training, trial games and the national championships, he’d be away from the Magpies until the end of July. When he got back, it might be too late. It wasn’t that Brad minded playing for his school. He didn’t want the other boys thinking he didn’t want to be there, but equally, he didn’t want the Magpies thinking he wasn’t desperate to play for them. ‘It’s just the pressure . . . like, where do you even go and train?’ he said. ‘I’m thinking, if I don’t train with the Magpies then they’re not going to pick me, and if I don’t train with school then they won’t be too happy. I don’t want to get anyone off-side.’ Two weeks ago, Brad’s school team was a good place to be. St Mick’s beat Sacred Heart by 2 goals, inflicting the school’s first defeat in seven years. But last week’s game against Pembroke wasn’t so good. Brad had jumped up to punch the ball, missed it, and got a boot in the face when another player tried to jump over him. His face was covered in blood, he spat and saw blood splatter everywhere. He had four stitches sewn in his left cheek, which had already started to droop a little, his lips and nose 100


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were cut up and his left eye quickly turned black. The whole way to the doctor’s surgery Brad thought about one thing: ‘please, no concussion; please, no concussion’. There wasn’t, and that was a big relief. Brad had been given some hope that, if he got into the Port Adelaide team, he could survive in there. He’d trained all summer alongside Levi Greenwood, a Whyalla boy who had moved to Adelaide at 16, starting work as a boilermaker and trying his luck with the Magpies. Two weeks ago Levi had played his first game, spending most of the second quarter throwing up in the forward-pocket, he was so nervous, but holding his spot the next week. ‘I suppose it shows you can get there,’ thought Brad, watching him. ‘You think it could be you.’ If and when; when and if. Was it ever going to happen? They were the questions on Brad’s mind as he headed to bed and began nodding off. Just after 10 pm the phone rang; Chris got to it first. ‘Craig’s at work . . .’ she started to say, but then she was cut off. ‘I’m not calling for him . . .’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘I want the young fella . . .’ ‘Who is it?’ Brad asked, squinting up at as his mum as Chris opened his door and held the phone out towards him. ‘It’s Nippy,’ she said. Nippy? Thought Brad. The guy who delivers the orange juice? ‘Hello . . . ?’ he said. ‘This school footy’s too dangerous, mate,’ said the Port Adelaide coach. Tim Ginever was known to his good friends as Nippy. ‘I think we’d better get you in the league team.’

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17

‘ Pull your bloody socks up,

tuck yourself in, do your hair and look like a footballer ’

Saturday 26 May 2007 The week after coming home from South Africa, Pat was straight back into training. ‘The Knights don’t give you a rest,’ he sighed. ‘If you said you had a cold they’d make you do an endurance run.’ Peter Kennedy had been talking to a couple of Fremantle recruiters, who had seen the Academy game against Swan Districts and brought up Pat’s final-quarter celebrations, wondering if he was always so over the top when his team was so far in front. PK thought the criticism was a little too much but passed it on nonetheless. There’s a time and a place, he told Pat. ‘It’s good to celebrate when there’s 5 points the difference 30 minutes into the last quarter, but when you’re 15 goals up and you kick a goal, you don’t need to do a war dance or shoot arrows in the sky,’ he said. PK was often asked about Pat, the recruiters not seeming quite sure what to make of him. Was he a good kid, a bad kid, or a bit ostentatious? ‘It’s a bit of an indictment on society in one way,’ he said. ‘You want the kids to enjoy themselves. We’ve just told him to tone it down a bit.’ Pat could hardly believe it at first. But he decided to quieten down and to also stop colouring his hair. ‘I can see what they mean. Sort of. But it’s not every day you get to kick a goal for Australia.’ In his first game back, Pat had played off half-back against the Geelong Falcons. He played well, and the Knights scraped a 5-point win. Matthew Kreuzer had 41 hit-outs in that match, and everyone was asking the same question: was that the best individual TAC Cup game ever? His 102


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tackling, chasing and smothering were as eye-catching as the things he did when he actually had the ball. The next week, Pat had turned up late for the Knights’ game against Sandringham and had forgotten to bring his homework: the club had each player list some pre-game goals each week, keeping tabs on how they’d slept, what they’d eaten and how they had otherwise prepared. Pat swore he had walked into the rooms at 12.32 pm but the coach’s watch said 12.35 pm. At any rate, he was supposed to have been there by 12.30 pm, so he had to spend 10 minutes on the bench. ‘I knew he wasn’t going to keep me there for ages,’ Pat said, ‘but I did learn my lesson.’ The team then played North Ballarat on a miserable, misty day. Pat got tagged by a kid called Nick Suban, who kept grabbing hold of his jumper and was on his case all day. He wasn’t feeling well either, finding it hard to breathe, but whenever he put his hand up to come off the coaches wouldn’t let him. ‘It wasn’t a great tag or anything, but I didn’t really like it too much,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand why they did it when someone like Grimesy is there, and he’s better than me. I don’t know why I was getting tagged and he wasn’t.’ Suban, in the meantime, made an impression on more than only his opponent. Francis Jackson from Richmond, one of several scouts at the game, scribbled down his name as one to watch out for the following season. Paul Satterley was new to the Northern Knights but not to the TAC Cup. When he was appointed coach just before Christmas 2006, the 33-year-old became the first former TAC Cup player to take charge of one of its teams. Satterley had been on Footscray’s list when the Under18 league began in 1992, playing for the Western Jets when he wasn’t in the Bulldogs reserves team. He came to the Knights after an 82-game career at Werribee, a coaching stint at Hoppers Crossing and a year as a Jets assistant in 2006. He had played 52 games for the Footscray reserves before then, feeling ready to do bigger things when the club realised it needed to make room to pick Jose Romero in the 1995 pre-season draft. Satterley was told over the phone that he had been cut, two weeks before the season started. That year he won the Liston medal as the VFL’s best player and made some resolutions. ‘I was gutted and I swore I’d never do that to someone,’ he said. ‘If I coached a footy side, even if it was Under-9s, I was going to give people as much feedback as I could.’ It didn’t matter 103


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whether he was telling a kid he was best on ground, out of the side or off the list, he just did it. ‘I think you have to be completely honest. I think how you say things matters more than what you’re saying. If you’re not honest, it will always come back to bite you.’ People were jealous when Satterley got the job. The other coaches said he’d inherited the most talented list in the competition and he thought they were just trying to pile some pressure on, until he saw Trent Cotchin, Matthew Kreuzer and Jack Grimes run around at training. The first time Satterley met Pat was at a pre-season running session, just after he got the job. Standing up the back watching for a while, he then went and spoke to the boys when they were done. Trent and Matthew were right up the front but Pat was up the back, staring up at the clouds and looking anything but interested. At a training camp the next month, Pat was still distracted, and distracting the rest of the team. PK and Satterley pulled him aside and told him it was time to stop playing the clown. ‘He wanted to be the funny guy all the time and I found that annoying because he wasn’t picking the right time,’ Satterley said. ‘PK and I grabbed him and said, “Mate, the number one things clubs are looking for these days are attitude and character. When they ask us what you’re like, what are we supposed to say?”’ Pat’s reaction wasn’t good. ‘It was, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been told all this before,”’ said Satterley. ‘We didn’t really know each other at that stage and he was acting, to me, like he’d heard and seen everything before. My first impressions weren’t great and I hadn’t even seen him play footy.’ Then, he did. Satterley saw Pat play for the first time the week after he’d hurt his shoulder, and he didn’t see him hesitate once. ‘I got some real respect for Patty after that,’ he said. ‘I thought, OK Pat, you’ve got some talent and you’re pretty gutsy. I thought, I’m really going to ride you this year.’ At round 7, he was still riding him. They all were. Pat was still forgetting to bring forms back, still expecting other people to ring the physiotherapist for him. PK was convinced that, as soon as the nationals were over, Pat would have his shoulder operation done, finding the Knights’ place in the pecking order frustrating. ‘I think we do play second fiddle to the AFL,’ he said. ‘If they put the pressure on and said after the nationals that he was definitely getting drafted top 30 then we’d probably just bow to it. But I think Patty will get the shoulder done if he has a good carnival. He’s not 104


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thinking about the club environment at the moment and I’m not blaming him for that, because it’s stressful for him. And I hope I’m wrong. At the end of the day I think if the kid’s good enough, a club will draft him whether he needs an operation or not. But I can’t really say that because then I’d be classed as selfish and only thinking of the Knights. I just don’t think clubs should dictate when a kid finishes his season. I don’t think it’s right.’ In among all this, he had seen one small, promising sign: since his pre-season pep talk, Pat had started sitting between Matthew and Jack in the front row of team meetings, rather than up the back.

The Knights played Queensland on the last weekend of May. As part of their program, the four second-division states played a few games against TAC Cup clubs and each other, warming up for the national championships. Queensland had had 11 players drafted in 2006, a record by a long way, and although the 2007 squad wasn’t as strong, the Knights still needed to stockpile a few wins before the carnival called their stars away. The team’s big four had become a bigger five: Michael Hurley, a big blond defender with a mean streak, was still a season too young for the draft. Pat started in the middle, and started well. There was nothing subtle about the way he played football – his eyes wide open, his hands poised high at the sides of his body ready to pounce. He huffed and puffed, then charged; you heard Pat before you saw him, he had the loudest voice on the ground and he would have paid full attention to the coach at quarter-time, had his grandfather not wandered out to the huddle with some advice of his own. Once upon a time, Frank Carter did not miss a single match of football that either Pat or Matt played. The spare room in his Mill Park house was a shrine to the boys: their junior team photos were pinned to the walls and he had a TV in the corner to play their old tapes. He had scrapbooks filled with photos, newspaper articles, records, team sheets and anything Pat had ever given him, including a small brown paper bag with pictures of African animals on it, all the way from South Africa. ‘I sort of forgot to get presents . . .’ Pat said. Frank was 83 now and found it harder to get to games because of his emphysema. When he could, Peter Kennedy opened up the gates at Preston so he could drive his little blue Hyundai up onto the concourse and watch. 105


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When he was younger and his mum had to work, Pat stuck mostly with his Pa. While Matt and their Nan headed off shopping on the weekends, they’d go fishing, almost every week, then Pat would hang out with Frank’s mates at the angling club, organising their raffles. Before the Melbourne casino was built they spent a lot of time fishing off the pier with Frank’s dog Rex along for company. Or they drove into the bush, to Daylesford or Newlands, for some fly fishing. On the way back home they’d stop off in Woodend and grab the footy out of the boot. Pat would take shots at goal and Frank would kick the ball back to him, for as long as he wanted. They’d eat fish and chips, Frank would drink a stubby, and they’d head back home. ‘It was good times. The best times,’ Frank said. ‘Then they grow up and then you only see them half as much! It bloody annoys me to be truthful. But they’re both good boys. They’re the best boys.’ Frank had played a bit of junior footy, mostly at school, where he’d play kick-to-kick with the nuns at lunchtime. His memory was fading but he could still remember selling Footy Records on the corner of Johnston and Hoddle streets when his beloved Collingwood played. Then he’d collect a bunch of bottles, sell them, buy himself a Violet Crumble and take home plenty of change. He couldn’t sit still when he watched Pat play; if Pat was playing at half-forward or half-back, Frank would switch ends when he did. On the video of Vic Metro’s game against South Australia in 2006 you could hear him hollering in the background, ‘C’mon number two; don’t be so rough, number two.’ Pat thought someone was trying to unsettle him, that day. ‘I looked around and it was Pa,’ he said. He should have known. Frank liked to keep on Pat’s case because he could see the opportunity that was in front of him. Frank had been offered a scholarship to Parade College as a kid but had been desperate to leave school. He left when he was 13 and had spent most of his life driving trucks. ‘When you go out on the field,’ he liked to tell Pat, ‘pull your bloody socks up, tuck yourself in, do your hair and look like a footballer.’ Look the part, he told him, whether you could play the game or not. ‘And he can play,’ he said. ‘He’ll make it. The day he plays on the Melbourne Cricket Ground is the day I’ll be happy. If I’m looking down on him, he’ll hear me.’ To get there before his Pa died drove Pat, too. He used to have dreams about it; it was always in the back of his mind. 106


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The Knights had a 7-goal win over Queensland. Pat kicked 4 goals and spent more time on the ball than he had done all season. The nationals were just one month away; maybe he’d get the hang of this midfield thing after all. At the end of the game he went out to meet his mum, and Jennie had some news. She’d seen his father at the ground, watching him play. Pat’s heart rose, and then sank.

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18

‘ I think he belongs . . . ’

Saturday 26 May 2007 Port Adelaide v Norwood, Alberton Oval Port Adelaide and Norwood had one of the most intense rivalries in South Australian football. If you asked a Port Adelaide person why the feeling was so strong, they’d use the words ‘mutual respect’, talk about how it was the working-class west against the trendy east and explain that the clubs had been at each other’s throats since way back in the 1890s. They’d mention the Magpies’ narrow win in the 1980 grand final, and how Norwood’s Craig Balme had fought with Port forward Tim Evans while the national anthem played ahead of the 1984 decider. Most recently the Redlegs had destroyed Port in the 1997 grand final, their big win interrupting five back-and-white flags. If you asked a Norwood supporter the same question, the answer would be much more simple. They just hated them. Didn’t everyone? Brad slept well the night before his first-ever league game but was up and wide awake before 7 am. After his dad headed off to the Magpies reserves game and Chris took his sister Ashleigh to her netball match, he fixed himself some breakfast and threw a DVD on. Remember the Titans was his mood movie of choice. Brad didn’t necessarily feel nervous but he was conscious of filling in every single minute before it was time to leave home. On Tuesday night, when Tim Ginever called, he wasn’t exactly sure what the coach had been getting at. It took a second for the joke to sink in, to realise that out of nowhere he had actually been picked; and it was hard to get to sleep after that. It was tough all week, but after training with the league team on Thursday night, he was convinced it was too late for Tim to change his mind. Then he got to the ground, went into the 108


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change rooms, and the nerves came rushing back. ‘I was sitting in there thinking: “So . . . what do I do?”’ he said. ‘It felt really serious. All the bigname players were walking through the door and I was thinking: “How can I be playing with these guys today?”’ The Magpies had won four of their seven games leading into the clash with Norwood, a team they’d beaten in round 1. Their losses had been agonising ones – less than 2 goals each time – but the affable, upbeat Ginever felt close to piecing things together. Ginever, a five-time premiership captain at Port Adelaide, had since turned his hand to media work, returning to the club in 2005 as an understudy to the legendary Jack Cahill and agreeing to take over in his own right the next year. The call of duty – otherwise known as peer pressure – brought him back, as did a desire to never wake up one day wishing he had tried it. As a young player starting out, Ginever had given himself his own nickname, a bit of reverse psychology after hearing commentator after commentator say he was too slow. ‘Nippy’ stuck and Ginever wound up playing 314 games through the 1980s and 1990s, in what was not only one of Port Adelaide’s most successful eras but also its most uncertain. In 1990, Port’s bold but secretive bid to become the AFL’s first South Australian team infuriated the SANFL and the rival clubs, who thwarted their plans by creating a composite team, the Adelaide Crows. Port’s craving for a bigger stage didn’t die there, though; every year, Ginever and his teammates were told by the president that they had to win the grand final, otherwise Port Adelaide would stay stuck right where it was. In 1995, with rumours circulating that Fitzroy was not much longer for this world, the players started training 15 days after they won the premiership – their sixth in eight years. With each flag, the likes of Tim Ginever got one year older, wondering if they would miss the boat, even if their club did meet its destiny. The club eventually won its licence in 1996, entering the league the following season as the Port Adelaide Power. The new club filled its first squad with the local teenagers, the likes of Warren Tredrea, Peter Burgoyne, Stuart Dew, Brendon Lade and Michael Wilson, which meant Tim Ginever and a handful of other premiership heroes missed out, just. The club got there a little too late for them, in the end. The creation of the Power had ramifications for the Magpies, who remained a separate SANFL club at the insistence of the league but soon 109


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shrivelled into a very poor version of its all-commanding self. Ginever and those who remained had to deal not only with the increased disdain of the other local clubs, who presumed they’d be looked after by their big-league brother, but also the disrespect of the Power, who briefly kicked the club off its Alberton training base. Things had become better since then but Ginever felt the club’s soul needed further restoration when he was talked into his return. In 2004, not one Magpies side – in either the Under-17, Under-19, reserve or league grade – had made the finals, and not one young player had been drafted to an AFL team. By 2007, Port Adelaide had not added to its collection of 36 SANFL premierships since 1999, the eight-year break the club’s longest drought since the mid-1960s. The Magpies were getting used to not winning; it was incomprehensible. Port Adelaide was not the only SANFL team with identity issues. Since the birth of the Crows and the Power, the local clubs had become a curious mish-mash of players. In any given team you might find a handful of reliable locals, a few delisted AFL players hoping to find their way back, a few retired AFL players who had come home to die and one or two talented kids destined to be drafted away. Each team also had a weekly contingent of AFL-listed players searching for either form, fitness or their start. The interstate kids drafted by Adelaide or the Power each year were assigned to a SANFL team through a mini-draft, which meant they had two teams to get to know after draft day. When Ginever returned in 2005, more than three-quarters of his team were interstate recruits. He’d reduced that to a 70–30 mix of imports and locals in his first two years and planned to take it further. The Magpies had bolstered their junior development program in that time too, partly to make sure they had at least two players drafted each year and also to make their cluster of locals the strongest in the league. Ginever wanted to indoctrinate his youngsters in the ruthless Port Adelaide way so that, whether they stayed or were drafted somewhere else, they would feel they’d been raised by a unique and meaningful football club. ‘Wherever they go, we want them to be Port Adelaide players,’ he said. ‘We want all our kids to remember where they came from.’ Ginever had watched Brad play for the reserves the week after returning from South Africa and, impressed with his safe, sure hands on a wet and windy day, would have probably promoted him the following 110


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week if not for his sore head. Ginever wanted to be certain, picking any young player, that they grabbed the ball at first go; if they were clean, they’d have the chance to use their other abilities. Back when he was starting out, it was something Cahill had told him would compensate for his lack of speed. He also wanted to see sound skills, and he had to be convinced they were strong enough to handle themselves. ‘If they get hurt, it can destroy their confidence rather than enhance it,’ he said. ‘You can really set them backwards if you pick them when they’re not ready.’ He broke the news early in the week so that Brad could get used to the idea by game day, and also so that he couldn’t change his mind, not that he ever would have. He’d known the Eberts for years and, he had to admit, had been looking forward to this debut. As Brad stood in the Alberton Oval race, wearing his dad’s old No. 8 guernsey and getting ready to run out, his grandfather was in the crowd, finding a good spot to watch from. Trevor Obst preferred to keep away from the rest of the family whenever his old team played so he could shout out some more honest truths. There were six Magarey medals in Brad’s family and Trevor was as surprised as anyone when he won the first of them in 1967. In those days, the count was telecast but there was no fancy dinner attached to it. Trevor was at home when he got three finalround votes to tie with North Adelaide’s Don Lindner, winning the medal on countback. His wife, Lorraine, jumped up and down on the couch so many times that she went through it. Trevor was rushed down to the television studios and when he got home the house was filled with so many visitors there was nowhere for him to park. Trevor tried to retire a couple of times but couldn’t quite go through with it. At the end of 1971 he was on 199 games, and dodgy hamstrings, but a two hundredth game was worth a $200 bonus back then; big money. He trained all January to play that last game, retiring after round 2 so that his last match was at Alberton. Trevor gave Brad two pieces of advice on his debut: never kick the ball across goal, and count to three when he got the ball because that was all the time he had to get rid of it. ‘One, two, three, you’re gone,’ he told him. The Ebert family was from Loxton in the South Australian riverland and could easily have been a Norwood family. Or even a Central Districts family, where Bill Ebert, the oldest of Craig’s four brothers, trained for a while before returning home to his butcher’s shop. The second Ebert 111


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brother, Gerry, played in Loxton, before moving to Alice Springs. Then Russell, as a talented 18-year-old, made a fateful choice between the Magpies and the Redlegs, both of whom had pursued him. Brother number four, Jeff, spent three or four years at the Magpies, playing only one league game before realising he wouldn’t get to play many more and heading to Queensland. In 1974, when Russell won his second Magarey medal, Jeff won the Grogan medal as the Queensland league’s best and fairest. Craig was the youngest brother and, as a 17-year-old, had to sit out of footy for a few months until North Adelaide, the club he was zoned to, cleared him to Port Adelaide. The latest link in the chain was Brett Ebert, who leaned over the fence to pat Brad on the back just before the game against Norwood. Brett, Russell’s second son, was drafted to Port Adelaide as the club’s first father–son selection in 2002. The next year, he won a Magarey medal of his own, he and his dad becoming the first-ever double act. If it seemed inconceivable that Brett could play for anyone but Port Adelaide in the AFL, it should have. Under the 2002 father–son rules, the Power had access to the sons of former Magpie, West Torrens, Woodville, North Adelaide, Central Districts or West Adelaide players, provided they had played 200 games between 1977 and 1997. The Crows, on the other hand, had first call on the sons of 200-gamers from South Adelaide, Norwood, Glenelg and Sturt, as long as they’d played those games between 1970 and 1990. While Russell had been pushing 400 games by the end of his career, he hadn’t notched enough of them in the allocated timeframe for Brett to go straight to the Power. But the quirk wasn’t picked up until 2006 when Adelaide and the AFL realised the Crows had no access to Bryce Gibbs, the son of former Glenelg player Ross and the eventual No.1 pick, for the same reason. By this stage, Brett was almost a 50-game player. The rule was re-worked after that, but the change was meaningless: it removed the 20-year time period but still had cut-offs of 1996 for the Power and 1990 for the Crows, simply meaning both clubs had access to a bunch of 40-somethings. It meant nothing to Brad Ebert, who hadn’t grown up believing he could play for the Power; he knew his dad hadn’t played 200 games, and that he could end up anywhere. He had another way of etching his name into Port Adelaide history, though, right here in his debut game against Norwood. 112


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The Magpies didn’t make a good start. The Redlegs dominated the midfield, moved the ball quickly and kicked 5 goals to 1 in the first 15 minutes. Brad got the message to go on 10 minutes in, and in that very second his heart started racing. Craig, sitting in the coaches’ box, working the team board, allowed himself one quick rush of pride, but was glad he had a job to do: it was better to have something to concentrate on than to sit in the stands stressing. Chris was in the stands, stressing. She just wanted Brad to look like he belonged out there; she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it was the only thing she was worried about. Brad went to the half-back flank and picked up Kris Massie, an Adelaide-listed player who had been wreaking havoc in the midfield. He went near the ball a couple of times but didn’t get his hands on it for the rest of the quarter. Russell Ebert was sitting behind Chris and she could hear him saying: ‘He’s doing a lot of running . . . he’s doing a lot of running.’ Brad was on the ground, feeling like he was doing a lot of running. ‘I was thinking, “Geez, I hope I get a touch here . . .”’ he said. ‘I was thinking I’d be straight back on the bench.’ He didn’t get a touch, but his second term was more action-packed. Brad’s first kick came courtesy of a quick handpass from a teammate at half-back. ‘Yes!’ Chris heard Russell murmur. A few minutes later he ducked backwards into a pack, eyes high, to take a brave mark. ‘I think he belongs . . .’ Tim Ginever thought up in the coaches’ box. Then there was some drama: Brad Ebert style. The ball slid off a Norwood defender’s boot as he slung it quickly from half-back into the middle, Brad was running with the flight of the ball and a teammate, Joel Perry, was coming from the other direction. They didn’t see each other and collided as the ball bounced awkwardly between them. Brad felt the familiar sensation of gushing blood from somewhere near his eye, but his first instinct was to grab the ball while sitting on the ground, and flick out a quick handball. He ran off a few minutes later, praying to the concussion gods once more, and getting a quick all-clear. He had a piece of white tape strapped around his bleeding head, changed into a stain-free No. 19 jumper and was back on the ground by the start of the second term. Brad’s first game was not a great day for the Magpies. After Norwood finally started to kick straight they never edged closer than 2 or 3 goals, losing by 30 points. But he took a few more good marks and was only out-bodied once or twice. He had 15 possessions and only one of them 113


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made his heart sink: at the start of the last quarter he kicked the ball across goals, Norwood forcing a scramble, then a score. ‘One word from me and he does what he likes . . .’ thought his grandfather, shaking his head with a smile. Trevor had become a little indifferent about football since his own retirement but, watching Brad run around, he found himself riding the play more than he’d done in a long time. He loved it. Brad went home that night with a $250 match payment and four fresh stitches in his left eyebrow. In the rooms after the match, the coach mentioned his second-quarter mark, asking the other players why a firstgamer had to show them how to be tough. In one way it was embarrassing, but in another way it made him think, ‘So I can do this, then.’ While conscious that he’d added his own name to the history books, it didn’t feel as significant as it had in the weeks before the match; it was good just to be in the rooms with the team, to be one of them at last. Later, he turned back into a kid. He had some dinner, played table tennis with Levi and then went to the movies to see Spiderman. He felt good. He felt great. The next morning, he got out of bed and bumped into his mum in the kitchen. ‘I hope I don’t get dropped,’ he said.

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19

‘ I’m in love ’

Wednesday 6 June 2007 Hawthorn’s team of part-time recruiters met for dinner in a North Carlton cafe. The AFL season was 10 rounds old and while their job was to find future players for the brown and gold, the current side was doing a good job at defying popular pre-season predictions. Belted by Brisbane in their opening game, the Hawks had lost only twice since then, including to Sydney on the weekend, to sit in fourth spot on the ladder. In round 4 they beat the top side, Geelong, by 4 points and three weeks ago they’d slammed on 7 goals in the third term to beat the 2006 premiers, West Coast, by 5 goals. Luke Hodge kicked 3 goals in the West Coast game but some new faces had also emerged. After cobbling together just five games in his first three years, Tim Boyle had played in every game this year, kicking 23 goals. In his second year off the rookie list, Stephen Gilham had played every week at full-back, and played well, while Ben McGlynn had added more run to the midfield. After losing young ruckman Max Bailey to a serious pre-season knee injury the only other bad news was that Mark Williams, who injured his knee in round 4, wouldn’t be back for a while. Not that the Hawks had struggled to score without him: Lance Franklin had kicked 35 goals in the first 11 games, including 5 in 15 minutes, and 9 for the game against Essendon in round 9. ‘Buddy’ scored another 6 in the 9-point loss to Sydney and was rapidly becoming the league’s next big thing. At the other end of the ladder, Richmond and Melbourne were playing a game of hot potato with the wooden spoon. Neither team had won a match until round 10, switching spots on percentage until the 115


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Demons, who had finished fifth in 2006, broke through with a 3-goal win over Adelaide. The Tigers drew with Brisbane on the same weekend, getting the first 2 points of their bad start, and ahead of them – in fourteenth spot with three wins – was Carlton. The Blues had won the pre-season premiership but then remembered how to lose. Geelong was tied with West Coast at the top end of the ladder, with the Eagles making either a stubborn or resilient start to 2007, possibly a little bit of both. West Coast were the talking point of the off-season and the pre-season, as well as the early rounds. First were the reports that one of their players had flat-lined during an end-of-season trip to Las Vegas; then the club fined Daniel Kerr $10 000 after the midfielder was arrested for jumping on the boot of a taxi; next, police tapes of Kerr speaking to a convicted drug dealer during 2003 made their way to the news. But worse was to come. On the eve of the season, the club suspended Ben Cousins − its one-time boy wonder, former captain, and premiership player − for failing to front at training. Cousins promptly got on a plane and flew to a drugrehabilitation centre in California. The six part-time scouts came to dinner from their ‘real’ jobs, and there was a new face at the top of the table. After a few years scouting for Brisbane, Graham Wright had become Hawthorn’s east-coast recruiting manager in March. Making a busy start, he’d visited each of the TAC Cup regional managers to find out which boys they thought would be worth following, he merged the fixtures from multiple competitions and leagues into one document, so he knew when and where matches were being played, and watched as much football as he possibly could. Each Monday, he’d call his state-based recruiters – in addition to the Victorian crew, Wright liaised with part-timers in Queensland, NSW/ACT and Tasmania – to find out what they’d seen over the weekend. He’d read through their brief, e-mailed player reports and catch up on some game tapes. In Perth, Gary Buckenara had been doing much the same. He’d moved back to his old home town at the start of the year to become the club’s west-coast recruiting manager, responsible for Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Rather than have one fulltimer try to do absolutely everything, Hawthorn wanted to be sure it was looking everywhere − and at every player − as closely as possible. All clubs were aware of who the major draft prospects were, but Hawthorn was 116


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conscious that both the Adelaide- and Perth-based clubs had unearthed some talented local rookie-listers in recent seasons. Buckenara played in four premierships for the Hawks and had famously kicked them into the 1987 grand final with his post-siren preliminary final shot. Before he became the club’s sole recruiting manager in 2004, he had already tasted the caper. In 1991, he had been appointed Sydney’s senior coach – only to discover that being the senior coach meant doing pretty much everything else too, including recruiting. After only three weeks in the job he drafted a 23-year-old Tasmanian, Andrew Dunkley, at No. 56 and at the pre-season draft, he re-ignited the career of a dumpy little Geelong reject called Daryn Cresswell. Both players wound up in the Swans’ Team of the Century. In 1987, Wright was an 18-year-old apprentice textile mechanic playing local football for East Devonport when Collingwood picked him at No. 3 in the second-ever player draft. Nine clubs had spoken to him ahead of the draft, but only ever on the phone. Just one person paid him a visit and when Kevin Sheedy invited the teenager to lunch in Launceston one day, Wright ordered a beer. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking . . .’ he said. He moved to Melbourne in 1988, feeling none of the pressure that has come to accompany top-5 picks, but soon felt homesick and moved back. It was another chance meeting with Sheedy, after Essendon played a pre-season game in Tasmania, that convinced him to try again. ‘He told me I should give it one more go, and he was Sheeds,’ Wright said. ‘I thought I’d better listen.’ Two years later, he played in the Collingwood team that broke an infamous premiership drought by trouncing Sheedy’s Essendon in the 1990 grand final. The recruiting meetings were about gathering opinion and challenging each other’s thoughts. The 12 TAC Cup teams had been divvied up among the scouts, who also had a smaller list of VFL players to keep an eye on. There were about a dozen names on each of the Under-18 lists – sometimes less, often more – and each player was ranked as one of four things: a likely first rounder, a probable first- or second-round pick, a draftable player and one worth monitoring. Starting a new recruiting season never meant compiling a completely new list – if clubs were not already well across who was coming up through the Under-16s, they could find themselves in trouble. How could you assess a player like Travis 117


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Varcoe – an Under-16 star who missed almost all of his draft season with a foot injury before being drafted by Geelong – if you hadn’t seen him play before he reached the Under-18s? At the same time, both Buckenara and Wright found that their lists tended to swell slightly in the first part of a season; new players always bobbed up and if you didn’t have an open mind you might miss then. For that reason, Wright planned his schedule only a few weeks in advance, so that he could be where he most needed to be, and was always ready for last-minute changes. One of the most frustrating times in a recruiter’s job was to fly to another state, then drive out to a ground, only to discover that the one player you went there to see had pulled out injured or been dropped. ‘You have to be organised but you also have to be flexible,’ Wright said. ‘You have to wait and see where the players are, a lot of the time. You can’t be too set in your ways.’ Craig Coombes, one of the part-timers, ran through the Sandringham Dragons. No-one expected they’d have many players drafted, except perhaps for a Dale Thomas lookalike called Myke Cook, who was speedy but had rougher edges than the Collingwood player. Anthony DeJong, a 35-year-old who worked in IT and finance, covered the Eastern Ranges, while Peter Ryan ran through the Bendigo Pioneers and Calder Cannons. Peter, who had turned 59 at the start of the year, had played one game for Hawthorn in 1967, taught part-time at the Broadmeadows Special School, and planned to run his thirtieth Melbourne Marathon later in the year. He didn’t see much in the Bendigo side besides a couple of brothers. Robbie Tarrant, the younger brother of Chris, had just popped his shoulder but hadn’t done a lot before then. Did his size alone – 196 centimetres – mean he’d get drafted? Did he argue with the umpires too much? ‘He’s got the build where you want him to be a first-round pick, but I’m not sure he is,’ Peter said. The other brother was Scott Selwood – last in line after Troy, Adam and Joel – who’d been playing off half-back for the Pioneers. Was he quicker than Joel? Chris Pelchen wanted to know. ‘He’s not bad,’ said Graham Wright. ‘I think he’s got more leg speed than all of the brothers.’ The Calder Cannons had a long list and took some time to get through – anywhere from one minute to several minutes for each player. Peter wanted to push Mitchell Farmer, a rugged small defender, to a firstor second-round pick and thought James Polkinghorne – the nephew of 118


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161-game Hawthorn player David − was their best player. ‘Is he a better player than Richard Douglas?’ asked Chris. He was different, Peter said. Douglas had been lighter, but stronger overhead. ‘I think Polkinghorne is really good in close. He hasn’t got a big backside, but he’s very strong in the legs in the pressure, pack situations. He’s a beautiful kick.’ Ash Arrowsmith, a wingman, had divided opinion. ‘I like him,’ said Peter. ‘I’d have him round 2 or 3.’ Wright was less certain. ‘I’d like to see more variety in his kicking; he invariably kicks it long,’ he said. ‘He definitely has the body for it though.’ Next, Darcy Daniher was upgraded from a ‘monitor’ to a ‘draftable’ player. Darcy, who had been playing key position at both ends for Calder, was available to both Essendon and Sydney as a father–son pick; his father, Anthony, had played just over 100 games for both clubs. It meant that, if the Bombers and Swans both wanted him, Darcy could pick which team he wanted to play for, although unlike previous seasons there was no guarantee he would make it there. In 2007 the AFL had revised the father–son rule, introducing a bidding system that would give each club a shot at a talented eligible player, so long as it was willing to use a higher draft pick for him than the father–son club. Had the rule been in place the previous season, for instance, and a club with a top-6 pick bid for Tom Hawkins, Geelong would have had to use the No. 7 selection on him or give him up to the bidding team. If no club placed a bid, the Cats could have claimed him with their last pick in the draft. The change was about making clubs pay an appropriate price to keep the romantic rule alive, and meant opposition clubs had to have firmer opinions on players they previously didn’t need to bother with. Steve Barker had started at Hawthorn on the same night as Peter Ryan, in 1985. The 49-year-old managed an underground construction equipment company during the week and ran marathons in his spare time, too. He led the discussion on the Murray Bushrangers, starting with Ben McEvoy. Steve had been impressed how hard he was working to get around the ground, and thought his kicking had improved significantly. ‘Technically, I think he’s a good kick,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no problems with him at all. He’s a very team-oriented player.’ ‘Does he have to play in the ruck to be at his best?’ asked Chris. ‘Probably . . .’ said Steve. 119


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‘I agree,’ Graham said. ‘He can play forward but I like him better in the ruck.’ ‘How do you see his ability once the ball hits the ground?’ asked Chris. ‘He’s nowhere near as agile as Matthew Kreuzer is at ground level. But I think he’s pretty good,’ said Steve. ‘Comparing him to Kreuzer is a bit unfair, too,’ added Graham. ‘How about compared to Max Bailey then?’ said Chris. ‘Max is taller and very good below his knees.’ ‘I saw Max in one of his early matches in Perth and he was poor at ground level back then,’ said Steve. ‘He’s just got better and better. I think McEvoy is a really good work horse. He hasn’t got a heap of class but he’s a really good worker.’ ‘He can certainly take a mark,’ said Greg Boxall, the Hawks’ part-time recruiting assistant. ‘Bocca’ was also a former Williamstown premiership player, a Roy Orbison impersonator, an Elvis Presley fanatic and a connoisseur of lamb shanks, which he ordered at whichever meetings he could. Before moving past the Bushies, Peter recommended adding Dawson Simpson to the list, considering there were so few ruckmen around. ‘He’s still miles off, but we should monitor him,’ he said. ‘He’s just starting to show a bit.’ Mark Pelchen, Chris’s brother and a Ballarat youth worker, had been recruiting since 1991. He looked after two teams: the North Ballarat Rebels and the Geelong Falcons, who both had plenty of draftable prospects. Lachlan Henderson was high on the list, but perplexing: he still hadn’t played since returning from South Africa, and was touch and go for the Under-18 carnival. Patrick Dangerfield was high up, too. ‘I really like how he attacks it. He’s competitive under the packs and he can run and carry the ball,’ Mark said. ‘It’s just his kicking I query.’ One of Bocca’s teams was Dandenong. Jarrad Grant played for the Stingrays and was one of the more intriguing prospects on offer. ‘Talk about different cats . . .’ Bocca said. There were players like Grant, a tall, skinny forward, in every draft, players who could make you think: ‘How did he do that?’ but who were sporadic. Did you judge a kid on his best? Or did you give more weight to the fact he was inconsistent, and didn’t 120


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put his talent to use as often as you wanted him to? ‘He’s easily distracted, but if you got into his head in the right way he could be anything,’ Bocca said. ‘Is he an on-his-own-terms player?’ Steve asked. ‘Yes . . .’ Bocca said. ‘But they’re very good terms. He has rare talent.’ Steve was already tipping the Northern Knights would have three first-round draftees: Jack Grimes, Trent Cotchin and Matthew Kreuzer. Was Kreuzer better than Matthew Leuenberger? Chris wanted to know. Steve thought he was, that he was dominating more than Leuenberger had and that he was more forward than the Brisbane draftee. ‘More forward in terms of playing position or development?’ said Chris. ‘Development,’ said Steve. ‘I’ve got no doubt he could play for us on the weekend and do well. He averages 30 hit-outs a game, he averages 30 possessions a game, he runs and he tackles . . .’ Those were the things they now needed to concentrate on, Chris said. ‘He’s not rucking against great opposition. We need to know what else he can do.’ Steve had rated Pat Veszpremi as a ‘monitor’ in the first part of the season. He was now thinking he’d underrated him. ‘He plays in bursts a bit, but he’s very good,’ he said. Bocca wasn’t convinced. ‘He’s an awkward size,’ he said. ‘I agree he can play. “Pizza Supreme”, we call him. He’s got the lot. But where do you play him?’ ‘Back; forward . . . he’s just got something,’ said Steve. ‘He takes blokes on, he kicks the ball extremely well. He’s good overhead for his size. I’m just not sure about his work rate.’ ‘He works hard near the goals . . .’ Bocca said. ‘He works hard if he thinks he’s going to get it. But most of them do,’ said Steve. ‘It’s just the body shape that worries me, to be honest. To play as an AFL midfielder . . .’ ‘He’s a genuine footballer,’ said Graham. ‘He just knows how to play. His endurance is reasonable, his speeds looks good. The body’s a worry, but . . .’ ‘Sam Mitchell’s body was no good when he was that age, I suppose,’ said Steve. ‘And he’s quicker than Sam. He’s probably going to be what the commentators call an 80-metre player; he’s got that ability to carry it for 30 and kick it 50. His leg speed’s surprised me. I didn’t think he was that quick.’ 121


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‘So when you say you’ve underrated him,’ asked Chris, ‘are you upgrading him to first or second round?’ ‘I say leave him as a “draftable” at this stage,’ said Steve. ‘But he could easily get into the top 30.’ Bocca began the Trent Cotchin review with a declaration. ‘I’m in love,’ he said, to laughter. Steve was too. ‘He’s an absolute star, this kid. He’s just about the full package.’ ‘Can we draw a line through him compared to players from the last few years?’ wondered Chris. ‘He’s very much like Brett Deledio,’ said Steve. ‘The only difference I can see with him and Brett is Trent’s not quite as tall. But he does a lot of the same things. He’s got explosive pace and movement, kicks beautifully with both feet, can jump on a pack and take the ball. Something happens when he’s around the contest.’ ‘So what do you think he has to work on?’ asked Chris. ‘Getting taller . . .’ said Bocca. ‘That’s all,’ Steve added. ‘He’s an impact player. He’s a ripper. He’s a better player than Marc Murphy at the same age, talent-wise.’ ‘So he’s the most complete player that you’ve seen this year, including Kreuzer?’ said Chris. ‘You rate Kreuzer differently because he’s 200 centimetres,’ said Steve. ‘But I can’t really find a weakness in what Cotchin does.’ ‘If you’re looking to compare them, I can’t find a weakness with either of them,’ added Graham. ‘I’d have Kreuzer just ahead.’ ‘Bigger guys have more currency. But in any other year, if Kreuzer wasn’t around he’d be No. 1,’ said Steve. ‘What do you know about him from a character and leadership point of view?’ asked Chris. ‘Both of them, from everything I’ve heard, are outstanding kids,’ said Wright. ‘That’s why they’re so line-ball. They’re very hard to split.’

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20

‘ It’s like a spaceship just

landed and that kid got off ’

Sunday 10 June 2007 Vic Metro v Vic Country, Victoria Park A small, dispassionate sort of crowd attended the Under-18 trial games. On a cold, misty morning at Collingwood’s dishevelled home ground, the parents seemed unsure who to cheer for. Their kid? The kids they knew? A team that hadn’t been picked yet? Sharon and Pete McEvoy found an old wooden bench on the wing, and Team Cotchin set up in a pocket. Peter was entrusted to take Trent’s statistics, and his girlfriend Lilah had come along to watch. Lilah had competed in dressage events since she was young, hoping to make the Olympic equestrian team one day. In two weeks she was heading to Osnabruck, a small town in Germany, to work in a stable for six months and hopefully find a horse to bring home. Trent wasn’t looking forward to it at all; six months seemed like a very long time. The recruiters couldn’t care less who won the game. Arriving early, they set up on the wings with their cheap fold-up chairs, sunglasses, radios, and pre-prepared lunches – avoiding the professional trap of cold pies and chocolate bars. An exception – John Beveridge, a St Kilda recruiter for more than 30 years – liked to park himself in a pocket, so that he could watch the game moving to and from him, rather than side to side. He was one of a few who liked to get down on the ground at quarter- and threequarter-time breaks to see the boys up close, too: he liked broad shoulders, worried about thick thighs and was interested to see which boys listened to their coaches and who tuned out. Alan McConnell was in the stands and Kevin Sheehan was there with his little white dog, forming his own 123


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thoughts on the coming draft crop. A handful of agents mingled with the mums and dads. David Dickson was coaching the Metro team for the eleventh year and had never found a squad so hard to settle. There were four Metro selectors; working off lists of prospective state players provided by the TAC Cup teams, they would watch the first four rounds of games before choosing an initial, 55-player squad. After a first, internal trial game in May, Dickson liked to cut the squad down to 35 boys, before settling on a final 25 after today’s match. But there were still 42 players on the list, all thinking they had a very real chance. Seven were sitting the game out injured, including a couple of certainties in Matthew Kreuzer and Jack Grimes. Chopping the last few boys would be tough and Dickson knew that whichever way he went, he couldn’t really win. The TAC Cup clubs would get annoyed if any of their boys missed out; the recruiters would get antsy if he chose a small, strong-bodied onballer over a taller, athletic utility, even if the small player deserved it more, and a few parents might even bail him up to have their say. Since becoming coach, back when Luke Power, Travis Johnstone, Nick Stevens and Trent Croad were kids, the Under-18 scene had become increasingly political. Everyone had opinions and everybody thought they were right. There was pressure, too, from headquarters: a balance needed to be struck between picking a team that could win and exposing draftable players, although if there was a choice between winning the title and having 10 players drafted, and losing but producing 18 draftees, AFL Victoria would always take the second option. ‘People push their wagons and you’ve got to take everything on board,’ Dickson said. ‘I could be a hard old bastard and tell people to get stuffed, but that’s not my style. If I can get 95 per cent of it right, I feel like I’ve done a good job. But I’m finding it very difficult to come to terms with this year. I’d hate to think I’d leave out a boy who could play AFL and be earning $300 000 in a few years. It makes me very nervous.’ Trent Cotchin was already in, despite missing the May trial because of his sore hamstring. Dickson had seen him play only twice before today but had heard all about how special he was, and seen it himself at training. ‘The first time I saw him train, I was staggered,’ he said. ‘He had that much peripheral vision and his skills were incredible. My jaw dropped, to be 124


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honest.’ What made him wary early on was that Trent went to PEGS. The private schools and their scholarships were driving Dickson increasingly mad; he felt that while he and his coaches were trying to put together an elite program for a national competition, the schools stubbornly thought they did things better and wouldn’t let their kids come to training enough. ‘It really bugs me,’ he said. ‘Every year people will get up and say poor old Vic Country, they can’t get together and train, but we have more issues with private school kids every year. In school football, kids can run around doing what they want, and it takes us weeks to re-adjust them to doing the first-instinct team things. Weeks. We’ll have seven or eight private school kids this year and it’s going to be an issue.’ Dickson had met Trent for the first time at the Knights. He went there one night to explain the Metro program and when he was done Trent came over, wanting to know where he sat. ‘Where do you see me?’ he asked Dickson, ‘and how do I work through the school stuff?’ ‘He really challenged me,’ Dickson said. ‘I liked that. He wasn’t thinking, “Who’s this dickhead?” He wanted to know what I meant and talk through it all. But his test with me will come in the next few weeks.’ Dickson had to figure out where to play Trent, first of all. At the moment, he wasn’t sure. He could kick goals, but he was also so good at reading the game; maybe he’d be of most use running off a half-back flank. ‘That’s the big question,’ Dickson said. ‘We’re not really sure.’ The other option was smack bang in the middle. Trent started there in the trial game, looking from the very first second like he wanted to show the coaches how valuable he could be. The first quarter was almost all about him, as was the start of the second. Where Pat Veszpremi barged, Trent ducked and weaved. He was a glider: picking balls up off the dewy ground with no hint of a fumble, anticipating balls would spill free the split second before they did and plonking pass after pass on his forwards’ chests, using either foot with complete confidence. Midway through the quarter he got dumped in the forward-pocket, just as he was about to sling a quick shot at goal. The last player up off the ground, he threw the ball to the umpire and walked to the back of the pack, where Patrick Dangerfield placed his right arm across him. The hit-out came towards them and they both stuck an arm at the ball. Patrick was quick, but somehow Trent got a metre on him in three steps. On 125


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the run and on a tight angle, he snapped a goal across his body and was promptly called off the ground. The selectors had seen plenty, and so had the recruiters. After Trent kicked that goal, Francis Jackson turned to the person beside him. Richmond was sitting in last spot on the ladder that day, and would lose to Fremantle later that afternoon. ‘It’s like a spaceship just landed and that kid got off it,’ he said. Craig Cameron, rugged up on the wing, wasn’t desperate to see more either: Melbourne was second-last on the ladder, which meant he was holding pick No. 2. ‘How good was Cotchin?’ he was asked at the break. ‘A little bit too good . . .’ he replied.

Ben played in the second half of the match, after the two teams were basically replaced with fresh kids. He took over from Dawson, who’d taken one really strong mark on the goal line, then almost taken a few more, almost run a few players down and almost picked a few balls off at halfback. He was getting closer. The pair had driven down early on Saturday morning with Peter Dean, giving Ben, who hadn’t been looking forward to spending another weekend away, time to go and watch Matt play before heading to Arden Street to train. He’d been up until midnight every night writing revision notes, knowing he wouldn’t get much work done this weekend and not wanting to sit up late again next week, when he had chemistry and biology exams. He was tired, but at least he felt organised. The Vic Country team had a new coach in 2007. Robert Hyde had taken over from Leon Harris, who was moving into a new role at AFL Victoria after 10 years at the helm. When asked if he wanted the job, Hyde took approximately one second to ask when he could start. He’d played 62 games for Collingwood and one for Essendon, and had retired from coaching the Calder Cannons in 2006 after overseeing a record number of TAC Cup games – 218 in 11 years – taking his ever-changing team to five grand finals and three premierships. A primary-school principal, Hyde despised the thought of another preseason but the day the season started he missed his involvement intensely. The first time he went to a Cannons game, he got a knot in his stomach and didn’t want to talk to anyone. Hyde was demanding yet laidback, if that was possible, and knew that drawing these kids from all corners of 126


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the state together would be an entirely new challenge. Already there were things he wished he’d done differently; the boys had been together just twice before today and Hyde had spent the first session on skills and drills. It had been a waste of time. ‘I should have got started on the game style, the way we want to play, from day one. But that’s OK,’ he said. ‘I think the goal’s going to have to be maximising individual talent, this year. We’ll just try and get the boys playing the best footy they can.’ He’d dropped a couple of players from the initial squad and added five new boys to it since May, Ben’s Bushranger teammate James Saker among them. After today, the funnel would narrow again: like Dickson and all the other state coaches, Hyde could take only 25 players to the carnival. He didn’t have the same problem Dickson did, but picking any team was tough. In 2006, 55 of the players drafted had represented their state at that year’s carnival and another 16 were later rookied. That was over a quarter of the players at the championships, which meant many, many more had missed out. ‘For those kids, this is going to be the best thing they do in their life,’ Hyde said. ‘This will be as far as some of them go, so it’s the world to them. You have to bear that in mind a bit.’ Ben wasn’t sure how the team was shaping up. In 2006 the Country side had a string of really good players: Lachie Hansen, Travis Boak, Ben Reid, Nathan Brown and James Frawley were all first-round picks, as was Joel Selwood, who had missed the carnival, injured. This year there didn’t seem to be quite so many stars; still, Ben had seen enough to know the side would compete as well as it always did, and he liked Robert Hyde. ‘He seems really sure of everything he does,’ he said. ‘I think that will help us.’ Running out onto the ground, Ben looked up at the brightening skies and now felt glad to be out there. He didn’t feel burdened by the desperation he felt each week for the Bushies to win, but he was more conscious of the fact he was being assessed than he had been all year. Playing in the forward line and the ruck, he took a few strong marks with his soft, sticky hands and during the last quarter spoiled a ball over the bench. He never thought about the recruiters while playing for the Bushies, but as he made the spoil he was conscious of the group of them sitting nearby and felt good inside. With Trent, Matthew Kreuzer and a few other players snapped up, Ben had become hot property among the agents. This draft was proving a 127


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tricky one for them: when the recruiters said a draft was ‘weak’ or ‘even’, it meant there weren’t many obvious picks past the first couple of rounds. At this early stage there were few sure bets and the agents were scrambling for them. Ben had Paul Connors and John Turnbull up to Dederang before the season started; he wasn’t sure what to make of Paul at first but he’d started to grow on him. He’d clicked with Dan Richardson from ESP, who had family up near Ben’s place, and had had a quick chat to Ricky Nixon. But he didn’t want to decide anything, at least until the carnival was over. ‘I’ll make a decision soon,’ he said, ‘because it’s not really enjoyable. I don’t like getting hassled. It’s been a good learning curve to hear what they’ve all got to say but the way I look at it, I don’t want to be hurried. If they’re talking to me now, I don’t think they’re going anywhere. I don’t want to pick someone just for the sake of getting it done.’ The night before the trial game, the Brisbane Lions had played the Western Bulldogs at the Gabba. It was the first time Jason Akermanis had played on his old home ground since his messy break-up with his former team. Ben saw a bit of it on TV and it was a talking point before the game today. This AFL season had already felt slightly different from others: a few of Ben’s Academy teammates – Bryce Gibbs, Ricky Petterd, Tom Hawkins and Chris Schmidt; people he actually knew – had played some senior games. Then there was Jarrod Harbrow, a small, wispy kid with a rat’s tail who was drafted by the Bulldogs at No. 27 in the rookie draft. He had played his fourth game last night and done some sort of secret handshake with Akermanis after the final siren. Ben had played with Jarrod at the Bushrangers last year and wasn’t surprised that someone drafted him. He was little, but exciting. But the fact he was playing in an AFL team and mucking around with Aka made him think. ‘It seems to have happened so quickly,’ he said, ‘and it’s strange. He was just a funny little bloke who had that bit of spark about him. He was doing what we’re all doing now, this time last year. Now he’s doing secret handshakes with Aka.’

Pat played for Vic Metro until late in the third quarter, not believing some of the fresh feedback he was getting. The latest thing he’d heard from the recruiters, via Peter Kennedy, was about how he would bounce the ball with his right hand, then tuck it up under his left armpit as he took off 128


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running. ‘They say it makes me look a bit arrogant,’ Pat said. ‘I don’t know. They want me to take players on but then they say that. But I guess if that’s their only criticism it’s pretty good. At least they’re not calling me fat.’ Pat had become more wary about people who had only good news for him. He’d asked PK to tell the player agents he didn’t want to speak to them until after the carnival. They hadn’t been too annoying, but he was suspicious. ‘I just don’t know if they’re being realistic,’ he said. ‘They’re trying to get my business, so they’re not going to tell me anything bad. And it’s not like they can get you drafted. All the stuff they can do, you don’t really need it until after the draft. It just makes me nervous.’ Pat liked David Dickson. He loved how he could play good cop and bad cop, whichever you needed him to be. If you weren’t doing the right thing, Dicko would tell you – loudly, most times. But if you did the right thing, he’d be in your corner forever. ‘Every time I have him as a coach, I feel like I can play well,’ Pat said. ‘He makes you want to do something for the team and he always thinks the best of you. He says: “I know you have good skills, I know you can kick the ball long, I know you can kick 4 goals in a quarter.” He believes in you.’ Before the first trial match in May, Dickson had pulled Pat aside outside the rooms. He told him that after playing so well in last year’s carnival he had relaxed and that he wasn’t sure he was mentally strong enough to make bigger demands of himself. ‘You think you’ve made it,’ Dickson told Pat, who was taken aback. He hadn’t expected to hear that. ‘He does,’ Dicko said later. ‘He thinks he’s an AFL player now and that he doesn’t have to prove anything. I told him the biggest problem I had with him was he’s dumb. And I think that really jolted him. I said: “You don’t know how to challenge yourself Pat, and people who are champions can challenge themselves week in, week out and continually find ways to improve.” All he could talk about was shoving it up the Under-16s people.’ He wanted him to kick that habit quickly. ‘Pat, if that’s your motivation,’ Dicko said, ‘you’re going backwards.’ Pat still hadn’t played what he felt was a complete game − a match that didn’t leave one last, little niggle in his head. He wanted to show the recruiters he had enough endurance to play in the midfield; he felt like he was getting there, but he needed to change his expectations. At first, he thought he was expected to play like Jack Grimes and run all day. 129


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‘I felt bad because I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘I have to get more fit but I’m more of a burst player. It’s just hard with my genetics sometimes.’ Dicko had told him that if he became more reliable around the stoppages – won a few more clearances and worked harder when the opposition had the ball – he’d play him in the middle throughout the carnival. That’s what Pat wanted. ‘Last year I showed I can kick long goals and take them on and do things like that,’ he said. ‘This year I just want to do everything better and make All-Australian as a midfielder. If I get 22 possessions a game I think I can do it. That’s sort of what I’ve settled on.’ Pat had also decided he didn’t want his father to watch him play any more games. He told him over the phone, and it was neither a good nor a long conversation. ‘I’ll probably never speak to him again now,’ he thought, hanging up. Both Pat and Matt had maintained some contact with their dad after their parents had separated; Matt had spent more time with him when they were young and Pat had trained with him at the gym. In a way, the attention had felt good. Maybe it was because, as a kid, Pat was always the one who didn’t have his dad there; maybe it was because this time, his dad had actually thought about coming, had wanted to come. Maybe it was because they just looked so similar, because everyone would know who he was. Pat wasn’t completely sure and hadn’t thought it through until he realised how much it was affecting his brother. After the Queensland game he’d had a couple of arguments with his mum over it, not understanding why she was so upset. Jennie could appreciate that having his father around made Pat feel good about himself; equally, she understood why Matt felt jealous. But what she could see, and not stand, was it coming between them. ‘I don’t want to tell you what to do,’ she told Pat. ‘You might hate me in years to come, but this is ripping you and your brother apart.’ Jennie didn’t mention it again after that, but Pat threw things around in his head for a while. He thought about how hard his mum had worked, how he and Matt lived in a good house and had turned into pretty good kids. He remembered that while his dad was never at games his Pa always had been, waiting outside for him every single time. ‘My dad hasn’t been there since I was four, so he’s not my real dad,’ he said. ‘In my eyes he’s just a person. When I was a kid I always wanted to say the word ‘dad’ but now I don’t need to. It just bothers me that all of a sudden, now that I’ve 130


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got a bit of fame for footy, he wants to snake his way back in. I just don’t think it’s very fair.’ The Knights had one game to play before the Metro boys were called away. Pat was one of six who had made the state team – with Matthew Kreuzer, Jack Grimes, Trent Cotchin, Michael Hurley and Brett Meredith, his mate, also included. Pat started at half-back in the round 9 match against Bendigo and didn’t see much action in the first few minutes. Then he moved into the centre, cut a ball off, took six quick steps, kicked long and was away. He had 14 kicks and eight handballs in the first half and 10 kicks in the second quarter alone, losing count for the first time in his life. There were three minutes and 32 seconds left in the first half when he tackled a Bendigo player from behind. The player slipped to his knees, and Pat fell forward with him. His right thumb got jammed either against the player’s hip or in his jumper and it hurt, a lot. He wrapped his other hand around it, called for a trainer and ran off. Rob found Pat in the Knights room after the half-time break, sitting alone after the team ran back out, his hand covered in ice. Four hours later they were at the Bendigo Hospital. Pat kept telling himself his swollen, puffy thumb was jarred, or twisted, or strained, or bruised. Then a doctor took a look and told him what he knew: he had a broken thumb. Pat felt like he’d been whacked with a rock and could think of only four words. He looked across at Rob. ‘There go the nationals.’

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21

‘ If something happened now,

I wouldn’t have any time left ’

Saturday 23 June 2007 Northern Territory v NSW/ACT Rams The Territory boys began their national carnival in Sydney, but only a dozen players flew there from Darwin. The Thunder coach, Damian Hale, once added up the number of interstate clubs, schools, universities and employers who had a stake in his Under-18 team – he got to 17 and stopped counting. That wasn’t even considering the local clubs, who were in the middle of their off-season when the Under-18s kicked in, and the handful of Alice Springs boys who made the squad each year. In 2007 the three Rioli boys were at Scotch and Danny Measures was at Melbourne Grammar; four players were trying their luck with Adelaide clubs and another two were in Perth. Jason McCartney, one of Hale’s assistant coaches, liked to joke that the Territory team was actually the Australian side. Shannon Rioli had made the cut despite still being an Under-16, and Stewie was in the team too. The Territory was allowed six over-age players and Stewie had starred in the first two trial games. He played like his life depended on it, bumping, tackling and boring in under packs. The other kids loved him; Hale was never going to leave him out. This was the first time since 1984 that championship games had been played in Sydney. Earlier in the day, Tasmania had come from 3 goals down to beat Queensland by 4 goals. It was only the third time since 1996, when the Under-17 Teal Cup became the Under-18 championships, that games had been played outside Victoria. After the Thunder played the Rams, the carnival would move to Perth, where Vic Metro would play Western Australia in the first division-one game, and then to Adelaide, 132


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where South Australia would host Vic Country. The following week, all eight teams would head to Melbourne to play their final two roundrobin games and work out who the winners were. The revamp was meant to allow injured players more time to recover between games and give everyone else their best chance to play well; under the old format, three games in eight days had been a tough ask. The other reason for the change was to give the Victorian teams, who had hosted the carnival since 1999 and won it most years, a taste of travelling, and playing on grounds that the opposition knew better than they did. The Thunder game was a curtain-raiser to Collingwood’s split-round clash with Sydney. Junior had made it, just. He missed three matches with his collarbone – three miserable matches that he could barely stand to watch – but three was better than seven. He saw his specialist two weeks after the surgery, got the all-clear to ease himself into training again and a week later thought he might as well just play. In his first match back for Scotch he kicked 7 goals in three quarters; the next week he kicked 4 goals before landing awkwardly midway through the last quarter and having to hobble off on a rolled ankle rather than take his fifth shot. He hadn’t been able to play since, and the first thing he did when he woke up each morning was work out if it still hurt. ‘It’s the first thing that comes into my head,’ he said. ‘Every time I open my eyes I think, is it better yet?’ Steve Holding wasn’t sure he would have got Junior back at all had the nationals not been so close, and so important to him. They were his carrot; without them, he suspected he might have lost his way. He’d also noticed how significantly not having their best player had affected the rest of the team; it was impossible not to. ‘It’s a bit like taking Chris Judd out of the Eagles,’ he said, ‘and it even worried the other teams. The week he came back the opposition team didn’t know, and it changed things a bit. You could see them looking around, thinking, “What’s he doing here?”’ Damian Hale had taken over the Under-18 program, run through the Northern Territory’s Institute of Sport, in 2005. He’d played through the junior grades at St Mary’s and in three senior premierships before heading interstate to start his coaching career. When he came back to Darwin after seven years away, he was appointed the club’s coach; after enduring a sixseason premiership drought in his absence, the Saints won three flags in a row before Hale left to take on the junior job. 133


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Coaching the Under-18s appealed to him because around threequarters of the kids involved in the program were Indigenous, and he wanted to get more of them drafted. In 2007, the AFL had never had more Indigenous players: at the 2006 draft, 16 of the 80 players picked were Aboriginal. Not many kids, though, were being plucked directly from the Top End. In the 10 years leading up to 2007 the Northern Territory had produced 19 draftees, an impressive figure given its tiny population, but that was still fewer than anywhere else in the country. Since 2001, the likes of Xavier and Raphael Clarke, Jared Brennan, Richard Tambling and Joe Anderson had been drafted straight from their homes, but other players had travelled longer paths. In 2007, for instance, 10 members of the 2001 Thunder team were on AFL lists, but only three – Brennan, the Clarke brothers and Anthony Corrie – had got there the simple way. Aaron Davey had spent time in Adelaide and had played for Port Melbourne before being rookie-listed by Melbourne, making an instant, emphatic impact. His little brother Alwyn spent two seasons at South Adelaide before Essendon drafted him in 2006. Trent Hentschel had missed out in the 2001 national draft, but he was invited to train with Adelaide and chosen in the pre-season draft a few weeks later. He’d already moved from Darwin to Woodville-West Torrens, in the middle of a season, to further prove he could cut it down south. Jason Roe was cut from the Collingwood rookie list before Brisbane gave him a chance, Tom Logan was cut from the Lions’ rookie list before Port Adelaide did him the same favour, and then there was Mathew Stokes. Seven years after playing senior football in Darwin as a 15-year-old, he was drafted by Geelong late in the 2006 draft. More recently, Matthew Campbell, who the Kangaroos rookied at the end of 2006, had moved to Adelaide from Alice Springs. Nathan Djerrkura left home to study at Scotch for two years; Junior had already been there longer than that. Hale saw the reasons for that. He would have loved to pit his players against at least one first-division team so that the recruiters saw them play in better company. He also knew that leaving Darwin was a very big thing and understood why clubs wanted to see more evidence of a kid’s staying power before committing a pick to him. It was an issue not only with Indigenous kids, but anyone from Darwin. ‘Unless the kid’s a star,’ he said, ‘people err on the side of caution.’ And, of course, it was impossible to 134


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knock back a scholarship offer from down south: Hale’s own son, Robert, went to Melbourne Grammar. In a perfect world, Hale would also have loved Territory kids to have better options at home, which was partly why this carnival would be his very last one. Once this campaign was over he planned to start another one – door-knocking Darwin, kissing babies and trying to help the Australian Labor Party clinch the next federal election by winning the seat of Solomon. He got into politics because he wanted to grow Darwin to a size that offered all young people better opportunities to stay home, and could one day cater for an AFL team. A few weeks earlier, Hale had experienced an unusual collision of football and politics. Fremantle forward Chris Tarrant, in town to play the Western Bulldogs, had whacked him in the eye at a Darwin night club, the Dockers suspended Tarrant for a month, and Hale had been all over the news, which was an experience in itself. Little did he know, the Thunder boys were already planning to re-enact the event at their end-ofchampionships function. ‘At least they know what happens,’ Hale said. ‘If you’re out at two in the morning you’re probably not looking for a hair cut.’ When he did get his team together, Hale liked to keep things simple. It was all about developing players; he didn’t buy into the developmentversus-winning debate, because kids at that age always wanted to win, it was a given. He had a set of team rules, but nothing too complicated. ‘I think you need boundaries, but I don’t like to keep telling kids what they can’t do,’ he said. ‘With the Indigenous guys, their feel for the game is second to none. A lot of coaches up here have tried rules saying you can’t bounce the ball, but Michael Long kicked one of the best grand finals goals ever because he bounced the ball and took players on. I think it’s about finding that balance of letting them express their natural talents, but teaching them how to do it within a bit of structure.’ Each year, Hale spent a long time deciding which player he wanted to be captain. In 2006 he’d chosen Joe Anderson; in 2007, Cameron Stokes. ‘I don’t like rotating captains. I don’t even like it in the AFL teams, but at this age I think it’s really important to choose someone,’ he said. ‘If you get it right and have a captain who can communicate with the group and bring people together, it means the group’s going to understand your message so much better.’ He also believed that when you made someone 135


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captain, it helped their draft chances. ‘The clubs look at it. I think a lot of them start to think: “Well they must think a lot of that kid, so we’d better keep an eye on him, he might have leadership qualities.”’ Every little box people ticked off was a bonus. Junior was feeling nervous ahead of the Rams game. He wasn’t worried about his collarbone or too fussed about his ankle and as soon as the game started he relaxed. But getting injured had made him realise how quickly the season was slipping away, and that if something else happened – something new, something bad – then he might not get to play again before the draft. After he hurt his collarbone he kept thinking: what if I do my knee? ‘There’s always been another year coming, but if something happened now, that’s it,’ he said. ‘If something happened now, I wouldn’t have any time left.’ Junior started in the forward line and didn’t have much to do down there. The Rams kicked 4 goals in a row, the only 4 goals of the first term. When he was moved into the middle, things started to happen. If Junior was around the ball, he usually got it or had some sort of say in where it ended up: the Territory kicked 4 goals in the first 10 minutes of the second term and he was involved in two of them, baulking, handballing and creating space that didn’t seem to be there. Junior liked to push back into his opponents and bump off them; it got rid of them for a second and created an instant, extra bit of room for himself. He laid his own blocks, if that’s possible. By the start of the last quarter, though, he was tired. His shoulder ached and his legs were heavy. He still did some good things, they were just confined to a smaller part of the ground. The other Thunder boys petered out too: the Rams dominated the third term, winning by 46 points. Two days after the game, Junior was back in Melbourne. Rob Smith took him in to see Martin Richardson for a final check-up on his collarbone. They went as soon as Junior could haul himself out of bed: his hamstrings had been screaming at him since Sunday morning. Junior was still sick of school – all the assemblies and the routine, more than anything – and all he could think about was the draft. But he’d had a good chat a few weeks earlier with Rob, who assured him most other Year 12 kids would be feeling the same way, except perhaps for the draft part. School might not seem important now, he told Junior, but one day you’ll be glad you 136


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got through it. ‘The thing with Junior is he doesn’t really complain about things,’ Rob said. ‘He either does something or he doesn’t do it, but he doesn’t draw attention to himself. He doesn’t need people to feel sorry for him, he doesn’t want that. It’s a bit of a struggle right now, to be honest. But he’ll get there.’ Martin Richardson swirled into the consulting room and flooded the X-ray viewer with light. He stretched Junior’s arm out, swung it around in a circle and within 30 seconds told him the good news: that everything was perfect and he wouldn’t need to come back again. ‘You’re the Bionic Man,’ he said, pointing out the small silver pin on the X-ray. ‘There’s no stopping you now.’ What a relief, Junior thought. Then he hobbled back to Rob’s car, slowly, and wincing with every step.

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22

‘ I felt like I was going to explode inside ’ Saturday 30 June 2007 Vic Metro v Western Australia It was 10 am in the Subiaco change room; one hour until game time. The small, dim room was bulging with sounds – footballs thudding against walls, ankle tape being torn from the roll and boot-stops padding on the thinning carpet – but everything went quiet the second David Dickson called the boys into the even squishier meeting room. This was a huge day for Vic Metro, and Dicko knew it. Metro had won eight of the last 11 championships and had not been beaten since 2003. The recruiters’ theory – that he picked stocky, strong-bodied sides designed to win carnivals but not get drafted – had been borne out in 2006. Only nine players had been drafted from metropolitan Melbourne, football’s supposed heartland, and Metro didn’t produce a top-10 pick. Dickson had heard the talk that this year’s carnival was on the road to teach the Melbourne boys how to travel and play away from home. He suspected there was another reason his side had been sent to this big, wide Perth ground. ‘People want to expose us,’ he said. ‘They want to see us fail.’ Dickson, a passionate, in-your-face and very loyal coach, believed in ‘team’ and identified with the underdog. He never really knew his father, who died from a burst appendix when Dickson was only one, and he and his mother, Elsie, had moved into a housing commission flat out back of the Coburg baths, not long later. She cleaned houses to get him through school, and toughened him up in other ways. ‘She had all my teeth removed when I was 13 because she thought that when I got old enough 138


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I wouldn’t have been able to do it myself,’ he said. ‘She was a tough old bird, in her own way.’ At 6 am one Saturday morning, there was a knock at his front door. Dickson was 16 and his mother was in hospital, sick with bronchitis, so he got out of bed to answer it. ‘Your mother’s passed away in hospital,’ the policeman told him. ‘What do you want to do?’ Dickson had no clue what to do. Taken in by an elderly lady who lived nearby, he started working as a mail boy, played football for Preston and was recruited to Carlton. Two years later, in 1972, he met his future wife, Sue, after playing in a preliminary final. The following week he played in a VFL premiership. He came to the Metro program after a long coaching career in the suburbs, and the job was consuming more annual leave and energy than it ever had before. Dickson was state manager at the heating company Rinnai and winter was the busiest time of his year, but every time he decided he’d had enough of the Under-18s he couldn’t tear himself away. He kept coming back because he loved helping the boys through what was often an awkward time in their lives, and to see where they all ended up. ‘People say to me: “What do you want out of football?”’ he said. ‘I want nothing. Football’s given me a life and that’s what I want the boys to experience. Every decision I make, I make for them. I cop flak for that but I only coach for the kids.’ That’s what he was thinking when he looked around the Subiaco rooms. Dicko had been disappointed with training during the week, he hadn’t sensed enough passion. He’d placed Pat Veszpremi’s No. 2 jumper on the ground at training, to help stir the boys’ emotions, but some of them still didn’t seem to care enough. He ran through the line-up and told the team what he wanted to see. Defenders: punch strongly, talk, let your opponent know you’re there. Wingmen: stay back and create space. Halfforwards: push up the ground and work hard. Everyone: run, pressure, chase, kick long and don’t let the ball get behind you. Dickson’s voice rose steadily in the last minute of his address. ‘This game is here because people think we’re lucky,’ he said. ‘You guys are the ones supposed to say: “Hey, Victoria’s been lucky! We’ve won 11 out of 14 championships because we’ve played in Melbourne. That is BULLSHIT! We’ve been renowned for playing the game on our terms. We have never deviated. I repeat; we have won 11 of 14 titles. We have worked to a plan when the 139


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others haven’t. The West Australians are a nice, smart, running side. They have not had the pressure that the Victorians will apply to them today. If you apply pressure, they will crack and we will win this game of football. We have been the best side and WE WILL SHOW IT AGAIN TODAY! Let’s go.’

Trent knew something was up shortly before the first bounce. When he ran to the half-forward flank, the player standing beside him quickly called another one over, swapping spots. Upstairs in the commentary booth, Kevin Sheehan was telling the Fox Sports viewers that the boy in the No. 25 jumper had met every single challenge this season. ‘He finds time and space,’ said Sheehan of Trent. ‘That’s what separates the average players from the very good ones.’ On the ground, Trent was thinking: ‘Am I getting tagged?’ He ran to the first contest, jogged back to his spot, then doubled back. His opponent never left his side. ‘Yep,’ he thought. ‘I’m getting tagged.’ Before the game, Trent hadn’t really felt nervous. It worried him: he normally felt a few butterflies, especially before a big game. On the way to the ground in the bus, he even tried to make himself nervous. ‘I don’t even know how you do that,’ he said. ‘But I was trying hard enough.’ Trent had flown to Perth in a flat, lacklustre mood. Less than 11 hours before leaving Melbourne with the Metro team, he’d been at the airport with his family, to say goodbye to Lilah. The week before she left for Germany had been tough but Trent hadn’t been able to tell her that: she had talked about cancelling and Trent promised her mum he’d make sure she went. You’ll enjoy it, he kept telling her: it’s a once in a lifetime chance; make the most of it; you’ll make friends. ‘I was saying all these things and I didn’t want to say any of it,’ he said. ‘As if I wanted her to go.’ At the airport he didn’t say much, he didn’t know what to say. He gave Lilah a hug, watched her disappear through the international gates and then went back to the car park. On the way, leaning against his mum’s shoulder, he couldn’t hold it in any longer. ‘I was a mess,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stop crying.’ Trent was asleep by midnight, up eight hours later and back at the airport by 9.30 am. Then the team’s plane was parked on the tarmac for more than two hours, the last thing he needed. ‘I was just 140


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sitting there thinking about Lilah and getting shitty about everything,’ he said. ‘I never thought it would affect me so much.’ Neither did his dad. ‘Mate, you should be weaning off,’ he told Trent in the week before Lilah left, ‘not weaning on!’ By game time, Lilah was still on Trent’s mind but further up the back; he was determined to play well. He had never heard of Patrick McGinnity when the West Australian wandered over to him, but the realisation he’d been singled out for a tag didn’t feel like a compliment. The previous night, chatting to Dicko, Trent asked how Chris Judd had handled being tagged during his Under-18 days. He didn’t want to sound big-headed, he just wanted to prepare for whatever might come his way, but the coach told him not to worry, that there was no way they’d tag him in the first game of a carnival. ‘I think I sort of relaxed,’ Trent said. ‘And then as soon as the guy walked over to me I thought, “Oh well, here we go . . .” It felt a bit deflating.’ In the opposition rooms, the most tight-knit team in Gerard McNeill’s five years as Western Australia’s coach was preparing to run out. The West Australians had faced their own draft-day problems five years earlier: in 2002, Daniel Wells was the No. 2 pick but not one other WA boy had been chosen. McNeill, a former St Kilda reserves player turned Claremont defender, East Perth coach and Fremantle football manager, was asked to take over as coach in 2003 and his brief was simply to teach the boys, having seen what it would take for them to reach the next level. His first step was to make the boys’ clubs and coaches feel a more valued part of the selection process – not as though their players were being torn away from them. The WA program involved a compact but intense seven-week block of training and games; during that time the boys were removed completely from their clubs, so that they weren’t getting mixed messages by going back and forth. This year, McNeill had tried to manufacture a better team harmony than he’d had in 2006; that team had a string of stars, like Scott Gumbleton, Matthew Leuenberger, Leroy Jetta and Clayton Collard, but for some reason the team hadn’t clicked, let alone won a match. McNeill had taken this year’s group on a training camp to help them bond better, but he had noticed a stronger, inexplicable unity before then. ‘This group was different from day one and sometimes that just happens,’ he said. ‘You find with some players that because they’re under such pressure, their emotions take over. Boys 141


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can become very selfish, but this group was very settled. They understood things very quickly.’ Some of them were like men already. Kids in Perth started school younger than in Victoria, which meant many of the WA players had finished Year 12 and either started university or taken a year off to work – to make sure they got themselves drafted. David Myers was training and playing with Perth and Chris Masten was combining an apprenticeship with some league games for East Fremantle, as was his buddy Rhys Palmer. In 2006, Palmer had been a mousy-haired small defender battling osteitis pubis, eligible for the draft but not picked. This time around he had a bigger body, blonder hair and senior experience. During the practice games, Palmer had been swapping with Masten in the midfield, but the day before the Metro match McNeill told them they would both would start on the ground. Rhys couldn’t stop smiling. Paddy McGinnity had also finished school. He was working as a teacher’s assistant, and was a product of the program’s better links with the WAFL clubs: McNeill would never have thought to pick the quiet, unassuming defender had McGinnity’s coach at Claremont not insisted he pick him. After his scouts returned from Metro’s trial games with Trent Cotchin’s name bolded, circled and underlined, McNeill decided to play McGinnity on him. He could run hard, he was unselfish and he was disciplined. He also didn’t know how good he was and, during the selection process, never imagined actually making the state team. On the last day of the WA training camp, the names of the four boys who’d missed the final cut had their names written up on a whiteboard; when Paddy saw the board, and realised his name wasn’t on it, he wondered if they’d forgotten him. McNeill told him he’d play on Trent a week before the first match, and trying to be ready for a player he had never laid eyes on before, Paddy watched some of Trent’s highlights, noticing how he always seemed to come from nowhere to be front and centre at a ruck contest. ‘I kept telling myself to remember that − that each time the ball went up, to get to the front of the pack,’ he said. ‘I just tried to tighten up, so if he did get there, at least I’d be there too.’ He didn’t want to let his coaches down. It was Rhys Palmer who first made the Metro coaches nervous; actually, it was Nick Naitanui who first worried them. ‘Geez, he’s a big unit, the Fijian . . .’ observed Dickson from the front row of the coaches’ 142


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box as the teams lined up. Then the game started, two minutes ticked by and Palmer gathered a loose ball on the wing. He flicked off a handball, bounded past to get the ball back, took three bounces, sidestepped a Victorian defender and kicked the game’s first goal. ‘That was his fourth touch . . .’ said assistant coach Jarrod Molloy, who was monitoring the live stats. ‘I want to do that again . . .’ thought Palmer. The West Australians were playing on almost every time they got the ball – running, handballing, taking their opponents on and making the Metro boys look slow and confused, like their memories had been wiped and they’d forgotten what they were meant to be doing. ‘We’ve only had 11 possessions . . .’ said Molloy. ‘They’re getting sucked in every time,’ said Dicko. If it wasn’t Palmer doing damage, it was Dan Rich or Cale Morton. The West Australians had 47 handballs to 13 in the first quarter, and 23 more handball receives. Trent had the ball six times in the first quarter, but he’d had a hand on his jumper every time and hadn’t been able to slip into any space. In the minute before half-time he was tackled from behind and shoved face first into the ground, crunching his shoulder. Palmer had 11 first-quarter possessions and got his twelfth in the first 30 seconds of the second term. WA had a 2-goal lead at the first break and led 9 goals to 4 at half-time. This was not a good game at all. At half-time, Dickson was in a completely unfamiliar position. Not once in 11 years had one of his sides been so far down. The last time the Victorians were beaten was in the last minute of a match, with the last kick of the day. Lance Franklin kicked the goal on that day in 2004, having barely touched the ball, but Dickson knew this was a different scenario as soon as he reached the rooms and Jack Grimes came over to apologise. Jack, the team’s captain and one of the few players generating anything, had felt sure the onslaught would stop, at some stage. When it hadn’t he felt bad, wondering if there was more he could be doing to keep his teammates’ spirits up. ‘I should have done more to pick them up,’ he told Dickson, ‘not just let it keep going.’ Dickson tried to concentrate on what could happen, not what had just unfolded. ‘They have honestly worked hard,’ he told the boys in his halftime address. ‘I’m not being derogatory, but they’re here on their home turf and they want to prove they’re a better side. We’ve got to be smarter, and the game’s not out of our grasp. If we lift our intensity and start to work 143


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hard, it only takes a couple of goals and we’re back in it.’ There was one player he wanted more from, who he was going to throw in the middle. ‘Cotch, a couple of times in the box I had a spray at you and Jack for just wandering around through the midfield,’ Dicko said. ‘When you go into the centre, it does not mean a lot of running. It means working in a small area that you have to control. You could be a real key for us.’ Trent got the first kick from the middle but then Palmer swooped again, kicking his second goal after Chris Masten shot a sideways handball to him. Two minutes later the pair combined again, the West Australians went 47 points ahead, and Dickson had absolutely no idea who to play on Palmer. Luke Potts? James Polkinghorne? Callan Ward? Mitch Farmer? ‘We’ve got no-one for him,’ he realised. Jack kept running as hard as he could, and Matthew Kreuzer ran harder. Addam Maric was lively until he dislocated his left shoulder. The harder Trent found it to get near the ball, the more often Paddy seemed to find it. He wanted to run away from him; he tried to run away from him, but he couldn’t. ‘He’s been absolutely cleaned out,’ said Dickson, as Trent came off during the third quarter. ‘I think he’s in shock.’ Chris Gleeson, the team manager, spoke to him down the phone line that ran to the bench. ‘They’ve worked you over a bit, haven’t they?’ he said. ‘It’s gonna happen, isn’t it? . . . Now it’s all going to be part of your learning . . . You wouldn’t have been worked over like this before . . . It’s the big stage, it’s the biggest game you’ve played in . . . This is one more learning experience . . . You’ll bounce back next week and be a good player for us . . .’ That was not what Trent needed to hear. His shoulder was sore, he was annoyed with himself for not being able to play how he wanted to play and he was frustrated with his teammates. ‘No-one was blocking or doing anything like that. Not just for me but for everyone, and we didn’t even talk about it,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t like I wasn’t trying. They kept telling me to run harder, like I wasn’t trying to run hard. I was trying. I wanted to play better but the guy was a freak. Every time I turned around he was right there next to me.’ It wasn’t much fun back home in Wollert, either. Watching it unfold on their television set, Kath felt frustrated and Peter felt the same. He hated how quickly the commentators turned from talking about how good Trent was to how bad he’d been, wishing he was there to defend him in 144


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some way. ‘I felt helpless,’ he said. ‘I hated it. I wanted to do something, but what do you do? I felt like I was going to explode inside.’ Metro lost by 47 points. The rooms were still, the sounds distinct and depressing: tape being torn off ankles, discarded boots dropping against the floor, consolatory pats on backs. The boys were to play again in six days and Dickson needed to start getting them ready. ‘I said to you last night, this is the pinnacle,’ he said. ‘Western Australia showed us a clean pair of heels with their work rate and their endeavour. If you want to step up and play AFL, the benchmark was set today. What I want you to do when you go away is analyse yourself – what do you need to do to step up? Don’t get bogged down by it, but understand what it meant.’ Already, Dickson had begun analysing his own game. For the first time the team hadn’t been able to do what he had asked them to – was that a reflection on the boys, or him? Was his message not getting through like it used to? He felt out-coached and he was wondering about taggers – he’d never liked to use them at this level, but did he need to start? ‘Am I old-fashioned? Should you do it that way so they’re more trained for AFL?’ he said. ‘That’s where I’m not sure. That’s where I question myself. I just feel like I’ve been taught a lesson in coaching. I’m thinking: “Is my useby date up?”’ In the West Australian rooms, Gerard McNeill watched the boys rush to Paddy McGinnity’s side and he saw a little glimmer in the teenager’s eyes, like he understood he’d just done something significant. That night, Dickson decided not to review the match with the team. He’d only say negative things, and they’d all go to bed thinking about how bad they’d been. The next morning at the airport he kept his distance again and it was only after he boarded the plane and sat down next to a chirpy Will De Bruin, that he realised life had already begun to move on. ‘I started talking to Will and he was just in really good spirits,’ he said. ‘I looked around at the players, and they were OK. I started thinking: “What am I worried about? I’ve coached for 11 years and the kids aren’t worried, so why am I?” I really got strength from the players. They’d moved on and I had to as well.’ Trent watched a movie on the way home to try and take his mind off things. The film was ordinary, just like he felt. Earlier, at the airport, he tried to make things seem less serious, like it wasn’t such a big deal. ‘I probably won’t get drafted now . . .’ he’d joked to Jarrod Molloy and a 145


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couple of teammates while they were waiting for their plane. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ Jarrod told him later. ‘Some of these kids really won’t get drafted.’ ‘But that’s not what I really meant . . .’ Trent thought. Then he boarded, sat down, and thought about it all the way home. ‘I was trying to think of positives, but there weren’t too many there,’ he said. ‘I felt shattered, in a way.’ The team was beaten to the airport by a string of recruiters. Dashing to Adelaide for the next game, they had some things to consider about Trent. Did the game hurt him? ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ said the Kangaroos recruiting manager Neville Stibbard. Did he run hard enough? ‘No,’ said the Western Bulldogs’ Scott Clayton. ‘Either he can work harder and he was lazy, or he can’t run.’ Francis Jackson knew it was dangerous to watch players through rose-coloured glasses but his club, Richmond, still held the No. 1 pick and he decided to forgive Trent’s game. ‘I thought he was a victim of circumstances,’ he said. ‘I would have liked to have seen him up on the ball from the start.’ Wayne Hughes thought the same thing. Every time the recruiting manager had met with the Carlton coaches in 2007, they had told him to go get a midfielder. Nick Stevens was out with a neck injury, not to return all year, and Marc Murphy was getting hammered by taggers before even reaching the 20-game mark. But was Trent the best one on offer? Hughes had loved Palmer’s game, and had Kreuzer on his mind too. He was disappointed with Trent, but he let him off the hook. ‘It probably does just ask you that one little question,’ he said. ‘If it happens to him at AFL level, will he handle it? Can you teach him that sort of stuff? I didn’t think he was played in positions that allowed him to work through it but I wanted to see how he’d respond. I wanted to see how he’d come out in their next games, knowing he’d have someone follow him around again. I wanted to see if he’d fight.’

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23

‘ I don’t want to do anything stupid ’ Sunday 1 July 2007 South Australia v Vic Country In the Adelaide dusk, two minutes before South Australia played Vic Country, Brad Ebert shook hands with Ben McEvoy in the middle of AAMI Stadium. Robert Hyde chose Ben as captain because Ben tried to do everything right, and usually did. The South Australian coach, Brenton Phillips, told Brad before the final trial game he would be captain, but to keep it to himself for one more week. He thought Brad was clear-minded and thoughtful. ‘He registers things,’ he said. ‘He hangs on to what you say and he’s always thinking: “OK, where are we going with this?”’ Brad kept the secret, but it was hard, everyone kept asking why he was so happy. Sitting in a school assembly after it was official, his phone beeped with a text message. He stole a look when he could and the message was from Warren Tredrea, the Port Adelaide captain, congratulating him. ‘How did he even know my number?’ Brad thought. He had to show a friend sitting beside him, to be sure it was true. After the Norwood game, Tim Ginever had called Brad and Levi into his office to talk about the game and explain what he wanted to see in their next match. He told Levi he’d be playing on North’s quickest, most clever player, and gave him a few tips on how to limit his space. Then he turned to Brad and said he’d start at half-back. ‘Does that mean I’m just doing my thing?’ asked Brad. ‘What do you mean, your thing?’ Tim said. ‘Like, am I picking anyone up, or just doing my thing?’ ‘Well, you will have an opponent . . .’ 147


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‘But do I do what they do? Or just do my own thing?’ Tim laughed. What he liked most about Brad was that he was so assured, without a hint of arrogance. He was confident in his confidence. He also wondered how he’d gotten so old that he didn’t understand how young people spoke anymore. ‘Yep,’ he told Brad. ‘Just do your thing!’

The South Australian state program was different from most others. The SANFL brought its best 50-odd kids together for six weeks of pre-season training, then sent them back to their clubs and kept an eye on them, reuniting the best of them at the end of May for more training and warmup games. Those playing at league level could stay there until the final two weeks of the Under-18 program, at which point their clubs would hand them over – reluctantly, in most cases. Phillips was a former Essendon and Brisbane player, a Magarey medal winner during his 222-game North Adelaide career and more recently had coached Sturt for five years. A week after Sturt won the 2002 premiership, the club lost one of its young players and a beloved long-time official in the Bali bombings. His new job placed him at the other end of the tug-of-war. The clubs supported the state program and, unlike the old days of the retention scheme, wanted to get their players drafted. But they also wanted to win games. Phillips’ initial thoughts were that both Brad and Levi should be playing at the best possible level. ‘But then how do you encourage a team environment when you say: “OK, you two go and play league and the rest come with me and we’ll try to create some sort of team cohesion and bring the others in later?”’ he wondered. It depended, largely, on the purpose of the program. ‘It’s the old question,’ Phillips said. ‘Is the aim to win the carnival, or show the boys off to the recruiters and not worry about the result? Or do you want to bring them in and teach them as much as you can? I think it falls somewhere in the middle. It’s a tough scenario.’ Or, for Tim Ginever, a very simple one: Brad and Levi had been two of his best players. ‘I want to keep them!’ he said. By game day, Phillips had other things to deal with. The previous Saturday, the boys had played their last trial game; by Monday afternoon, Phillips had to have his final squad into the AFL. On the Saturday night, Sturt had a function at which four of the boys in the squad drank, becoming 148


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drunk to the point that a couple of them were sick. Phillips found out and, instead of announcing the team at training on Monday as planned, asked for those boys who drank on the weekend to raise their hands. Six owned up – the four Sturt boys and two more he hadn’t heard about. The coach had some thinking to do. He told all the boys to ring him the next day, deciding overnight to drop the Sturt players, all of whom were borderline before then, and leave the other two in. The next afternoon when the players started calling, Phillips found himself saying: ‘You’re in; you’re in; you’re out; you’re in,’ in a series of brief conversations. He didn’t have enough time to tell the boys who missed out why they had missed out, other than they didn’t meet expectations. At Sturt, people were upset. Stuart Totham, the club’s chief executive, knew none of the boys had been certain to make the squad but believed the way they were told created the impression they were left out purely for drinking, when the other two players – who were good players – got through. ‘There was a perceived inconsistency,’ he said. ‘We felt that if the boys had been told their aerobic capacity wasn’t up to scratch, or their kicking wasn’t great, it would have put a kybosh on the whole drinking thing.’ At the same time, the club was disappointed in the boys, although glad they had all owned up, and had decided to replace their ‘all you can drink’ functions with cash bars, to be more vigilant on underage drinking and re-emphasise the drug and alcohol program delivered by the league each year. Totham had been surprised by the reaction of some of Sturt’s senior players – a few of them felt responsible – and looked forward to seeing how each of the boys responded to their setback. ‘They’ve said the right things but it’s their actions that will tell us whether they’ve learned from it,’ he said. ‘I’d probably back two of them to be OK, and the other two I’m not sure about. That’s how I see it but I hope they all reach their potential. I think there’s some real positives that could come out of it, but to some extent that’s up to the boys, and what they decide to do.’ Had Phillips had his time over, he would have delivered the news differently, letting his emotions settle first. He didn’t drop the boys only because of the alcohol – it was one tick against them, but a big tick, enough to tip them out. He knew he was dealing with kids, and that kids make mistakes. The fact they were from his old club complicated matters – he didn’t want to be seen to be going easy on them, or acting overly tough. 149


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And he didn’t want to condone underage drinking. When he’d started out, things were different: if you trained, did weights and played with the league side you were expected to drink with the league side, no matter how old you were but times had changed. ‘My concern was that if we let them come away, people would think we’d turned a blind eye to it,’ Phillips said. ‘It wasn’t the only reason we dropped them, but it was a big part of the reason. The other two got through because they hadn’t set a foot wrong otherwise. But when decisions like this are made, dreams are shattered and fingers get pointed, I know that. My hope is that in five years time, these boys might be at a club function and see another kid drinking. I’m hoping they might go over to them and say: “This is what happened to me, do you understand what you’re doing?”’ Brad was at training when the show of hands was called. He hadn’t known about the Sturt players but the subject matter had been on his mind over the weekend. He’d never felt under pressure like that at the Magpies, he was still wanting to feel like one of the senior players, to have them speak to him like an equal. ‘You sort of feel like you want to get involved and chat to them, but you never know what they’re thinking,’ he said. ‘You don’t know if they’re thinking you’re just a kid, and wishing you’d leave them alone.’ Brad usually spent more time with his school friends, which brought its own pressures. At parties people would drink, and look at him curiously when he said he was sticking to water. ‘The draft’s ages away,’ some of them would say, ‘surely you can have one drink,’ but Brad wasn’t really interested. He wanted to be sensible, and his close friends understood that. ‘They don’t drink much themselves, and they never even mention it, they never try to pressure me,’ he said. ‘I never really think about it. It’s not even something that I really want to do.’ At a Saturday night party, Brad saw one of his Under-18 teammates drinking. Not excessively, but enough for him to notice. Brad had just been made captain and he was a year younger than most of the others in the team. What was he supposed to do? He reminded the kid he wasn’t supposed to be drinking and he stopped, but didn’t raise his hand at the team meeting on Monday. Then he started to feel anxious, worrying that he should have told the coach, wondering whether Brad would dob him in. After everyone found out about the Sturt players, Brad asked him if he was going to tell anyone, or keep it quiet. The kid walked away without 150


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saying anything much, but afterwards started losing sleep over it. Brad eventually called, and promised he wouldn’t say anything. ‘At first I didn’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I was thinking: “I’ve only just been made captain and here’s one thing that’s happened already, should I be jumping up and down and making it a bigger issue?” I thought I needed to say something, but I thought it should be up to him to tell the coach. It had to be his choice because he was the one who had to live with it, in a way. And I think he learned his lesson from it. Everyone did.’ The day after it all happened, Brenton Phillips rang Brad and asked what he’d made of it all. Brad thought it was fair that the players had been left out but was glad the coach hadn’t hunted down other offenders. ‘It was a harsh punishment but we all got told the rules,’ he said. ‘If they’d dropped four other guys who’d worked hard and hadn’t done anything wrong, people would have got more upset about that.’

Brad was in the centre square for the first bounce against Country, up on his toes with Levi by his side. Dawson Simpson started in the ruck for Country, with Ben down deep in the forward line. His parents and Pete had driven over after school on Friday, stopping overnight at his sister Kate’s house in Stawell. Following Ben around meant his mum and dad could make new friends of their own, which was nice, because the championships could be competitive off the ground too. Sharon could sense it but didn’t feel entangled in it, probably because Ben had always been one of the better players, never playing for his life. ‘I’ve never really felt like he was going to miss out,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean that in an arrogant way, we’ve just been a bit lucky like that. But I see it in some of the other parents, they talk about the coach not playing their kids in the right spot, and some of them get really caught up in it. And it’s an emotional thing; every parent’s like that. The kids have to perform under pressure, and you can’t get out there and help them.’ Brad’s parents watched from the wing. Craig was calm, as Craig always was. Ashleigh too. Trevor Obst bit the bullet and sat beside his wife, just a metre away from his stressed-out daughter. Chris scrunched her hands together, thinking the same thing she thought every week: ‘Let him play well; just let him play well . . .’ 151


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After the first bounce, Brad slipped quietly to full-forward: Phillips wanted to suss out if he was being tagged and thought he might be able to set up a goal or two. South Australia kicked 6 goals to 1 in the first term but, after kicking one early goal, Brad found it harder to get involved. He went back on the ball towards the end of the first half, feeling more comfortable there. At the other end, Ben had a similar, steady influence: if the ball touched his hands, he usually marked it. He did it every time bar one. The Country boys got to within 2 goals in the last few minutes of the half, but the South Australians stretched their lead out again after half-time, winning by 74 points. After a stressful week, Brenton Phillips was happy. You could never tell how you’d go in a carnival until it actually started and his team had done everything he’d asked of them. Brad came off the ground with a few minutes left, grabbed a water bottle, walked along the boundary line and on his way back to the bench, glanced up to where his family was sitting. Chris and Craig nodded back at him – a quick, quiet endorsement. Brad hadn’t felt burdened as captain but he’d been more conscious of what the team was doing. ‘At first I felt a bit of pressure. Not really pressure but I was thinking: “Do I need to be talking to the coaches more?”’ he said. ‘But when we got to the game I sort of thought: “They’ve picked me, so I might as well just be normal.” I liked it, but it was weird. I got to the end of the game and I didn’t really know how I’d gone.’

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‘ We can’t draft them all ’

Monday 9 July 2007 Escaping the rain, the Hawthorn recruiters met upstairs at a South Melbourne hotel. Gary Buckenara was in town for the Under-18 championships, as were seven of the club’s interstate scouts. The rules for this meeting were that you could only bring up the players you rated highly, otherwise they’d be there all night. For more than three hours, more than 100 players were still debated. The AFL season was approaching round 15 and, unless something went horribly wrong, the Hawks were bound for the finals – and a firstround draft selection outside the top 10. In the past three weeks, they’d thrashed Carlton by 100 points and beaten Collingwood to move to second spot on the ladder behind a hell-bent Geelong side. On the Saturday night just gone, they’d lost badly to the Crows on a rainy night in Adelaide. Still, they’d only slipped to third spot, and other things were coming together. After the Carlton match an article in the Herald Sun was headlined ‘The Accurate Ones’, pointing out that, head-to-head in their games this season, the Hawks had hit their targets more often than their opposition. According to Champion Data’s rankings they had become the top-ranked team for kicking efficiency, tracking at 79.4 per cent − more than 3 per cent above the competition average. Luke Hodge had led the way; in the five weeks leading up to the Carlton match, only seven of his 68 kicks had been deemed ineffective. Defender Danny Jacobs was at 89 per cent, and the next two players in line – Grant Birchall on 86 per cent and former rookie Clinton Young at 83 per cent – had joined the club since 2004. 153


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At the other end of the ladder, things hadn’t changed. Richmond beat Melbourne in round 12, but hadn’t won again and still sat stuck to the bottom. The Demons had upset Collingwood on the Queen’s Birthday weekend to move to 8 points, and Carlton had notched consecutive wins in rounds 10 and 11 for a total of 4 points. After beating the Western Bulldogs in round 10, the Blues toppled Port Adelaide, who after winning six of its first seven games had dropped four in a row to tumble out of the top eight. Just one more win and the Blues would miss out on a priority draft pick for the first time in three years. Buckenara and Wright considered the championships a key part of their recruiting year, but to differing extents. The pair had switched states on a few occasions, to make sure they weren’t watching the exact same players all the time, but the nationals were the one time of year when the best kids were all in one place. While Buckenara spent part of each week reviewing TAC Cup tapes, he tried not to form opinions until he saw players live. You could skim back over a split-second play to check if your eyes had deceived you, to get a better look at what players did in close, but you had no sense of what was happening off the ball – what a player’s anticipation and work rate were like. The carnival was also where his West and South Australian scouts could check out other states’ players, which helped them make more informed comparisons when they went home. But while the championships were where the best kids played against the best kids, he didn’t like to hear boys talking as if what they did there was the be-all and end-all. ‘It’s one box you can tick off but there are a lot of boxes,’ he said. ‘There could be reasons a kid doesn’t have a good carnival. We all have bad runs from time to time.’ Wright agreed and, like Buckenara, thought more players jumped up during the championships than dropped off the radar. He didn’t ignore established form if a player disappointed him during the carnival, but if someone was on the edge of his thinking and didn’t play well, he might be inclined to think no, not yes. ‘For some players I think it is the be-all and end-all,’ he said. ‘I think some guys get drafted on it and some guys miss out because of it. I think it can go both ways.’ Wright liked as many scouts as possible to watch as many games as possible during the week in Melbourne; where some clubs assigned different recruiters certain groups of players to watch, he instructed his 154


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to watch every game on its merits and every player on his merits. ‘If you focus on one or two of them, you might miss other things,’ he said. The bonus of having extra people in town was that games were watched from more angles; Wright rarely watched a match with someone and preferred that his recruiters sit on their own too. If you sat with someone, he had found, you usually ended up talking to them. ‘When I’ve sat with people I’ve found they might say: “Geez, he does this well” or “he does that well” and it might not be something I’ve noticed or am worried about,’ he said. ‘I just don’t like my thoughts being compromised at all, I suppose. I like to form my decisions based on what I see. Sometimes I think you get into conversations that take your focus away from what you should be doing.’ The meeting began with the four division-two teams. A couple of New South Wales players had caught Wright’s eye, but he was struggling to make a strong case for them. There was more to talk about in the Tasmanian team, though. Graham liked Aaron Joseph’s work ethic – he was small, but certain to run all day. They discussed Tom Bellchambers, a ruckman, for a few minutes: did he work hard enough? was the question. ‘His ruck work would probably be the best in division two,’ Graham said. He liked Jay Bowden’s decision making but wasn’t sold on his speed, and thought Alex Grima could run and carry the ball well. The best of the Tasmanians, it was agreed, was Tom Collier. Tom had nominated for the 2006 draft but had been overlooked; clubs weren’t convinced he was competitive enough but he had since won a regular spot in the Tassie Devils VFL team. As a running, key defender, the Hawks had to consider him, but Bocca posed a question: had Tom’s VFL experience turned him into a schoolyard bully now he was back in the Under-18s? Was he taking players on too much, and becoming too predictable? ‘I think he’s really improved,’ said Wright, shaking his head. ‘I know a few guys think you don’t know what he’s going to do with it at times but I see a defender who makes good decisions going forward. I’ve got lots of time for him.’ Barry Clarke, Hawthorn’s Queensland scout, ran through the best of his state: there weren’t as many as there had been the previous year. He thought Sam Reid shaped as a top-30 pick, even though he hadn’t played particularly well, and had hoped to see Joey Daye do more. ‘He’s been trying to get in front and do the right things,’ he said. ‘He’s been disappointing but I think he’s got a lot of natural talent and he’s a young 155


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one. He’s one who could really come through towards the last part of the year.’ Brendan Whitecross was next. ‘He puts his head over the ball every single time,’ Barry said. ‘He’s kicked the ball badly this week but he’s not normally a poor kick. He could certainly turn into a really hard-at-it midfielder.’ ‘I like him. I think he’s very creative by hand,’ said Graham. ‘Is he generally a good long kick?’ Steve Barker wanted to know. ‘I think he is,’ said Graham. ‘And I think he makes good decisions, but in the Sydney game he just didn’t use it as well as he normally does.’ Garry Smart ran through the Northern Territory players. ‘We can’t draft them all, Smarty . . .’ Steve warned him, laughing. They spent a few minutes on Marlon Motlop – was he fit enough? Would his recent back injury be an ongoing issue? Garry wasn’t sure Marlon had worked hard enough in the first two games but, as Bocca pointed out, he’d laid nine tackles in the second one. Junior Rioli was next and opinion wasn’t as divided, with Smarty desperate for Hawthorn to draft him. ‘His tackling is fantastic,’ he said. ‘He’s got pace; he brings the ball into the forward line and holds it, he’s a good kick both sides; he brings people into the game. I do believe he’s a little champion.’ ‘He set up 5 goals, I reckon, the other day,’ said Bocca. ‘He’s a marvel. Had seven tackles; did the lot.’ ‘Would you play him as a genuine small forward or a midfielder?’ asked Chris. ‘He’s the sort of bloke that might start in the midfield and if you were struggling down forward you could throw him down there and he’d kick a couple of goals,’ Garry said. ‘Bucky, you’ve watched him for a while now . . .’ said Chris. ‘I think he’ll be an exciting player down the track,’ Gary said. ‘I don’t think he’ll have an immediate impact at AFL level, it will take some adjusting for him. But in time he’ll develop into an exciting little player and if we’re in the market for a small forward who can go into the midfield he’d be the one. I think he’ll have real impact eventually. He’ll win clearances and use the ball pretty well.’ ‘Look for the way he sets things up,’ said Bocca. ‘He sets up goals. He’s a second ahead of most blokes’ thoughts.’ 156


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‘Is there anything to be concerned about?’ said Chris. ‘Maybe his lack of running,’ Bocca said. ‘He hasn’t got much fitness behind him. He bursts in for a while and then has to have a breather or come off. But I reckon down the track he could go all day.’ ‘I reckon he’s super-competitive but his lack of fitness shows out,’ said Graham. ‘He’s a great competitor when the footy’s in his area. But he looks in fairly good shape. I don’t think he’s overly fit, but he hasn’t put much weight on.’ The West Australians had played so well that Gary Buckenara believed a bunch of players who might not have otherwise been considered − Steven Browne, David Ellard, Simon Starling and Patrick McGinnity, for starters – had a shot at being drafted. But he started with their captain, Chris Masten, who he thought had broken the hearts of his taggers in the first two games with his relentless running and looked quick enough as well. ‘I was concerned about his speed but he’s shown good bursts,’ he said. ‘He can be a bit of a one-pacer but he’s got a change of gears when he needs it. I think he’ll be a first-round pick, maybe around our mark.’ Rhys Palmer was next – Gary had considered him ‘draftable’ before the first game but thought his match against Metro was one of the best he’d seen at Under-18 level. ‘Who would you select between Palmer and Masten?’ asked Chris. ‘Palmer’s a bit more left-sided than Masten is,’ said Gary. ‘Masten can go both sides and kick pretty well; Palmer can kick on his right side but it’s not as precise. It’s more to get him out of trouble. At this stage I’d have Masten in front of Palmer. Palmer’s probably been better in the carnival but I think I’d go Masten.’ Having considered Cale Morton a late first-round pick before the carnival, Gary now saw him as the best of the West Australians and a probable top-5 pick. He was a big fan of David Myers’ run off half-back and Tayte Pears had surprised him; a handy player at Colts level, Pears had looked much better at this higher level. Then there was Alex Rance, the son of former West Coast and Footscray player Murray. ‘He’ll be a dashing full-back, he’s got that great closing speed,’ Gary said. ‘You’d love to get him in and teach him to make better decisions, because he can give away free kicks at times. But you can see he’s still got some genuine improvement left in him.’ 157


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The first 12 minutes of the Vic Metro review were spent on someone who hadn’t even played: Patrick Veszpremi, who, as far as they knew, would soon be having his shoulder surgery done, to tie in with his thumb injury, ending his season. ‘We need to have a think about how we see him,’ said Graham. ‘Would you draft him? If he doesn’t play again this year or the draft was tomorrow, would you pick him on what you’ve seen?’ ‘He’s a draftable player,’ Gary said, ‘but it would depend a bit on his shoulder. I’d like to see him get that done and set himself to do a bit of testing.’ ‘I think an interesting thing to see would be − if he does get his shoulder done, how does he look after his body?’ added Graham. ‘He’s got a bit of power when he takes off,’ said Bocca. ‘He could go either way. He could be a star or a dud, I reckon.’ ‘Where would you play him position wise?’ asked Chris. ‘I reckon that’s one of the big things with him,’ said Peter Ryan. ‘I honestly don’t think his motor is big enough to play wing or half-back.’ ‘It’s fair to say that in the modern game, at his size, you need a degree of pace and endurance,’ said Gary. ‘So much is going to depend on whether he can get it to a reasonable level. We’ve seen him play footy and we know he’s got talent, it’s just a question of whether he can use that talent at the next level. At that size, you need pace and you need adequate endurance.’ ‘What about his demeanor? Does he get into his teammates on occasions?’ asked Chris. ‘I haven’t seen him do that but his body language isn’t great,’ said Steve. ‘I think he’s been better with it lately. He’s just a kid who doesn’t have brilliant body language but I wouldn’t think it’s an issue.’ ‘It’s his body shape and size and how he tests – I think those things are going to be the issues for him,’ said Graham. ‘It will be interesting to see how he goes with it. It’s not going to be easy from now on for him, so how does he handle that?’ ‘If he presents himself in good shape it’ll show he’s not taking anything for granted and that he wants to be the best he can,’ added Gary. ‘If he does that, I think he’ll definitely get drafted.’ Wright had heard about Jack Grimes’s half-time apology in Perth but seen nothing to lower his opinion of him. Callan Ward’s courage had 158


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caught his eye and he was surprised Jarrad Grant and Hugh Sandilands had been left out of the first team, wanting to have seen more of Sandilands in particular. ‘His kicking was a worry last year but I think it’s improved,’ he said. ‘Last year he held it up high and dropped it with both hands, but it looks like he’s done a lot of work on it.’ The last Metro player discussed was Trent Cotchin. Chris had some questions. ‘He obviously struggled in the first game with a heavy tag,’ he said. ‘What did you think of the decision to start him outside the square? Does he need protecting?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ said Gary. ‘He was going to get tagged whether he was in the centre square or outside it. But the kid looked to me like he didn’t enjoy being tagged.’ ‘What about the people who say look at what Masten and Palmer have done; why is Cotchin so much better?’ said Chris. ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate here . . .’ ‘We just know football . . .’ said Bocca, deadpan. ‘I think he’s got speed, balance . . .’ Graham said. ‘I think he’s better than the other two overhead. He can play in more spots.’ ‘And he’s 12 months younger,’ added Steve. ‘He’s a genuine footballer,’ said Graham. ‘Kreuzer’s a walk-up start for the No. 1 pick but the team that gets No. 2 could still end up with the best player. He’s a super talent.’ The South Australian team didn’t take long to run through. Paul Whaley, one of the club’s two Adelaide scouts, spoke briefly about Jared Petrenko, Tom McNamara and a couple of others before arriving at Brad Ebert. ‘He’s playing league footy and looks like he was born to play there,’ he said. ‘He kicks it pretty well and he’s got the body for it. I think he’s ready-made.’ ‘Does anyone have any reservations on him?’ said Chris. ‘How quick is he?’ asked Bocca. ‘That’s my only query . . .’ said Paul. ‘I haven’t noticed that,’ said Graham. ‘He doesn’t have any trouble getting to where the footy is.’ The winless Vic Country team was the last one discussed. Mark Pelchen had liked the look of Dan McKenna, a 194-centimetre defender who could take a good overhead mark, and had kept an eye on Patrick 159


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Dangerfield too. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how he finishes the year off,’ he said. He thought Scott Selwood would be picked early but that he hadn’t seemed quite right through the carnival. Graham agreed. ‘I think he’s lost some confidence but I still think he has all the attributes,’ he said. ‘He’s smart and balanced and kicks the ball well with both feet. I’m not too worried about what he’s done or hasn’t done this week.’ And as Gary pointed out, at 17 Selwood was eligible for another season of Under-18s. ‘What would he be like next year, as a top-age player?’ he asked. ‘We have to remember that he’s young.’ The last player that Graham wanted people to think about was Lachlan Henderson, who was back playing school football but hadn’t felt fit enough for the carnival. ‘He’s quick, he has good endurance and he’s a real competitor,’ he said. ‘I would have thought he’s a top-5 pick but we need to think about him. I see him playing as a key defender down the track.’ Mark finished with Dawson Simpson and Ben McEvoy, the two Bushies. ‘Dawson’s still got a lot to improve on, I reckon, but he’s 205 centimetres,’ he said. ‘And he’s taken some good marks. He’s a project player.’ Watching Ben, he had noticed him cover more ground, more efficiently than he thought he would. ‘He’s top-10 for me.’ ‘What would you like him to do better?’ Chris asked the group. ‘It would be nice if he was a bit quicker but it’s hard at that size,’ Bocca said. ‘I think he’s done everything you could ask of him,’ said Graham. ‘His tap work around the ground’s been really good. I’d just like to see him play a bit more in the ruck.’

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25

‘ It’s in the hands

of the recruiters ’

Tuesday 10 July 2007 Northern Territory v Queensland, Victoria Park The Thunder beat Tasmania in their second game of the carnival but needed a small miracle to pinch their third national title. Even if the boys beat Queensland by lots, they’d need New South Wales to lose its last match to Tasmania and hope they had the best percentage. At half-time, Queensland had an 8-point lead and Junior had a sore ankle. Someone had stomped on it midway through the second term; he came off the ground, felt for it and didn’t know if he should keep going. He jogged up and down the boundary line, felt a bit better, went back on and casually slotted his second goal from the boundary line. But at half-time, it was still sore and he was annoyed. He’d done a bit in the first half but not as much as he’d wanted to. Damian Hale had an idea. ‘How about we just leave you at fullforward?’ he asked Junior in the break. ‘Sounds good,’ Junior shrugged. So long as he was on the ground. Junior had done a few TV and newspaper interviews during the week. Everyone wanted to know what it was like to have such famous uncles and whether he felt any pressure to do what they had done. Junior did, a little bit, but the player he wanted to be most like was his dad. In 2004, when Junior moved to Melbourne, Cyril Rioli was 37, and had only just wrapped up his St Mary’s career. A midfielder, who became an attacking back-pocket long before AFL teams had that idea, he’d played in so many premierships that he had lost count. He was a tough, hard player with a 161


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gentle nature off the ground and a habit of talking himself down. Not unlike his son. Junior used to watch his dad play football, more than watch the Saints. He loved how he ran off opponents and dived in for the ball. He was at Marrara Oval, on the first day of December in 2003, when Cyril broke his leg and was stretchered off the ground in what turned out to be his last match. For the first time, Junior realised that football actually ended. He didn’t know what to say to his dad. Watching Junior kick footballs around, Cyril always thought he had some skill. Junior had a ball in his hands, constantly. But it was in an Under-16s game that he realised the kid could do some special things. Junior was playing for St Mary’s, running towards the boundary line with two opponents chasing him. When he reached the ball he pushed it back between his legs, then swung around and picked it up as the players ran past him, almost colliding. ‘I was dumbfounded,’ Cyril said. ‘It always stuck in my mind.’ He was glad Junior had inherited ‘his mother’s height’ – all 178 centimetres – rather than becoming a shorter, rounder Rioli, but worried about him inheriting the hamstring problems that had interrupted his own career. He missed watching him play, missing out on all the finer details that Junior was too modest to supply. After most games Cyril would speak to Junior first, then e-mail Rob Smith for the rest of the story. From the boundary line, Cyril watched the game against Queensland with sharp eyes, tense muscles and a booming voice. Junior started the second half at full-forward, stayed there and did a little of everything. He marked, sharked and handballed over his shoulder to Stewie, like he could tell he was there without seeing him. Sandwiched between two Queenslanders, he held his feet as they collapsed on either side of him, roving his own spilled mark and snapping a goal. He kicked 3 goals in the third term and another 2 in the last, to finish with 7 in a 30-point win. ‘Top 5 . . .’ said Neville Stibbard, but Matt Rendell had bigger ideas. ‘If this bloke plays for long enough,’ he said, ‘he could be the best Aboriginal player that’s played.’ Junior wasn’t entirely happy: he’d wanted to play more in the midfield. He’d been brilliant but, in a way, he’d shown the recruiters more of what they already knew he could do. In the rooms, Damian Hale spoke to the boys for the last time: they were headed in multiple directions now but he looked forward to seeing 162


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where each of them ended up. ‘Whether or not you play AFL footy, who knows. It’s in the hands of the recruiters,’ he said. ‘If Cyril Rioli’s not the No. 1 draft choice I’ll run naked through Lygon Street. But it doesn’t matter where any of you go, just take pride in how you play. One day I want to watch every single one of you boys play your two hundredth game of footy.’ The NSW/ACT team beat Tasmania to notch its third win, and its first title since 2003. At the presentations, Junior was named in the AllAustralian side, looking embarrassed as he was handed his jumper in front of everyone. The next day he was heading home to Darwin, it was school holiday time and his eighteenth birthday on Sunday. ‘Eighteen . . .’ Cyril said. He looked across at Junior, trying to shove his jumper underneath his tracksuit top and hide from the attention. ‘We might have to stop calling him Junior Boy.’

Wednesday 11 July 2007 South Australia v Western Australia, Cranbourne South Australia was the last team to tackle the rampant, running West Australians. Brenton Phillips had been happy after game one and happy enough after game two. South Australia had lost to Vic Metro by 4 goals in hammering rain on a 9-degree day but he thought they’d hung in well against a team filled with some big and humbled names. ‘If you can have big names at this age . . .’ he mused. Phillips drove one of the team’s minibuses to Cranbourne and on the way glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Almost every one of the kids had dozed off, which didn’t fill him with confidence. Brad’s family had been almost busier than him during the week in Melbourne. Ashleigh had discovered the Direct Factory Outlets shopping centre and her parents had been tied up with player agents. They had dinner one night with Ben Williams – the original winner of Big Brother – who was trying to break into player management; a morning tea at the Flying Start offices with Ricky Nixon and two off-siders; and a chat with Craig Kelly at the ESP offices in Richmond. Liam Pickering from IMG was the latest to call, asking for some time before they made a decision. They’d been picked up from their hotel, dropped back, fed and carted all around town. It hadn’t been too bad. 163


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To Craig and Chris, the agents seemed to offer the same basic things: contract negotiations, an independent ear and financial advice, mostly. ‘They talk about teaching them how to live,’ said Craig, ‘and sometimes I think, “I hope Bradley comes to us with those questions.” But if he has to move away, it would be nice to know that someone’s looking out for him. If we can’t be there, we hope someone is.’ Knowing which agent would do those things best was something they still couldn’t be sure about. At the start of the season, Craig had imagined them all to talk like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire: fast, while thinking more about themselves than the kid. Now they had met all the strange voices and no longer felt under siege. ‘We’ve built up a bit of a rapport and you start to feel comfortable that they’re professional people who are going to do the right thing,’ Craig said. ‘None of them have made really big promises, and that surprised me. They’ve just been very realistic with what happens and very genuine. At least now Bradley can have a think about what he wants to do and not feel like he’s being rushed into it.’ Brad was tired at the start of the last game and exhausted by the end of it. Brenton Phillips thought he’d grown more comfortable with the captaincy the longer the carnival went; comfortable with talking and comfortable that he was saying the right things. ‘He’s going to be a really solid contributor to a club environment,’ he said. ‘He’s going to be the stable bloke who does his work every single week and who you never have to worry about. He’ll be a really valued member of the team, wherever he goes.’ Brad hoped he’d done enough as skipper. His first two games hadn’t been his best ever, but he’d been happy enough. He’d been knocked around a bit, tagged in both matches, and by the last quarter of the final game his legs didn’t want to keep running. The West Australians grabbed the lead early and held it; Gerard McNeill was amazed at how ruthless and methodical his players were, right to the end. He was satisfied, too: after five years, he planned to hand his job to someone who could do it full-time. ‘It’s a pathway for the boys,’ he said. ‘It should be a pathway for coaches, too.’ With 20 seconds left in the match, WA was up by 77 points. Eight years after the likes of Paul Hasleby, Darren Glass, Adam Hunter, Joel Corey, Chance Bateman and Leon Davis won the 1999 carnival; Cale Morton, Rhys Palmer, Chris Masten, David Myers and co. became 164


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another great team, and another draftable team. In the final moments, a South Australian defender kicked the ball from the back-pocket towards the wing and Brad hoisted himself up onto a player’s back. On the way up, his head was clipped by another player’s knee and he slumped to the ground. Both teams’ doctors ran out and Brad’s floppy body was lifted gently onto a stretcher, his neck held steady. His parents were only a few metres away when it happened: ‘Get up, get up,’ Chris urged him silently, feeling sick. ‘Oh no . . .’ she said out loud, when he didn’t. Craig watched closely as Brad was carried off, saw him shift on the stretcher and relaxed slightly, realising he was conscious. He ducked into the rooms to make sure he was OK, then left the doctor to do his thing. Brad opened his eyes to find about a dozen people staring down at him. One was Jason McCartney, who told him to get outside – he had an All-Australian guernsey to collect. ‘OK then . . .’ Brad mumbled. He got up, went outside and as the presentations began, started to wonder whether he’d made the All-Australian side, completely forgetting that Jason had just told him. He had his shower, waited to have his All-Australian photo taken and slurred his way through an interview with the Fox Sports website. Then he got on the team bus and vomited, all the way to the airport.

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Pat fishing with his Pa on the Maribyrnong River

Pat with his broken thumb 166


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The Northern Territory beats Queensland: Stewie, Shannon and Junior

Vic Country v Vic Metro: Vic Metro coach David Dickson 167


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26

‘ Hunter or hunted: you decide ’

Wednesday 11 July 2007 Vic Country v Vic Metro, Cranbourne Ben turned 18 on the day of Vic Country’s last match. He didn’t tell anyone about it but a teammate remembered on the bus to Casey Fields and made sure he was suitably embarrassed. The carnival was supposed to wind up at Princes Park but days of pouring rain had turned the competition into a travelling circus. The AFL’s talent co-ordinator, Craig Notman, had spent most of his week on the phone trying to find grounds to play on, the recruiters were grumbling about the good old days when games were played on the MCG, and the tournament was finishing in Melbourne’s outer east. Ben’s week, though, had been a calm one. ‘Last year I was sort of questioning . . . not if I was good enough, but was I ready for it?’ he said. ‘It’s funny because this year I could see other guys wondering the same thing.’ Ben had been living a double life throughout the championships: he’d spent almost all day in the ruck against Western Australia in Country’s second game, a loss, but was put back at centre half-forward for the last game, against Metro. Robert Hyde was like Peter Dean: he wanted Ben to be slightly less perfect, a little rougher, and to make his opponents feel more fear. The really big kids, Hyde found, took longer to learn how to use their bodies than the more compact players; Ben was playing as if he had to mark every single ball that came his way. ‘That’s because he’s diligent but we need to get him thinking: “OK, it would be good to grab everything, but sometimes you just have to bring the ball to the ground 168


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and break a pack and make people nervous,”’ he said. ‘He prefers to get out in the open and cover the ground, so he’s just got to throw his body around a bit more and learn that he can influence a game simply by using his size. And he will. He’s a good learner.’ There was a moment against Metro where you could see that. Unable to squeeze to the front of a goal-square pack, Ben leaned over the cluster of players in front of him and thumped the ball over the line for a point. The St Kilda recruiting manager, John Peake, noticed that, although people kept saying Ben was slow, he still seemed to make it to each contest. ‘If you can read the game I think it can sometimes make up for that,’ he said. ‘Ben’s a bit like that; Jonathan Brown was a bit like that. He knew where he had to be and he had enough pace to get there.’ Ruckmen tended to divide recruiters, a lot like small forwards did. Everyone needed one – everyone needed more than one, and a really good one could make a big difference – but how early did you draft them? Only four ruckmen had been drafted at No. 1: Stephen Hooper in 1990, Jeff White in 1994, Michael Gardiner in 1995 and Josh Fraser in 1999. More recently the Kangaroos had invested top-10 draft picks in Hamish McIntosh and David Hale, who were starting to emerge. Essendon drafted Jason Laycock at No. 10 in 2002, and John Meesen went to Adelaide at No. 8, two years later. The excellent prospects were obvious, if still more perplexing than the obvious onballers; in the lead-up to the 2006 draft, the consensus was that Matthew Leuenberger was fast, co-ordinated and, at 203 centimetres, already tall enough to ruck for an AFL team. But he slipped to No. 4 in the draft; he was so unique that some recruiters didn’t seem quite sure what to make of him. Even Matthew Kreuzer – whose speed, endurance and work rate had won most people over – stood a smidgen under 200 centimetres. Would he be tall enough − and did he have the ruck nous – to play that position up one level, where ruckmen were taller? Did it even matter, given his many other assets? The less-certain ruck prospects were – often − skinny, gangly and in need of a few extra centimetres. As Scott Clayton pointed out, they’d need a spot on a list for three or four years before you knew whether the investment would pay off. ‘Most of them are skinny kids who are going to have to play in a collision position,’ he said. ‘They might never get the body 169


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to do what you got them for.’ And as Craig Cameron explained, while the Adelaide and Perth clubs could farm their young ruckmen out to multiple local teams, the other clubs had only one ‘reserves’ side and therefore couldn’t warehouse too many. ‘They can’t all go back to Sandringham and play and develop as ruckmen,’ he said. ‘There aren’t the same number of spots for them.’ Cameron believed that good or capable ruckmen could be found later in a draft than the first or second round, or even in a rookie draft and that you could trade for them if you needed to. ‘If you’re not absolutely sure, you probably let them go,’ he said. Others tended to just draft them. If they didn’t become stars, they might still become decent trade bait. Country lost its last game by 58 points. Already Hyde was thinking about 2008: if he could get an initial squad together before Christmas, they’d be better. As the presentations started on the oval after the match, Ben began to wonder if he’d make the All-Australian team, which was picked by Kevin Sheehan, Alan McConnell and a revolving panel of recruiters. When he heard his name called, he started smiling and couldn’t stop. He felt as though he deserved it, but it was an honour to be named. ‘I just felt so lucky,’ he said. Seeing such clear, readable emotion on his face made his mother happy too. Ben wasn’t excessively moody, but he could be a bit of a brooder. He didn’t come home and spill every detail of his day like Pete did, which occasionally frustrated Sharon. ‘He’s not a person you can ever drag information out of,’ she said. ‘Eventually it’ll come out and once he’s ready you can ask him anything, but if he’s not ready he’ll give you a one-word answer and that’s it. Then you’ll be sitting there, having a cup of tea one night and he’ll talk about one little incident and open up.’ At least he had the farm. ‘That’s where he sorts things out in his head. And even just doing Year 12 is a big year. When you add all the football pressures on top of that, he’s been pretty good. He keeps a level head.’ Ben celebrated his birthday at the Lincolnshire Arms in Essendon, over a pub meal and cake with some relatives and friends. He wasn’t quite the centre of attention: his grandmother mistook Dawson for him and launched into a version of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ before she realised. ‘It was such a good day,’ said Ben, still smiling. ‘Sometimes there’s just days when everything seems to go right.’ 170


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Wednesday 11 July 2007 Vic Metro v Vic Country, Cranbourne Trent felt worn out and weary when he got home after the Perth game. ‘I’m so tired, I’m so tired, I’m so tired . . .’ he kept saying. He wasn’t looking forward to going back into camp with the Metro team but when he got there David Dickson called him aside. ‘You look terrible,’ Dicko told him. ‘I want to see you get that buzz back.’ That made Trent feel better, as if he could start all over again. Then he went out to train, and the coaches had James Polkinghorne tag him throughout the session. ‘They kept saying I needed to work hard like James and hold my feet like James and do everything like James does it,’ he said. ‘I was sick of James by the end of it and it had nothing to do with him. It was like they didn’t even want me to get a kick at training.’ Trent had played better against South Australia in the second match. He was always sure he could do better, he’d just had to remind himself how. The coach decided to play him at half-back, which helped simplify his thinking. He started to pick where the ball was going again and glimpse little spaces to slip into. He got tagged again but had decided before the match that if it happened again he’d keep moving and never stand still. ‘I felt more ready for it,’ he said. ‘If I got tagged I wanted them to concentrate on following me all the time, so that I’d be the one watching the ball more.’ It worked, except for one slow-motion moment in the third quarter. Trent scooped up the ball deep in the back-pocket and swung it to the top of the 50-metre line. The wet, heavy ball dropped straight on the chest of a South Australian player, who took two steps and kicked it back over Trent’s head for his team’s second goal. Two minutes later, Trent got knocked on the side of his knee as he slid over the boundary, and at three-quarter time, Dickson berated him for kicking the soggy ball to such a dangerous spot. ‘You’re playing million-dollar football in the pouring rain!’ he hollered. ‘Kick it long!!’ Later, Dickson decided he’d gone a bit too beserk and apologised to Trent. ‘That’s OK,’ Trent told the coach. ‘I like that sort of stuff.’ Dickson was still recovering from his horror weekend too. As soon as he turned his phone on after the match in Subiaco, friends had started calling: you should’ve heard what so-and-so just said on the radio. It didn’t 171


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surprise Dicko that certain recruiters were happy to see his team lose, but it still got to him, and he wondered why people were rejoicing so much. ‘I suppose that’s football. You have to wear these things but some of it really hurts,’ he said. ‘People kept saying we got knocked off because we had to travel to Perth and I just get really annoyed by that. If we’d played WA here in the first game they still would have beaten us by 10 goals. It was nothing to do with Perth. They were primed, we didn’t get it right.’ The response to the loss had already steeled him to stay on as coach in 2008: he wasn’t going out like this. Metro still had a chance of winning the championships. It was a very, very slim chance – a miniscule chance – but if they belted Vic Country, and Western Australia somehow lost, who knew. On the whiteboard in the rooms, Dickson had reminded the boys what they were here for. ‘FIRST BOUNCE: HUNTER OR HUNTED, YOU DECIDE’ said one message, written alongside the line-up and team rules, in big blue print. ‘THIS IS THE LAST TIME A LOT OF YOU WILL WEAR THE TRUE BIG V’ read another. Dickson wanted to see a united team out there and decided to make a point before he began his pre-game rev-up. He’d heard that Trent had been talking draft at the airport in Perth and wasn’t happy; Trent should have been thinking about playing for Victoria. Also in the back of his mind was that Trent had said he liked the occasional jolt. But he’d forgotten there was a Fox Sports camera in the back of the room, and that what he said would later appear on their website. Dicko told the players to run and not be afraid. Then he ran through the side, position by position, reminding each player what the team needed them to do. He reached Trent, paused, and glanced around. Trent was where he always was, in the middle of the front row, so Dickson stood directly in front of him, looking down. ‘It’s been an interesting carnival for you,’ he began, his voice steadily rising, his neck craning forward and his finger pointing directly at Trent. ‘I heard a comment last night . . . and I’ll say it to you in front of the group. I’m going to really nail you and if it’s true I’m going to be really pissed off . . .’ He leaned back, with his hands out wide and his palms facing up. ‘Oh, I’m not sure I’m going to get drafted . . .’ he said in a sing-song voice. ‘You are here to play for fucking Victoria. NOT ANYONE ELSE! I don’t care about draft people and if you’re talking 172


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to players like that then your mind’s not switched on to win today . . . YOU ARE A BLOODY GOOD FOOTBALLER and you start here. Not in a year’s time. I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU GO! This group needs you playing for Victoria, NOT WITH YOUR MIND ELSEWHERE!’ It was a sharp, fierce and confronting few seconds. Trent didn’t take his eyes off the coach, he didn’t move or change expression other than to clench his jaw and lose a bit of colour from his cheeks. Inside, though he was churning. He didn’t mind being yelled at, even in a room full of people. He liked Dicko and enjoyed playing for him, but what he had said wasn’t right. Why hadn’t he talked to him first, to make sure that’s what he had said? Trent felt like an idiot, like he’d been embarrassed for no real reason. ‘It put me down. It made me feel like a dickhead,’ he said. ‘It just felt negative.’ Still, he was first out onto the ground, stopping to pat each teammate on the back as they followed him. He played on the half-back line again, and was sharp again. He had lighter, bouncier feet; he was running, bouncing and feeling the most confident he had all week. Metro kicked the first 3 goals and held the lead all day, stretching it to 10 goals during the third quarter and winning by 8. As the game wore on, Trent struggled to raise his right shoulder and his knee began to hurt. The pain was running down the outside of his leg, getting worse the longer he ran. ‘What’s he done?’ wondered Wayne Hughes in the crowd. ‘Should he be toughing it out?’ It was another, small question mark. Even so, Trent was one of three players Hughes came away from the carnival thinking he might like to draft. Matthew Kreuzer and Rhys Palmer were the others, with Cale Morton just behind. After the championships, clubs started to get a better sense of which recruiters liked which players – or thought they did. Hughes thought the Blues would be picking at No. 2 or No. 3, so he started a rumour he was really keen on Morton. ‘Most clubs start to talk it up after the nationals, so we put it around that we wanted Cale,’ he said. ‘He’s a good player, but when you’re not watching someone as closely as you might and you hear another club’s interested, you tend to go and have a closer look. I do it myself sometimes, and you never know. It might help you get the player you really want.’ Dickson was disappointed with how Metro finished, thinking they could have won by 10 goals or more. He considered Trent among the most gifted young players he’d worked with and wanted him to learn to run 173


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harder, burn off his taggers and become one of the AFL’s best midfielders. ‘I think the carnival will be a real awakening for Trent,’ he said. ‘I think he’ll go away having a lot of – I don’t know about nightmares – but a lot of thoughts on what I’ve said to him. It’s going to come back to how hard he works, but I think he’s a quality young kid. Maybe I was a bit hard on him because he does have the ability to be one of the best AFL footballers around. But I don’t go out of my way to belittle people or make them feel bad about themselves. That wasn’t my intention. He just has to make sure he’s focused on what’s happening right now. I really do think he’s in shock.’ Trent was disappointed, dissatisfied and even more weary. Stephanie watched her brother’s face as the All-Australian team was announced and saw it drop when he missed out and Paddy McGinnity made it. For the first time in a long while he hadn’t felt entitled to hope to hear his own name called, and that was the most frustrating thing. ‘Maybe I did get ahead of myself . . .’ he told his dad, who thought he had misunderstood the saying. Peter reminded Trent that he’d set himself very high goals and that this was the first time he hadn’t done what he had wanted to. ‘That’s life,’ he told him. Already worrying about going back to school on Monday, Trent felt more tired than he had when the holidays started. He had four practice exams in his first three days back and had barely picked up a book in the past two weeks. Kath drove him home, they threw a few things into bags and headed straight to Echuca for a few football-free days in their cabin. ‘When you’re down, everything seems worse than it is,’ she told him on the way. Neither of them spoke for a while, then Trent broke the silence. ‘I’m over footy,’ he sighed. ‘I’m sick of it. I’m ready for it to finish.’

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27

‘ Everybody has an opinion ’

Saturday 4 August 2007 Trent had his groove back. The draft was less than four months away and today was the last time he’d play football for his school. The game was on the MCG as a curtain-raiser to a Collingwood–Carlton clash, a nice place to wrap things up. A few days after the carnival finished, Trent had come home from Echuca in a much improved mood, his eyes lighting up more after he went down to Richmond so that the club’s conditioning coach could check out his injured knee. The problem was with his iliotibial band – a piece of muscle that ran down the outside of his knee and thigh – and it was a simple problem that would fix itself with time, rest and some anti-inflammatory tablets. So many recruiters had been asking him how it was feeling, and so many seemed concerned, that Trent had started to worry it was something really bad. As soon as he heard it wasn’t, his uncertainty eased and little footies started flying through the house again. ‘He just needed someone to tell him it wasn’t serious,’ said Kath. ‘Once he heard that, you could see him start to smile again.’ PEGS was playing St Joseph’s College in the final of the Herald Sun Shield. St Joe’s had beaten them in the same game last year and this was the boys’ fourth match in 15 days, making their coach, Ken Fletcher, slightly nervous. Last year, Fletcher hadn’t thought his team was good enough to win. It hadn’t helped that one of the St Joe’s players had deliberately barged into ruckman Jackson Trengove’s recently repaired arm, re-breaking it. But this time, they were better. In the rooms, he told the boys to take risks. He told them to get in first, get the free kicks and not let St Joe’s flex their muscles and get cocky. Pressure them, he said; care for each other. ‘You all 175


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know what happened last year,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hark back to it too much but it was the biggest bloody dog act I’ve ever seen against Jackson. But I don’t want recriminations. The only recrimination I want is the way you’re prepared to do the number one bloody skill in football and that’s get the ball. They’re going to try and make it a physical game: good on ’em. I look around and I see good builds, I see good character and that, to me, will triumph over false wishes and promises. Make no mistake, they’re a good side. But we’re up to our necks in this one.’ Fletcher, a 264-game former Essendon star, had coached his beloved school team for what felt like forever. In 1993, his 17-year-old son, Dustin, took a break from defending the likes of Stephen Kernahan, Tony Lockett, Tony Modra and Jason Dunstall to line up for PEGS in its huge, annual clash with Assumption College. Dustin had been contracted to play eight school games and 12 for the Essendon reserves in his debut season, but that plan quickly changed; by the end of the year he had a premiership medallion to go with his VCE. The sign on the door of the PEGS change rooms read ‘The wish bone will never replace the backbone’ and the rooms were filled with premiership flags, newspaper articles about the school’s first, famous 1-point win over Assumption in 1977 and framed photographs of its captains and AFL graduates. Fletcher still remembered a floppy-haired Scott West gathering 40-plus possessions in almost every game he played, but he didn’t think the seven-time best-and-fairest winner, Brownlow runner-up and five-time All-Australian would get drafted if he were coming through now. ‘They’d say he’s too slow,’ he said. ‘Scary, isn’t it?’ Fletcher wasn’t a fan of sport scholarships, but at times he felt his hands were tied. Every other school was handing them out and if you didn’t, you got beaten, simple as that. His theory on scholarships was that they should never be purely for sport, that if a kid was committed to getting better marks, doing well at school and making something of his life, he was worth bringing in. Trent was the first non-local he’d recruited to the school, though he’d never seen him play before another kid, Addam Maric, met him at the Under-16 championships, and came back raving about him. Fletcher had laid eyes on him for the first time in the school gym early in 2006, after he’d called kids in to try out for the team. Trent was quick, sharp, skilful and the other kids were drawn to him. Then Fletcher saw him play, noticing how well he involved other players. ‘That’s what I like 176


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about Trent, that ability to bring others into the game,’ he said. ‘If Maric gets it outside 50 metres, he’ll have a shot every time. Having said that he’ll kick five of six, so why not? But if someone’s in the right position, Trent will give it to them. That’ll be a really good thing for him later on.’ He could see him playing 200 AFL games, at least, and becoming a better player than West. It was a big call, he knew. In last year’s Shield final, Trent had missed a shot halfway through the last quarter, St Joe’s rushing it to the other end, scoring, and winning by 4 goals. Fletcher remembered him kicking from 40 metres out but Trent was more critical: in his memory, he’d been much closer. He’d spent most of this season playing loose across half-back, the team hadn’t lost a game and he was craving a challenge. He was looking forward to being back at the Knights, doing the things he hadn’t done during the nationals and feeling like a proper part of the team. But first he wanted to play well today, to finish up on a good note and enjoy playing with his schoolmates for the last time in his life. PEGS kicked 5 goals to 1 in the first quarter, holding on all game to win by 20 points. Trent was good, Jackson jumped all over the place and Addam was brave: he’d dislocated his shoulder in Vic Metro’s first game and, told not to play today, had taken the risk, wanting to be part of the win. ‘You boys have got a ton of guts,’ an emotional Fletcher told them after the match, enjoying the school’s first Shield win since 1995, but not for too long. He trailed off, looking up to find the boys staring back at him, waiting for him to say more. ‘I’m already thinking about next year’s team . . .’ he smiled. Four days later, Trent was a Knight again and Addam was in hospital, getting his shoulder fixed. His season was over now.

Sunday 5 August 2007 Pat was nervous. After six weeks out with his broken thumb, he was playing today against Sandringham, the Knights needing his burst and bustle. While two games clear inside the top eight with only four games to go, they needed a few more wins to push into the top four. Pat had been buoyed by his first half in the game against Bendigo. It was the best he’d ever played, and that was a good thing. But as his return 177


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match drew closer, he began to worry. What if he couldn’t play that well again? What if he’d lost it? Pat was wondering if he should play for his local club, Bundoora, before pulling on his Knights jumper again. That way, if he was really rusty, no-one would see it. Not that it was a question he wanted to run by the coaches. ‘I can’t really tell them how I’m thinking,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to express it. You can’t go up to them and say: “Where do you think I am in the draft?” even though it’s on your mind.’ Three days after breaking his thumb, Pat was on the phone to Peter Kennedy. He didn’t need surgery – he had to wear a bright orange cast up to his elbow – and wanted to keep his good form going somehow. ‘I’m coming down on Thursday to do rehab,’ he told PK, who almost choked. Pat Veszpremi? Wanting to do rehab? Was this the same kid who had injured his shins and got bronchitis late last year, then spent all his time sitting on the couch eating pizza? Pat talked about what he was eating, running laps of the oval, and getting to training early, and he seemed so serious. Then again, he was almost 18 now, a year and a half older than the time he hurt his shins. Perhaps he was just growing up. ‘Rest up for a few days and then come back,’ PK said. ‘We’ll see you in here next week.’ Missing out on the Metro team had been hard, but not as painful as Pat had thought it would be during that long, dark drive home from Bendigo. ‘At least I played last year,’ he kept thinking; had he not done that, he would have been a mess. Going along to the guernsey presentation was tough; they showed some video highlights of the 2006 carnival and watching his own image up on the screen, it felt like yesterday but he looked like another kid up there. He went to training on another night and that was a lot easier. David Dickson asking him to be positive so that the other boys would think about how strong they could be too. ‘I fully expect to see you in an AFL jumper next year,’ Dicko told Pat, and it made him feel good. The things Dicko told him – that he’d make the All-Australian team, that he’d make the Academy, that he could play in the midfield – had tended to come true. Pat watched the Knights play on the day Metro lost in Perth, but the match was on his mind. He wondered what he’d be doing, where he’d be playing, who he might be playing on, whether he’d be standing out. Then he heard the scoreline, and the negative thoughts came. ‘Maybe it’s good I didn’t play because last year nothing went wrong,’ he told Rob. ‘This year 178


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I could have had the worst carnival ever.’ He went to see Metro’s second match but left soon after it finished; he didn’t enjoy being in the rooms when he hadn’t been a part of things, it felt like he was watching from behind a plastic screen. But he was at the ground long enough for Stuart Maxfield, one of Sydney’s recruiters, to spot him, impressed that he hadn’t hidden away at home. Pat could have had his shoulder fixed while he was out with his thumb, but he kept putting it off, still wanting to wait. For the first time, the people who mattered were telling him the things he’d always wanted to hear. On the night he broke his thumb, Kinnear Beatson called, telling him not to stress himself out over it. The next day John Turnbull rang, saying the same thing. Pat felt more sure he’d get drafted after hearing from them, but still had some doubts: what if they were just trying to make him feel better? They still weren’t promising anything, and he didn’t feel ready to stop playing, to leave things to fate. ‘I can’t put my cue in the rack yet,’ he said. ‘If I hurt myself again I’ll get it done, definitely. But I can’t stop now. I still don’t know how serious they are.’ The Collingwood recruiting manager, Derek Hine, had also called, inviting Pat into the club for a day. The first person he rang to tell was his Pa. Taking a Wednesday off, Pat spent most of the day there, speaking with Derek, and Noel Judkins, who Kevin Sheedy had lured from Richmond to Essendon in the early 1980s to become the VFL’s first full-timer recruiter, about how he’d been going with his footy. The doctor checked his shoulder out and Pat spoke to the club’s fitness coach about how he could improve his endurance and get himself a bit fitter. That Friday night Collingwood played Richmond and Pat was invited to sit with Alan Richardson and a bunch of young players in a room high up in the stands. It was a real-life lesson the development coach taught most weeks and a big eye-opener for Pat. ‘You got to ask any question you wanted about the game and he’d explain it to you,’ he said. ‘I was sitting there asking questions non-stop and everyone was laughing. But I think I thought of some good ones. Plus you got free Coke and sandwiches, whatever you wanted. And in the rooms I saw Eddie McGuire blasting his head off at someone.’ Seven weeks after he broke his thumb, Pat packed his bag and headed off to play Sandringham. He got to the ground on time, this time, and 179


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wasn’t the only one wondering how he’d go. Peter Kennedy wasn’t the only person at the Knights who had noticed a change come over Pat. Paul Satterley thought he’d become more focused, bit by tiny bit, right through the year, but getting hurt had seemed to drive him harder. All of a sudden, he just got it. ‘He kept himself fit, no-one needed to push him, and he’d sit up the front all the time,’ said Satterley. ‘Every time I turned around I had Patty standing right in my ear. His personality’s really grown on me, and I think it’s been important for the group. We’ve been through some ups and downs and Patty lightens the mood. He’s been good to have around.’ Pat’s absence had affected the group in other ways, too. ‘You notice it when he’s not training,’ said Satterley. ‘When Patty’s not there, or Jack or Trent or Matt, training really drops off. Those kids want the footy in their hands all the time. Because of that they just lift the quality of training.’ The Sandringham game was a good one. The Knights won by 4 points and Pat had 26 possessions, kicking 3 goals and having 12 handball receives. He still liked to see numbers, printed on a page, telling him he’d worked hard. He ran out of puff only at the very end and didn’t feel like he would have been better off at Bundoora. Phew, he thought. He could come straight back and play well.

Sunday 12 August 2007 It was round 19 of the SANFL season. If the Magpies didn’t beat Glenelg today, making the finals would be almost impossible. Brad missed one match after the championships; he’d hyper-extended his knee in the same match he got knocked out in. He’d played his best game for the year against South Adelaide last weekend, leading up from half-forward, easing his mind. As he flew home from the carnival, his stomach starting to settle, Brad had wondered whether he’d get his spot in the Port Adelaide team back straight away, or whether the coaches had decided they didn’t still need him. A few nights earlier, Brad’s dad asked him a question. ‘Do you want to nominate for the draft?’ Craig had wondered, as Brad sifted through some university booklets. In recent weeks there had been talk that the draft age would be lifted, so that all kids would have finished school before they could be uprooted. In 2007, players had to turn 17 by the end of April to nominate for that year’s draft; under the mooted changes, the cut-off date 180


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would drop back to the end of December, meaning boys would have to turn 18 in the year they were drafted. Had it been like that in 2007, Brad would have had to wait another year, which made Craig realise he’d never asked him the most basic question of all. Did he want to nominate? Of course he did, but Brad’s university preferences were still a tricky matter. He’d decided to apply for some commerce courses, but did he just apply to Adelaide universities? What if a club in another state chose him? ‘I’m not sure what to do,’ he told his dad. ‘Nothing seems certain.’ Both of the Adelaide clubs had interviewed Brad soon after the nationals. He spent almost an hour in the Crows’ offices one afternoon, his parents invited along too. After filling out an online questionnaire, he met with the Power’s new, young recruiter, Blair Hartley, at the club. Blair was clutching a file of information so thick it made Brad a bit edgy: he wondered what could possibly be in there, how closely they must have been watching. Blair threw some questions at him, then showed him a couple of clips from AFL games. One clip showed Collingwood onballer Brodie Holland fighting for a centre clearance, then chasing the ball down and getting a second kick. ‘What was so good about that piece of play?’ Blair asked. ‘The second effort?’ Brad suggested. He felt under slightly more pressure in the Power interview and left wondering if he’d said the right answer: he wasn’t told either way. Both interviews had given Brad some clarity though. At least he knew at least two clubs were thinking of him, although he wondered why no others had called. Was that normal? He had no idea. Everywhere he went, people assumed he wanted only to play for Port Adelaide, or even to play mostly for Port Adelaide, and it was starting to annoy him. He knew people at the Power, and he’d get to stay home if he went there. But he was curious about how other clubs did things, didn’t want people thinking he was worried about moving, and wondered whether playing for Port Adelaide would put him under pressure he’d be better off avoiding. When Brett had started out there, the coaches had been really hard on him. Brad started at half-forward against Glenelg, and it wasn’t a great day. The ball kept getting kicked over his head on the small ground, things just didn’t work for him and to make matters worse the Magpies lost. Now they’d have to win their last three games to make the finals and rely on teams that hadn’t been losing developing some sudden bad habits. There 181


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was something else on Brad’s mind when he woke up the next morning, though. During the South Adelaide game, he’d felt a little bit restricted trying to stretch out and run. Against Glenelg he felt worse, but when he got up and got moving he felt fine again. He hoped it was nothing to worry about.

Saturday 18 August 2007 The Bushrangers played the Calder Cannons in their third-last game of the home-and-away season. The Cannons had beaten them by 2 goals in round 7, but the Bushies were in form. At the end of June they’d started kicking goals and winning games, ironically when Ben, Dawson and five of their other best players were away on state duties. Before the carnival Murray had won only three games, and Ben half expected the finals to be out of reach by the time he got back to the team. Instead, heading into today’s game, they’d won six in a row, and were well inside the top eight. Ben started well, slinging the opening goal casually over his shoulder only a few minutes in. The team had changed shape since the championships. Dean promised every player who got his chance while the others were away that if they did the right things, they could stay. Three had made a big difference: Sam Wright, a cluey forward who had overcome a knee injury, Josh Bryce, whose father had been driving him two hours twice a week – then home again – to train with a team he wasn’t making, and Tom Rockliff. Dean would have liked to have played Tom earlier, but in 2006 he’d broken his leg playing for Vic Country in the Under-16 championships, spending a week in a Queensland hospital having seven screws and a plate put into his fibula. He was on crutches for two months, couldn’t train until three weeks before the season started and knew no-one expected him to play more than a few games for the Bushies. Somehow, he made it into his local side, Benalla, by the start of the season, soon starting to hope that Murray would call. In his first game, round 10, he felt apprehensive each time he sensed a tackler approaching and gave the ball off as quickly as he could. He kicked 1 goal in that match, 7 the next week and 6 the week after that. ‘He’s making people have a look,’ said Dean. While Ben was away, Dean decided to give Luke Morgan and Sam 182


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Livingstone a week off the captaincy. He told them when they arrived at Wangaratta for their round 10 game against Bendigo; while the boys hadn’t been playing badly, he sensed the job had been playing on their minds. When Ben got back, and found out, he wasn’t happy. He agreed the boys had been taking too much on, but didn’t think the coach had handled things in a fair way. So he told him so. ‘I respect what you’re trying to do . . .’ he told Dean. ‘In some ways I agree with it, but the way you did it . . . I don’t know, something in me thought it was wrong. You elect captains for a reason, you don’t just rock up on game day and change it. They were given the responsibility, they took it on board and it was taken away from them, just like that.’ His reaction didn’t surprise Dean; Ben was desperately honest. He thanked him for speaking his mind and explained why he’d done it that way. ‘He was sticking up for his mates and sticking up for the process. I haven’t got a problem with that,’ the coach said. ‘If Macca has something to say, it doesn’t matter who you are, he’ll say it. But it’s always: “How can we do things better? How can the club improve?” It’s never about him.’ Ben was glad he’d spoken up. He kept the minor details of his life to himself, sometimes, but if something really bothered him he dealt with it as soon as he could. ‘I hate bitching about things behind people’s backs,’ he said. ‘I hate when other people do it, and I hate when I do it even more. If you bring it out in the open, it’s done. Then you can move on.’ Dean had simplified things since the middle of the season. He’d never liked loading his players with too much information, giving them a few pre-match notes but not too much post-game information. Unless a player spotted his name in there, he tended not to read it. Other boys were better when they had things explained to them, and most of what Dean wanted to teach them sunk in during training. ‘It’s lots of repetition,’ he said. ‘Monkey see, monkey do.’ He condensed the Bushrangers’ five focuses – preparation, intensity, game plan, method and mental toughness – into the more succinct catchphrase of ‘pressure, chase, smother’, and every time he put something on paper he wrote the words CLUB and TEAM in capital letters. Look after these things, he told the boys, and the team will play well. If the team played well, players would get drafted. The Bushrangers demolished the Cannons, winning by 123 points, but Ben had a lousy day. After kicking the first goal he started fumbling, 183


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feeling frustrated and fed-up. He felt like he was running to the right spots, but that the ball had other destinations in mind. He played on Jackson Trengove, Trent’s teammate at PEGS, who shoved, elbowed and bumped him, all afternoon. Ben gave away a free kick just before three-quarter time and was getting dragged when the siren went. It was the worst game he’d played all season, by far, and for the first time, not even the win could take his mind off it.

Monday 20 August 2007 Junior glanced at his phone. He had another missed call, his third this morning. He turned the phone off, and rolled over in bed. He didn’t feel like talking yet. Two days earlier, Junior, Stewie and Shannon had played for Keilor Park. Dean’s team hadn’t won a game all season, and they nagged him until he let them have a go. It was easy for him to give in: after losing their first 17 games, the influx of talent helped the Devils beat Aberfeldie in the final round. The three boys played under other players’ names and Junior felt anonymous, as if no-one knew who he was, like he could float around and have fun. He kicked a few goals and got in the best players, but asked Dean to leave his name out. He didn’t want anyone to figure it out, but he didn’t realise his dad had been calling all afternoon, wondering where he was and why he hadn’t rung back. When Cyril finally got through after the game, Stewie answered Junior’s phone. There was a lot of busy change-room noise in the background and when Stewie told him Junior was having a shower, Cyril wondered what was going on. He called back a few minutes later and finally heard Junior’s voice. ‘What are you doing???’ Cyril said. ‘It’s only one game . . .’ said Junior, immediately defensive. Why did everyone want a say in what he did, these days? ‘I know it’s one game but what if you got injured? What if you did your knee? What would happen then?’ The conversation descended into an argument after that, finishing when Junior swore and hung up, turning his phone off for the rest of the day. He’d speak to his dad again today and they’d sort things out, he was sure, but for now he still felt annoyed. Before yesterday, he hadn’t 184


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played since the end of July, when the Scotch season ended. Against Carey Grammar, he’d taken one of the best marks anyone at the school could ever remember seeing. As the ball was kicked high into the Scotch forward line, Junior got wedged between three players. He had no room for a run-up but hoisted himself onto the middle player’s shoulders, taking the ball with his arms stretched up high and landing softly on the ground in a crouch. Junior was up and down inside a second and a half, but while in the air he had time to wonder what he was doing there. ‘I looked around and thought: “Oh shit . . . how do I get down from here?”’ he said. He heard one of his mates calling ‘Junnniorrr’ and wanted to stay in the sky a little longer. Then he landed, stepping back to slot an easy goal. He missed playing footy now, and felt like he was falling behind. ‘Everybody has an opinion,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to play a game with the boys. It’s the last time I’ll get to, I’m glad I did. I don’t know how it’s different from all the other boys playing TAC Cup. People keep telling me what to do, it’s really pissing me off.’ Junior had settled back into school, wanting to be there again and able to see something at the end of it now. Around school, everyone kept asking about the draft: When was it? Where did he want to go? Who was going to pick him? He felt like snapping back sometimes, but instead he’d smile his polite little smile and shrug his shoulders. He wished he had answers for people, but their questions only reminded him that he had no idea at all. Last week, two Adelaide recruiters, Matt Rendell and Hamish Ogilvie, came to the school to interview him. Junior kept an eye on the classroom clock all afternoon, slipping out in time to meet them. On his way to the careers office, he started to feel nervous, even frightened. When it started, it was fine – footy talk, mostly, and he could do that, but it went for an hour and felt even longer. Every now and then they’d write something down and Junior would try to remember what he’d just said. ‘It was scary,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.’ He’d get more practice next week: both Hawthorn and Sydney had called Rob to book an interview time. ‘It feels like it’s gone so quick, my whole time growing up,’ Junior said. ‘All my life I just wanted the clubs to call, but then it surprised me when they did.’ There were six weeks until the draft camp, and training when there was no game at the end of the week had never been something Junior was 185


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good at. For the first time, the approaching school holidays were making him feel a bit worried. ‘Normally I can’t wait but I’m scared of getting lazy back home,’ he said. ‘I’m scared of getting really unfit.’ He thought he might do some pre-season training with St Mary’s when he got home, and before and after the holidays planned to work out with Mick Smith, the Scotch groundskeeper, who doubled as the footy team’s fitness coach. Mick was a one-time draftee, drafted from Devonport to Collingwood at No. 53 in the 1988 draft, the same year that Essendon drafted a whippetquick Darwin kid named Michael Long at No. 23. Mick moved over when he was 16; he didn’t even know how to catch a train. When the Magpies asked him what he wanted to do with his spare time he said he was up for anything, so they put him to work looking after the Victoria Park surface. He didn’t play a senior game for Collingwood, but got another career from his time there. Mick’s plan was to run with Junior every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and do some boxing on the alternate nights. The best beep test Junior had ever run was a 12.5, and he wanted to get to level 13 at draft camp or at least as close as he could. Since first meeting Junior back in 2004, Mick had developed a strong sense of his ambition. It was never something Junior spoke openly of, let alone gushed about. But recently there had been an article on Bryce Gibbs, playing his debut season for Carlton, in one of the Melbourne papers. In it, Gibbs spoke about how lucky he was to play football for a living, to be living out his dream. ‘Is this like you?’ Mick asked Junior. ‘Do you want it as bad as this guy’s saying?’ Junior just nodded. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, and that was it. The next few weeks would be hard work, they both knew it. ‘It’s going to be a challenge but deep down I reckon Junior really wants this to happen,’ Mick said. ‘There’s just no way he’ll ever express it.’

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28

‘ He has the potential to play in the centre, but I haven’t seen him do that yet ’

Wednesday 8 August 2007 The Hawks were clinging to their top-4 spot when the recruiters met again, for fish and chips in a meeting room overlooking a darkened Waverley Park. The Hawks had no trouble with Richmond in round 15 but lost to St Kilda and the Kangaroos in the next two weeks, making it three losses in four weeks. That pushed them down to fifth spot but then they beat Essendon by 63 points, moving back into the top three with four games left to play. Had the season ended there, the club’s first pick on draft day would have been No. 15. Nothing had changed at the bottom end of the ladder; the Tigers were still last, lagging behind Carlton and Melbourne. The Demons were up to four wins and the Blues still hadn’t won since round 11, which meant match-tanking had become an even bigger talking point than the West Coast Eagles’ off-field dramas, almost. The Eagles were still hovering around the middle of the eight but had welcomed Ben Cousins − and his 38 handy possessions − back against Sydney in round 16. In other news, Melbourne, Carlton and Essendon were on the look-out for new coaches. Neale Daniher, Denis Pagan and Kevin Sheedy were looking for new jobs. The August meeting began like the others, with a review of the TAC Cup and VFL teams. Graham Wright thought Scott Selwood had cemented himself as a late first-round or early second-round pick, and that someone would draft Robbie Tarrant. Bocca wanted to know if they 187


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would even be discussing Tarrant if his surname was Smith. ‘If his name was Smith and he was 184 centimetres, we wouldn’t,’ said Mark Pelchen. ‘But he’s 196 centimetres. I wouldn’t put my hand up for him right now but I could see a club picking him at No. 60 and him coming out and being a star.’ Bocca had liked Dan McKenna’s post-carnival form for Gippsland, others thought he had fallen away since the championships. Was he working as hard as he had been early in the season, competing like he had? ‘He hasn’t been putting his body in like he had been, but we know he can,’ Bocca said. ‘I still like him. Is he a better player than Tyson Goldsack was back then?’ ‘Absolutely,’ said Graham. ‘I think he’s a much better player than Goldsack.’ ‘In Goldsack’s last year of Under-18s he was pretty good . . .’ Bocca said. ‘He was a year older, remember,’ said Steve Barker. ‘Goldsack was 19 when he got drafted.’ ‘Goldsack’s been good at AFL level but I think Dan has more pace,’ said Graham. ‘I think he’s a second rounder.’ Ben McEvoy hadn’t moved. ‘He’s Murray’s go-to man,’ said Steve. ‘When they needed the game to be won on Saturday, he won it. But he only played between centre half-forward and full-forward, they didn’t put him in the ruck again because they had Dawson.’ Dawson was promoted from a ‘monitor’ to a ‘draftable’ player and Steve added another player to the list: Tom Rockliff. If Tom was 18 and a top-aged player, he said, he wouldn’t bother. He had to improve his body shape, but he kept finding the ball and he was young. ‘He’s worth keeping an eye on.’ Steve left Jack Grimes as a first-rounder in his Northern Knights review but wasn’t sold on Brett Meredith even though he’d seen some improvement. He left him as a ‘monitor’. Graham didn’t mind that Pat Veszpremi had kept playing; he heard he’d made the decision himself and thought that was a good thing. Steve agreed. ‘He’d be into the second round by now,’ he said. The second part of the meeting was spent on something new. During the year, the Hawks had all of their scouts file regular lists of the top-10 players in their states. It meant they could document all of their individual opinions and then work them into a state-by-state consensus, each list 188


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becoming a new point of reference. Lists were lodged ahead of meetings rather than afterwards to avoid people being unconsciously influenced by each other when concocting them. After the carnival, the recruiters had also filed lists of their overall top-32 players. Fourteen scouts contributed, 75 boys were nominated and the votes added up. The player with the most votes was listed at No. 1, the player ranked No. 2 had the second-highest number of votes, and so on. Michael Porter, one of the club’s IT men, was in charge of collating and editing the Under-18 rating lists and vision. He wrote the combined list up on the whiteboard. The first 12 or 13 players were fairly clear-cut. Matthew Kreuzer was ranked at No. 1, followed by Trent Cotchin, Cale Morton, Ben McEvoy, Chris Masten, Rhys Palmer, Cyril Rioli, David Myers, Jack Grimes, Brad Ebert, Scott Selwood, Alex Rance and Tom Collier. After that there started to be some discrepancies but the top four or five were the same for most people. Pat Veszpremi hadn’t made the list; he’d come in at No. 36. ‘Did anyone not have Kreuzer at No. 1?’ asked Chris. None of the six other people in the room raised their hand. ‘Did anyone have Masten lower than 5?’ he asked. ‘I had him at 8, for the reason I only saw him play that day at Casey Fields,’ said Steve. ‘I didn’t have Ebert in my list because the only time I saw him was out there too. I couldn’t put him in the best 32 based on what I saw that day.’ ‘Who had Cyril higher than 7? Or significantly lower?’ asked Chris. Steve had Junior ranked sixth and Bocca had him at No. 9, but Anthony DeJong had him seventeenth. ‘That was mainly because I only saw him playing as a small forward,’ he explained. ‘I think he has the potential to play in the centre, but I haven’t seen him do that yet.’ ‘If you had the choice between Rioli and Masten, who would you take?’ asked Chris. ‘Tremendous question!’ said Bocca. Peter Ryan picked Rioli. So did Steve but Bocca wasn’t sure. ‘I reckon . . . Geez . . . I had Masten higher. I’m coming around on Cyril, though.’ Chris wondered why the group rated Scott Selwood so highly. ‘Is that based on what you think he can do? Or what he’s actually doing now?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think it’s just reputation,’ said Mark Pelchen. ‘He directs 189


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traffic out there. For a 17-year-old to do that is very impressive. The only query I have is on his kicking, in terms of penetration. But he’s got a lot of footy smarts about him.’ ‘How about Alex Rance?’ asked Chris. ‘Is he a centre half-back or a full-back, if you were choosing a position at AFL level?’ ‘I’d have him at centre half-back,’ said Peter. ‘Centre half-back for me too,’ said Bocca. ‘But I’d need another look.’ There was one last job to do. Before everyone headed home, Chris had them nominate their quickest player in the draft pool, plus the best kick – not average or acceptable kicks, but very good or better. Rhys Palmer, Cale Morton, Cruize Garlett, Patrick Dangerfield, Cyril Rioli, Trent Cotchin and Mitch Farmer were the popular speedsters, while Anthony liked West Australian pair Alex Rance and Steven Browne. Cotchin, Rioli, Palmer, Morton, Matthew Kreuzer and Addam Maric were nominated as the best kicks, and Steve had Ben McEvoy on his list. ‘For someone who’s 200 centimetres, I think Ben’s a really good kick,’ he said. Of the leading bunch of players, there were just two whose kicking Graham queried: Chris Masten and Alex Rance. ‘They’re both OK, but not in the top few,’ he explained. ‘Kreuzer’s speed isn’t a worry; neither is Cotchin’s. Morton’s fine. Rioli, Myers, Rance and Collier are fine. Dangerfield’s probably the only really quick one in there, to be honest.’ That prompted a question. ‘Is it a worry that Masten’s a midfielder and you’ve got a concern about his kicking?’ Steve asked. ‘I’m not massively concerned about it,’ said Graham. ‘I don’t think you’re going to have a problem with it but I just don’t think it’s elite, like Cotchin is elite. But it shouldn’t be a problem.’ Chris had another question. ‘If you could name two players you’d put your house on to kick at goal after the siren, who would they be?’ he asked the group. ‘Easy,’ said Bocca. ‘Maric would kick it,’ he began. ‘Rioli would kick it, Cotchin probably would. If I picked two? Maric and Rioli.’ ‘Strangely enough, I actually agree with Bocca,’ said Steve. ‘I’d choose McEvoy,’ said Anthony. ‘And I’d trust James Polkinghorne.’ ‘Rioli and Cotchin for me,’ said Mark. ‘Maric and Cotchin,’ said Graham. ‘With Rioli not far behind.’ 190


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29

‘ I’ve never heard so

much draft talk before ’

Sunday 9 September 2007 Northern Knights v Gippsland Power, Princes Park The Knights squeaked into fourth place and played the top team in a qualifying final, at the end of a tumultuous week. Paul Satterley, in his first year as coach, had learned a few things. It was impossible to predict, on pre-match mood, how the boys would play each week. Nor had he anticipated how much feedback the boys would crave: they wanted to know everything they could about how well or how badly they’d played. Ahead of the first final, Satterley cut the squad from 40 players to around 30. He wanted training to be crisp and clean, and thought that removing the kids who were a distraction or whose skills weren’t quite up to scratch would sharpen the other players up. The reaction had surprised him: he knew people wouldn’t like it but didn’t anticipate how devastated some of the boys would be. One of them had said he wouldn’t come back even if the team decided it needed him. If Satterley could do it over, he’d still have done the same thing. ‘I just would have worded them up more,’ he said. ‘I would have tried to prepare them for it.’ It was 11 years since the Knights had made a TAC Cup grand final: Lance Whitnall, now creaking to the end of his AFL career, had been in that team. The atmosphere around the club in 2007 was different to anything Peter Kennedy, who had also worked with the Eastern Ranges, had ever experienced. He was finding the system more individual each year; it was all about the draft now, which was sometimes hard to take. Where most clubs were lucky to have two or three players drafted in a season, the Knights had Matthew Kreuzer and Trent Cotchin jostling for 191


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the top spot, as well as Jack Grimes and Pat Veszpremi. Brett Meredith had gotten fit and was creating some buzz, and recruiters had been on the phone asking about David Zaharakis and Ben Power. They were already dribbling over Michael Hurley, too, but couldn’t touch him for another year. PK had never seen a player endure as much pre-draft publicity as Matt had; last week, a photographer had stood in the middle of the team circle, snapping shots of him as the boys sang the team song. Matt had shrugged it off all year, seemed embarrassed by it, never letting it affect his relationship with his teammates. But PK thought the attention had fragmented the group, affecting the parents, too. ‘It’s not: “How are the Knights going to go in the finals?” it’s: “How are we going to go on draft day?”’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard so much draft talk before. The recruiters don’t even care who wins the games, some of them have said to me: “I don’t care if they don’t play for the rest of the year after the nationals.” But how do you get kids to play well in a game of footy without having a team environment? These kids want to play in a grand final on the MCG. The recruiters forget it’s a big thing for them.’ Trent had come back with three games to go, on a mission. If a kid wandered over to tag him, he’d given him a shove, then tried to run him off his feet. He felt enthusiastic, energetic and light-footed again – except against Bendigo in the second-last home-and-away game. Sick all week with the flu, he had wondered: was it better to play when you weren’t quite right, to prove you could tough things out, or to sit out a match so that people didn’t think you weren’t fit? Before the game, Richmond had asked Trent to wear a satellite tracking device to find out how much ground he was covering and how hard he was running. Trent didn’t really want to do it but he didn’t want to explain why, either. He hated making excuses. Since he got back to the Knights, Trent had stuck close by Matthew Kreuzer. Trent and Matt had known each other for years, ever since playing in the same Under-12 team for Victoria. Matt was the biggest kid on the ground even then, and already among the most co-ordinated. When that carnival ended, their fathers, Peter and Frank, had stood out on the Cotchins’ front porch, sipping a beer and imagining how good it would be if both boys happened to make it. For Trent, it was good to be around someone who didn’t want to talk about the draft. But the boys had 192


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been training so much together that the coaches wanted to split them up and have them help the players who weren’t as good. Paul Satterley liked Trent, and had noticed how well he led the team. But he didn’t feel like he truly knew him. ‘Trent’s a little bit guarded,’ he said. ‘Some kids will tell you everything but Cotch is more reserved. But he came back on a real mission after the nationals. I think he wanted to prove people wrong. His first three games back were amazing.’ His final was even better. Trent swirled and twirled, ducked tackles and scooted around the ground. He’d grab the ball with two hands, then whip it quickly past another player’s face, arms or chest – whichever place would most mesmerise them. ‘He’s a pickpocket,’ said Wayne Hughes, who was glad he’d forgiven Trent for his carnival: otherwise, he mightn’t have watched his last few games with an open-enough mind. Halfway through the third term, Trent got a free kick on the wing and, spotting a teammate heading his way, lobbed a long, soft pass into the cradled arms of Pat Veszpremi.

Pat had been having draft dreams. In the latest, he was sitting at home on the couch, his family was gathered around and the draft was on the TV. He could see it but couldn’t hear the names being called, he had no idea what was happening. ‘I wake up really happy, then I realise I’m not drafted yet,’ he said. ‘I should probably go see a dream person.’ Pat wasn’t supposed to be playing today; his sore shoulder was becoming a saga. The week after his comeback match he’d been jumping around against the Dandenong Stingrays, his energetic self. He had just scored his fourth goal when, in the last minute of the third quarter, he got tackled from the side and forced forward to his knees. It was only half a tackle, really, but Pat’s left arm was yanked behind his back and he felt a familiar clunk. His shoulder popped out, popped back in and he spent the last quarter on the bench, thinking it was time to get this thing fixed. He took a week off and, with his surgery scheduled for a few days after the Knights’ final-round match, decided he might as well play. On his eighteenth birthday, Pat kicked 4 goals against Geelong in a little over a half. Walking off the ground, he felt nostalgic, and was disappointed about what he would miss out on should the Knights play right through 193


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the finals. But at the same time, he felt more settled than he had in a long time. Pat had come back from injury in good shape, not seeming to lose any form. He’d played in the midfield, and played well there. People were telling him he’d get drafted for sure now and, for the first time, he believed them. He felt ready to finish, he couldn’t think of anything more he could have done. Then the cheque for his surgery didn’t arrive at Greg Hoy’s office in time. His operation was postponed, so he decided to play against Gippsland. ‘Why not?’ he’d thought. ‘There’s nothing to lose now.’ Pat’s mother, Jennie, felt like he was slowly being pulled away from her. No-one seemed to care what she thought anymore, about anything, really. She noticed it first with the player agents: they were telling her where Pat would live next year, what his weekly budget would be and how much he should spend on his first car, as though she’d have no say in it. Pat had started speaking to agents after he hurt his thumb. He didn’t want to commit until he heard his name called on draft day but was getting so many phone calls it had become annoying. He liked Paul Connors, and Tom Petroro had sounded nice on the phone; he didn’t mind Mark Kleiman, either. But the first one to come to his house had been Ricky Nixon. Jennie, Rob and Pat sat down with him one night while Matt listened in from an adjoining room; he’d provide his assessment later. Pat was still a little dubious about the agents and had decided to ask everyone who visited a few questions: whether they’d seen him play, when, what they thought he was good at and what needed work. ‘I reckon some of them don’t even watch the matches, they just want to get their numbers up,’ he said. ‘Some of them do. You see some of them at the games, but I don’t know. I have this question mark that some of them just want their 3 per cent.’ He didn’t get the impression that Ricky had seen a lot of him. ‘He said I was good at kicking and that I was quick. But he could have said that about anyone,’ Pat said. ‘Then again, he must be pretty busy. He’s got all the big names like Nick Riewoldt so he must be doing something right.’ The point Jennie got stuck on, replaying over and over, was when Ricky said that should St Kilda draft Pat, they’d want him to move closer to Moorabbin. ‘He said it so matter of factly, like they wouldn’t ask us what we thought,’ she said. ‘And it’s only St Kilda. It’s not that far away, but he said it in this way that made it sound like we’d have no say in his life anymore. I didn’t think it would be like that.’ 194


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Since Pat hurt his shoulder, Jennie had also become aware that whenever someone called about it – Alan McConnell, Peter Kennedy or anyone else – they rang Pat, not her. She listened to him speak to them, sounding so much like an adult, then hanging up to tell her he had this appointment or that appointment, that the operation was being done on this day. ‘There’s been a lot of pressure on him from both sides and he’s still naive. He’s grown up a lot but he’s still 17 and he still takes people on their word,’ she said. ‘It would have been nice if someone came to us. It would’ve been nice if someone thought: I wonder what his mum thinks.’ Until he hurt his shoulder against Dandenong, Jennie had thought Pat should play for as long as he could. She felt some people at the Knights had put too much emotional pressure on him, making him feel guilty, but still thought he should help his teammates out for as long as he possibly could. She was also worried he hadn’t done enough yet, that he’d have the operation, stop playing and be forgotten about. ‘All these recruiters keep ringing and I just wish someone could say they’d definitely pick him, even with the hundredth pick,’ she said. ‘At least then we’d know. If he goes through all this and doesn’t get drafted, he’ll be shattered.’ The plan against Gippsland was to come on at the halfway mark of each quarter and hang out only in the forward line. Twenty seconds after he first ran on in the first term, Pat slid on top of a ball, trapped it, scrambled to his feet, faked a high handball and, from a standing start, slung the ball towards goal with his right boot. It bounced . . . bounced . . . took a left-hand turn and bounced, one last time, through the goals. It was as if the game knew something everyone else would find out in time. The match was the biggest one of Pat’s season, the best one, and he felt not one single bit of pressure. Every time he ran on the ground, the ball came to him; almost every time he kicked it, it went through the goals. He kicked 2 in the first term, 1 in the second and 3 in the third, as the Knights stretched a 12-point half-time lead into a 6-goal break. Satterley left him on the ground for the start of the final term and, seven minutes in, Pat gobbled a Trent Cotchin pass and kicked his seventh goal. Five minutes after that his work was done: Pat gathered a half-volley and, turning around his opponent in a single movement, took off; taking two bounces, he glanced over his right shoulder, took a couple more steps and 195


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scored his eighth goal. He could do no wrong and he had no idea why it was happening, but he loved every second of it. This time, as he headed for the bench again, he wasn’t ready for hospital. This time, he didn’t want to stop.

Sunday 9 September 2007 Murray Bushrangers v Calder Cannons, Princes Park As the Knights wandered off Princes Park, Pat feeling sick in his stomach, Ben led the Bushrangers out. After winning their last nine games, the Bushies had finished in third spot, having to beat the Calder Cannons for a place in the preliminary finals and a weekend off. High up in the stands, a recruiter was getting ready to watch. Now was the time to start sorting out where, exactly, players deserved to be picked. He wanted another look at how well Ben could scoop balls up off the ground, how good his contested marking was and whether he would lead to the right spots. Had Peter Dean mentioned what happened the last time Murray played Calder, Ben was ready to cut him off. ‘It’s in the past,’ he’d been waiting to say. The week after that match, the Bushrangers had played well and Ben had a much less frustrating day but, last week, they’d played the Western Jets, and Ben barely saw the ball in the first quarter. ‘Great,’ he thought at the quarter-time break. ‘Don’t tell me I’m in for another one . . .’ Then the ball started coming to him, and he started marking it. In the air, no-one could budge him. He kicked 7 goals, gave another one off, and the Bushies won by 16 points. ‘Finally . . .’ thought Pete, watching his brother from the sidelines. It was his best game all year. ‘He’s finally learned how to mark again . . .’ Dean didn’t mention the last Calder game at all, other than to remind the boys that the Cannons would do things differently: they were the ones who had lost, after all. Ben expected Jackson Trengove to line up on him again, but wasn’t fixed on the idea. If he did get the same opponent, he had plans: to run him around, push further up the ground than he had last time, then drop straight back to the goal square. But he wanted to be confident, to have an open mind, and it was just as well. As the two teams took their spots, a different player stood alongside him: Travis Dulic. Up in the stands, the recruiter got his binoculars out. 196


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First quarter Murray got the first clear kick from the middle. Ben started in the goal square then ran to meet the ball, gathering it on its second, high bounce and dishing off a handball. He felt relieved to get involved early. ‘That was good,’ said the recruiter. ‘I still need to see what he’s like beneath his knees though. I want to see him pick the ball up off the ground and do the same thing.’ Twelve minutes in, the Cannons had a 2-goal lead. Tom Rockliff took a low, sliding mark directly in front of goal and Ben helped shepherd his low shot through for Murray’s first score. ‘He used his body well there,’ said the recruiter. ‘I do wonder how much bigger he’s going to get though. His parents are both endurance runners and he’s very lean, like they are. He does have a reasonable frame but can he build on it?’ At the 13-minute mark, Sam Livingstone’s long kick from the middle fell at Ben’s feet. He couldn’t pick it up, the ball bouncing against his shin and over the boundary. At 19 minutes, he contested a throw-in at the top of the 50-metre line. ‘I’m not sure why he went up with his left hand there’ said the recruiter, wanting to see more. ‘With almost 20 minutes gone, he’s had one handball, one tap and one fumble. Their kicking to him has been terrible, so it’s hard to judge his involvement in the game. They’ve got to start getting the ball down to him, or get him into the ruck.’ The Cannons led by 4 goals to 1 at the first break and Ben was edgy. The most rewarding thing about playing deep in the forward line was how hard you had to work; if you got a kick, you generally deserved it. But when the ball came down sporadically, haphazardly – or both, as was the case today − it was frustrating. ‘You feel like you’ve got to do something every single time it comes down,’ he said. ‘I was exploding inside; it was driving me crazy. I was trying to be patient but it was coming in and going out so quickly I couldn’t even work hard.’ Second quarter Ben got his first kick 12 minutes in, after Dulic pushed him in the back. The Bushies had started winning the ball through the middle, but weren’t moving forward with much purpose. ‘I think they’ve got to move him,’ said the recruiter. ‘We’re up to 45 minutes gone and he’s had one kick and a handball. I’d like to see him up the ground.’ Ben wasn’t so sure. He’d 197


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sensed Calder’s pressure start to drop slightly, thought Murray’s half-backs were playing tighter and that the midfielders were slowly starting to kick a bit better. ‘I thought we’d click, I could sort of see it coming,’ he said. ‘When we did, I thought I’d be more use as a forward.’ By the 20-minute mark, Murray had inched closer and Ben had inched up to centre half-forward. The ball squirted free to a flank and he raced after it with Dulic beside. The Calder player beat him to the ball, dug out a handball and his side was off and running. ‘He was beaten for speed there,’ noted the recruiter. ‘He wasn’t quick enough. That’s the query: his pace. It isn’t there at the moment. If you want him to play as a forward, he’s too slow.’ Late in the quarter, Ben took a downfield free from 45 metres out. ‘This will test him . . .’ the recruiter said. Ben kicked his first goal. ‘Well done. A nice, low, flat kick.’ Third quarter The Cannons had a 3-goal lead at half-time and Ben started the third term in the ruck. ‘You beauty,’ said the recruiter, but Ben wasn’t convinced it was the best place for him to be. ‘I feel out of touch there,’ he said. ‘As soon as I go into the ruck we struggle a bit up forward. Even if I’m not getting much of it, just having a tall target down there straightens us up. And if I go into the ruck and nothing changes, that’s frustrating too.’ Playing loose across half-back, Ben took an early mark in space, running, bouncing and kicking long just as he was tackled. He did the same thing a few minutes later. ‘He positioned himself well there; he knew where to be. His kicking’s improved,’ said the recruiter. Eleven minutes in, Dawson took over in the ruck and Ben went back to full-forward. ‘He looks buggered,’ the recruiter observed, but not long later Ben marked a high ball about 45 metres from goal. ‘That was a smart lead. He read the kick-in earlier than a few of them.’ The shot missed after starting low, staying low and skimming off hands for a point. ‘Bad ball drop,’ the recruiter said. ‘It was an early drop and the wind got it. He should have controlled it for longer.’ Two minutes later, Ben got another chance. After giving away a free kick by crashing late into a pack, the ball quickly rebounded back towards him. He propped under the high kick, taking the mark with his eyes up high and his arms stretched over his head, then kicked the goal. ‘That was 198


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a good grab. He took it over a midget but it was a difficult one to judge and he took it cleanly.’ Murray kicked 3 quick goals to end the quarter, remaining 2 goals behind after Calder scored on the siren. Ben had a good feeling. ‘I thought we’d win,’ he said. ‘I believed we could, at least.’ Fourth quarter Ben began in the ruck again and the Bushies kicked 3 goals in six minutes to snatch the lead. In the coaches’ box, Peter Dean thought that, while the whole team had settled down, Ben and Tom Rockliff were the two who had most helped turn the game, simply by giving the others something to kick to. Five minutes in, Ben marked a low, wobbly shot at goal on the Calder goal line. He looked up and around, saw nothing much to kick to and ran around the player on the mark, opening up some space. ‘Excellent,’ said the recruiter. ‘Very smart.’ Then he noticed Ben lingering on a half-back flank as the Bushies moved forward. ‘He really needed to run hard and push forward there to make himself a target,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have that real willingness to run into space right now, but that may come. I just can’t be sure whether he’s going to be a ruckman or a forward though. He’s 200 centimetres but I’m not sure he’s tall or robust enough to be an AFL ruckman. And I don’t know whether he’ll have enough strings to his bow to play as a key forward. He’s a bit of both at the moment and those are the issues if you’re considering him with a top-5 or top-10 pick.’ Ben played better and better. After a wobbly shot at goal dropped, luckily, into Tom’s hands, he took a big mark near the goal line, holding his ground in the middle of a pack and plucking the ball away from the defenders on either side of him. ‘That’s what we’ve been waiting for. A big, contested grab,’ said the recruiter. ‘That was serious AFL quality. We still haven’t seen him do much at ground level but he can certainly take a grab.’ Stepping back to take his kick, Ben noticed how relaxed he felt. ‘I was still worried and nervous, and all those things,’ he said, ‘but it somehow didn’t affect my footy. In the last quarter, I just sort of played.’ The Bushies won by 3 goals. Tom kicked 7 goals, Ben kicked 4, and maybe it was the thrill of the moment, but he couldn’t think of a better win in his life. 199


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That night, Ben went to the Morrish medal count with his parents – not exactly a black tie event, the kids only got in trouble if they didn’t wear their club-coloured tracksuit tops. The league’s best-and-fairest award had a habit of being won by tiny ball magnets with dubious draft hopes – Nathan Brown, Lenny Hayes and Matthew Bate were the exceptions, and a two-time winner, David Rodan, had defied the odds. Matthew Kreuzer, however, had given the umpires no choice but to crane their necks and give him their votes. The win improved Matt’s day: his bag had been stolen from the change rooms with his wallet and iPod inside. Ben, named at centre half-forward in the Team of the Year, spent the night on stage with Jack Grimes; it was their job to recite the round-by-round summaries before the votes were announced. Both made sure that, if their own name was on the page, they didn’t read it out. It was 2.30 am by the time the McEvoys made it home and Ben fell asleep imagining how he’d spend his weekend off: hanging out with the dogs, wearing his big hat and drenching some sheep. Perfect. At the Morrish medal dinner, Leon Harris, sitting across from Kevin Sheehan, wasn’t looking forward to organising Pat Veszpremi’s postponed surgery. ‘Do I have to play the bad guy?’ he asked, Sheehan smiling and shaking his head. There were only two games to go now. ‘Let him play,’ he said. ‘Let’s just let him play.’

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‘ I’d like to see him

test, and test well ’

Thursday 13 September 2007 Ten clubs knew their place in the new pecking order – the draft order – when the Hawthorn recruiters gathered again, one week into the finals. For the first time in a long time, the team that finished last on the ladder was not going to have the No. 1 pick in the draft. By round 22, Carlton had a new coach, Brett Ratten, and some new enthusiasm. But the Blues still hadn’t scraped the one win they needed to notch five for the year, and forfeit their priority pick. In the final game of the home-andaway season, the fifteenth-placed Carlton kicked 5 of 6 third-quarter goals against Melbourne – the fourteenth-placed team – before the Demons shook them off and won by 5 goals. The result left the Blues holding the first and third picks in the draft, with Richmond, the wooden spooner, squeezed in between. The Melbourne–Carlton game had been dubbed the match neither club could afford to win – had the Demons lost, they would have finished on four wins, denying the Blues the No. 1 pick and entering the draft at No. 3. Under the new priority-pick system, Melbourne would have also had an extra choice at the start of the second round but having won, they would now come in at No. 4, with no bonus pick. It could have been better for Carlton, though. Wayne Hughes was listening to the round 22 Richmond–St Kilda game on his radio; at the 22-minute mark of the last quarter the Tigers were up, the Blues sat last on the ladder and held both the No. 1 and No. 2 picks, as well as the first pre-season pick. ‘The word was already out on Chris Judd coming home,’ he said. ‘I was thinking: Kreuzer, Cotchin; throw in Judd in the pre-season 201


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draft . . .’ Then the Saints came back and won, Richmond remaining in last place and Hughes’ dream staying on hold. The Hawks still didn’t know where they sat, for a very good reason, despite staggering to the end of the regular season. A big win over the Bulldogs in round 21 was sandwiched between a shattering loss to Port Adelaide – a Brett Ebert goal with three seconds left pushed the Power to second spot, and Hawthorn to fourth – and a crushing 72-point defeat by Sydney. Having sat in the top four almost all year, the Hawks finished fifth and were led by Adelaide at each change of ends in their elimination final. Chance Bateman was injured, Luke Hodge struggling too. Then, with less than 30 seconds to go, Rick Ladson held onto the ball for a crucial few seconds on the half-forward line. As Buddy Franklin slipped away from Kris Massie, Ladson shot him a pass, and Franklin grasped the mark. His nerveless shot from outside the 50-metre line delivered a 3-point win and kept his side alive. If the Hawks lost their semi-final to the Kangaroos on the coming weekend, they’d have the No. 12 or No. 13 pick in the national draft, depending on what happened in the other semi-final between West Coast and Collingwood. If Hawthorn won, their first pick would be anywhere between Nos. 14 and 17.

Throughout the year, Chris Pelchen had kept close tabs on three different groups of players. To make sure he was reviewing and rating opposition players properly, he had to see enough of certain teams and players – both in games, and at training, which often told him more about them. Most players applied themselves in a game, but on a training track they could pick and choose more. Pelchen reviewed Hawthorn’s players weekly – some weeks, it meant watching them live or on tape; other times it might involve a quick chat with one of the assistant coaches, the medical team and Andrew Russell, the fitness coach. But towards the end of the year, when the club was getting closer to making final decisions on who went off the list, it became critical to watch them with his own eyes. Pelchen was also talking informally with other clubs – about which players they might look to move on and about which, if any, Hawks they were interested in. Most clubs didn’t like to do that until their season was over but, by grand final day, Pelchen would have spoken to every club bar 202


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Geelong and Port Adelaide. When Hawthorn’s season reached an official end, he’d sit down with Alastair Clarkson and the assistant coaches to make decisions on both individual players and where the club should aim to position itself in the upcoming draft; the men would meet briefly the week after their last match and more formally in the days before trade week. In 2005, for instance, the Hawks decided they needed to load up on early draft picks and went into trade week with a plan of how to get them, eventually trading Jon Hay and Nathan Lonie. The thinking this year was that the top-25 players in the draft were clearly better than the rest, and that an extra pick inside there would be useful. The last group of players Pelchen knew well was the draftees. He and the recruiting managers were preparing for the draft camp, which was held the week after the grand final and was where the coaching and the recruiting departments would come together for the first official postseason time. The Hawks would take a big crew to the camp, including Pelchen, Buckenara, Wright and Greg Boxall, as well as Jason Burt, the club’s player welfare and development manager; development coach Geoff Morris, Mark Evans and Clarkson. Ian Robson went too, but just for one night, and mostly to get everyone assembled for a rare dinner together. Andrew Lambart, the club physiotherapist, would head up for the first day, when each club was allowed to have someone do a medical check on each player. Lambart would then liaise with Andrew Russell, who after watching the boys run and jump could explain to the recruiters any physical problems limiting a player’s performance. His presence was critical for other reasons too − he might watch a kid run a 20-metre sprint and feel sure that, if he made one minor change to his technique or gait, he could get him moving more quickly. The other person at the camp would be assistant coach David Rath, a biomechanist who had spent eight years at the AIS specialising in skill development, kicking in particular. He had access to the recruiting database and had already provided his thoughts on various boys’ techniques. Seeing them in the flesh he might spot a small, fixable problem, or he may see little room for improvement. It would be a busy few days, with lots of things to see and take in. ‘You can sit in your office with the test results in front of you, but you can’t see a player’s application during the test if you do that,’ Pelchen said. ‘You might 203


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see that a player’s run a 13.2 on the beep test and think: “OK, that seems all right.” But was he limited because he was injured or sore? Did he pull out too soon and not look in any discomfort at all?’ You had to be there to see all those things, and to ask the boys about them. Hawthorn would have done around 40 official interviews ahead of the camp, with another 25 to be done after it. Before then, recruiters were encouraged to talk to players who had grabbed their interest – even if it was just a quick, casual chat at the end of a match. The questions in the official interviews were devised with input from the club’s psychologist, and each boy was asked virtually the same thing. If they weren’t, it became difficult to compare how each of them had performed. Ten weeks out from the draft, the Hawks’ list had narrowed further. Peter Ryan could imagine drafting only one Bendigo player – Scott Selwood. A few Calder Cannons were still in the club’s thinking, but they weren’t as sold on them as they had been: Mitch Farmer had been good – ‘He’s the only one who can really grab a game and win it,’ Peter said – but Ash Arrowsmith’s form had fallen away, and they no longer thought he’d be picked in the first two rounds. James Polkinghorne was another they liked but he’d also dropped slightly down the order; Addam Maric was still listed as a likely first or second rounder; and the athletic Dean Putt had intrigued Steve Barker. ‘He’s not slow; his skills are terrific and he’s 202 centimetres,’ he said. ‘He’s got all the skills to be a surprise first rounder, I reckon.’ Anthony DeJong could still see only a few ‘maybes’ at the Eastern Ranges – Daniel Noy was quick and Andrew Renton tall, but did they have enough of everything else? – and considered only Matthew Lobbe a certain draftee. Bocca had heard a few rumours out of Dandenong: four clubs had spoken to onballer John McCarthy and the word out of Jarrad Grant’s school was that Grant thought he’d be picked in the first five. Jarrad Boumann, a tall forward, was the other player Bocca thought may be drafted. ‘He has trouble beneath his knees but he’s learning the caper,’ he said. The Geelong Falcons looked like having a bunch of players drafted: Mark Pelchen thought midfielders Ed Curnow and Guy O’Keefe had a chance; wasn’t sure about Chris Kangars’ kicking but thought someone would be tempted by his athleticism; and also thought a club might grab 204


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Jack Steven, a 17-year-old onballer, late in the draft. ‘Then we get to Lachie Henderson . . .’ he said. ‘He’s so hard to assess,’ began Peter. ‘I wish they’d put him down to centre half-back on the weekend. They needed him down there badly.’ ‘He’s a hard one,’ Graham said. ‘I’ve said all year I see him as a defender, but he’s had injuries and he just hasn’t got back up to speed. You’d see him as a top-10 player, but no-one’s really been able to see him play well this year.’ ‘I haven’t seen him take a really big, strong mark this year,’ said Steve. ‘He looks like he will but I haven’t seen him quite do it yet.’ ‘I’m with you. He looks fantastic,’ said Bocca. ‘He’s like a young colt. I just want to see a bit more. But he can play, I reckon.’ Patrick Dangerfield had been listed as a first or second rounder before this meeting. Graham pointed out that, while he was going to nominate, Patrick was telling clubs he wanted to stay at home in 2008 and finish Year 12 at his own school. It would be interesting to see if that scared anyone off. Mark was a fan, and wanted to promote him into the first round. ‘He’s an exciting player,’ he said. ‘His ability to accelerate is very impressive. On the weekend his kicking was probably a bit below average, especially early on. But as the game went on he got it back up to the standard I’d expect of him.’ Bocca posed a question. ‘What are people’s thoughts on his bouncing?’ he asked. ‘When he runs and bounces the ball?’ ‘I think he bounces the ball very close to himself,’ said Graham. ‘And I think he’s running too fast when he actually kicks the ball, which affects his kicking.’ ‘What’s his movement like?’ asked Steve. ‘Can he move sideways quickly?’ ‘I’ve seen him weave through traffic a few times,’ said Graham. ‘I think he’ll go first round, but he’ll be more likely at the back end, won’t he? Or even at the start of the second round?’ ‘I’d have him higher than that,’ said Mark. ‘I think he’ll be picked first round.’ Mark went through the North Ballarat side next. He didn’t see much there, but thought Matt Austin and Clayton Hinkley would be drafted and possibly Kyle Cheney. Steve ran through the Bushrangers next – a 205


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slightly longer list. He thought that Ryan Normington and Dean Terlich were possibly draftable, defender Daniel Boyle was worth monitoring through the rest of the finals and saw no reason to alter Ben McEvoy’s ranking. ‘As soon as they got him into the ruck he changed the course of the game on the weekend,’ he said. ‘He’s the second-best ruckman in it, and Dawson Simpson’s been better every time I’ve seen him. He’s got some real aggression to his game now.’ Graham wasn’t sure about him. ‘To be honest, I thought he was a bit disappointing on the weekend. I thought he got jumped over by smaller ruckmen.’ ‘He’s come from a fair way back,’ Peter pointed out. ‘What he didn’t do on the weekend − but that I saw up in Wangaratta a few weeks back − was a couple of big pack marks. He was marking kick-outs all day long. He didn’t do it on the weekend, but I reckon he’s improving all the time. He’ll get drafted for sure.’ There were a few possibles on the Oakleigh Chargers’ list: Harry Croft? Lachie Hill? Graham thought Hugh Sandilands was a possible second-round pick and Steve thought he might push even higher, but Anthony DeJong believed Andy Otten was their best player. ‘He’s the one who’s improved each week,’ he said. Steve wanted to upgrade two Northern Knights. The first, David Zaharakis, was a slippery 17-year-old wingman. ‘I think he might get drafted as a speculative pick,’ Steve said. ‘He’s not a driving kick but he has good leg speed, a good engine and good sideways movement.’ The other player was Brett Meredith. ‘I still have a concern over his leg speed,’ Steve said. ‘He can run, but I’m not sure he’s got the legs to go, and go again. I’m not sure if he’s a one-effort player when he could make two or three.’ He’d watched Pat score his 8 goals on the weekend and thought he’d done everything right, and well. ‘It’s funny,’ he said. ‘Every time he gets the footy − even if he’s outside 50 – no-one bothers leading.’ ‘Why would you?’ asked Bocca. ‘He doesn’t miss!’ ‘It’s not really a criticism. He’s a beautiful kick. I just think he can be a bit selfish,’ Steve said. ‘He’s versatile though,’ said Graham. ‘He can go forward and play that role, then go back and find the footy.’ ‘Put him in the middle and he can get it there as well. I’ve warmed 206


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to him now, I must admit,’ said Bocca. ‘I’m glad he kept playing. I won’t forget a few of those goals on the weekend in a hurry.’ ‘I find it hard to see him getting past the second round,’ Graham said, wrapping things up. ‘I think his speed will be fine but it’s whether he can keep running. I’d like to see him test, and test well.’

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‘ Hi, you’ve never met me, but I’m taking your son to Perth now ’ Wednesday 26 September 2007 Collingwood kicked 3 extra-time goals to topple West Coast in the second week of the finals. Two days later, the Eagles’ hobbled captain told the club that after six years, a Brownlow, a Norm Smith medal and a premiership, he wanted to go home to Melbourne. The first result left the club’s recruiters holding the thirteenth national draft pick, but Chris Judd’s impending departure meant they also owned the most valuable piece of trade bait in the history of football. Hence, Trevor Woodhouse and Rohan O’Brien were sitting on the couch in Trent Cotchin’s living room, changing their plans. Trent’s swollen left foot was swathed in a soft slipper and he was starting to wonder why it still felt so sore. His season had ended five minutes into the third quarter of the preliminary final, five days earlier. The Knights kicked the first 2 goals of the second half and led the Cannons by 29 points, then it all went wrong. At the next centre bounce, Trent’s feet got stuck beneath a tumbling teammate and he fell forward onto his knees, then Pat Veszpremi strained his hamstring and David Zaharakis his Achilles. With Adrian Totino already nursing a broken wrist, Brett Meredith and Matthew Kreuzer were the last men standing in the midfield. They did their best, but Calder kept running and won by 14 points. In the emergency room at the hospital, a nurse checked Trent’s foot out and seemed certain it was broken. Three hours later, the X-ray showed only some bad bruising. But he couldn’t shake the thought something more was going on. Trent first heard of Judd’s plans on a television news break and it was hard not to imagine what it might mean for him. What if West Coast got 208


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the No. 3 pick from Carlton? He’d read that Richmond wanted to trade for Eagle forward Mitch Morton; did that mean the Tigers would swing a deal, pick Mitch’s younger brother Cale at No. 2 and leave Trent sitting there for West Coast? And what if the Eagles somehow got the first pick? Would they choose him, ahead of everyone else? His mum felt a sudden rush of uncertainty the second she heard the Judd news too. All year long, Kath and Peter had been told Trent was a top-5 pick – all year long, Melbourne clubs had held the first five picks. ‘I think we felt safe,’ Kath said. Now, they didn’t, and doubt was the last thing either they or Trent wanted more of. His foot was hurting and his team had lost. He was torn between missing Lilah and being angry and frustrated with her. When she first left, they had talked on the phone all the time; then her first $2000 bill arrived, which meant that had to stop. It had been harder to get in touch since and when he did they seemed to argue all the time. He didn’t know what things would be like when she got back, or even when she’d get back. He’d been thinking ‘November, November, November . . .’ ever since she flew out, and now she was saying December. Trent had friends, but not really close ones who he confided in. When Lilah wasn’t around, he tended to turn to his sister; but Steph had a new boyfriend, and hadn’t been around as much lately either. He really wanted Lilah to come back. ‘She loves it over there and I’m glad she loves it, but it’s so frustrating,’ he said. ‘It’s like there’s this huge, big gap between us. It doesn’t feel good.’ Now, the Eagles were in his living room. It was the first time Trent had met officially with a club, although it wasn’t really an interview. Trevor was West Coast’s recruiting manager, Rohan was his Melbournebased full-timer and neither of them needed to ask Trent much about his footy – they’d been watching him play all year. But Trevor started his job in 2001 and since then had chosen 22 players through the national draft. Five were West Australians; Brent Staker was from Broken Hill; three were from South Australia and the rest were Victorians. It meant he was taking a lot of teenage boys a very long way from their home, he knew that, and he made sure that either he or Rohan had been to meet the family of every kid they were considering. It was also useful to see the boys in their homes: did they seem disciplined, and organised? Were they tidy? Did they get along with their 209


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siblings? ‘It’s not like we go rummaging through their garbage,’ Woodhouse said. ‘But you pick up certain things when you see them in their own environment.’ He wasn’t a huge fan of psychological testing − and as a former school teacher he knew how much growing up any 17- or 18-yearold had to do − but did try and get his own sense of their staying power. Not in terms of getting homesick – every interstate kid he’d picked had missed home at some point – but whether they’d cope with the move, with the training and with such a demanding first job. ‘You can get a feel for those things and I think there’s a bit of a correlation between academic intelligence, if you like, and their ability to cope and achieve,’ Trevor said. ‘The kids who can finish school off really well while playing such a high level of footy tend to be disciplined, good time managers and able to cope with a lot. Those are the kids that tend to be ahead of the pack.’ Woodhouse liked to introduce himself, de-mystify his club, and explain to parents what would happen after the draft on the off chance he chose their son. Draft day was emotional and he wasn’t in the business of knocking on someone’s door two hours after it finished, saying: ‘Hi, you’ve never met me, but I’m taking your son to Perth now.’ This year had been different to others, too. This year, the Eagles had problems and parents were getting worried about sending their kids there. All the recruiters could do was say that the players they picked tended to stay, were well looked after and that the club was under more scrutiny than ever, from outside and within. If anyone asked, Trevor was happy to tell them what he could about Ben Cousins and what the club was doing to make sure no-one slid into a similar trap. ‘I’ll talk openly but, to be honest, no-one’s said to me that they have issues with the club’s culture,’ he said. ‘I think it’s more that: “Shit, you’re on the other side of the country.”’ He found it happened more with kids who could tell, or had been told, that they were ranked in the top part of the draft. ‘If a kid’s borderline, he’d be happy to go play in Papua New Guinea,’ he said. ‘But if you know you’re a high pick you suddenly start to think: “Why should I have to go to Perth?” There’s no doubt most people would prefer their 17-year-old boys to stay at home. That’s a given. And with that being a given, you have to make them feel more comfortable that, if it does happen, they’ll be looked after in a good way.’ That was what he began by telling the Cotchins over a glass of water in a casual, hour-long chat. The club never told any kid they would definitely 210


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pick him, he told Trent, because who knew what would happen. But if they picked him . . . ‘I’ve never had anyone say they wouldn’t go to Perth but we’ve certainly had people feel daunted at the prospect of heading over,’ he said. ‘How would you feel, do you think?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Trent, with a smile and a shrug. ‘I suppose my dream’s always been to play at the top level . . . playing at a well-off sort of club would be good. I guess you’d have to take it as it comes.’ ‘Well to run you through our procedures, in terms of relocation . . . With the draft being on a Saturday, we have an induction weekend the following week. We bring all the parents over . . . often some little brothers and sisters come as well.’ ‘What about big sisters?’ asked Kath. ‘Unfortunately we only pay for the parents . . .’ smiled Trevor. ‘Well you won’t be going, Tess!’ laughed Peter. ‘We have a guy who looks after our player welfare,’ continued Trevor. ‘His name’s Ian Miller and he’s been involved for a long time. He played 100 games for Fitzroy and he looks after that side of it, he sets the boys up with a host family and he does a lot of work with that. We want to make sure we put the right kids with the right people, if that makes sense.’ ‘What sort of people are they?’ asked Kath. ‘We’ve got a few,’ Trevor said. ‘They’re usually older people whose children have moved on. They’re West Coast supporters, they’re footy fanatics and we’ve found them fantastic. So much so that a lot of the parents who come across and visit actually stay with the host families and become quite close to them. They’re all located close to the ground so you won’t have to travel. They’re all near the beach, which you’ll probably like in summer . . .’ ‘When do the kids have to leave?’ asked Peter. ‘Do they stay a year and then have to move out, sort of thing . . . ?’ ‘That’s really up to them,’ Trevor said. ‘We like them to stay for a couple of years, especially if they’re 17. Shannon Hurn will probably stay a third year, I think Shannon’s pretty switched on money wise and sees it as a good opportunity to get all his meals cooked! So it depends on the kid, really.’ ‘It is a huge move,’ Rohan chipped in. ‘On Friday the twenty-third you’ll be sitting here, and the next day you could be in Brisbane or Sydney or Perth or Adelaide . . .’ 211


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‘We understand that, and there’s a lot to get used to,’ Trevor said. ‘In terms of the WAFL – the local comp – they run a mini draft. All the players that are drafted by Freo or West Coast come over and go into a little pool where the team that finished last gets first pick, and so on. The boys always play in the seniors, Ian Miller talks to the coach once a week, he talks to the young guys, he talks to the parents and the host parents . . .’ ‘What happens with training?’ asked Peter. ‘Would he be training with both teams?’ ‘All your training’s with us,’ Trevor said. ‘You basically just play with the local club on the Saturday but we expect you to embrace the club pretty well. There’s always a little stigma attached when you go back: that this guy’s an AFL-listed player, he must think he’s pretty good. We tell all our young guys, even if you’re an early pick, your footy hasn’t changed, if you know what I mean. It might be Joe Public’s perception that if you’re a No. 3 or 4 draft pick you must be pretty good, but nothing changes between September and November. You’re still the same player with the same things to work on.’ ‘Just say Trent was drafted by West Coast. Do we get to go and watch any games?’ Peter asked. ‘You do,’ Trevor said. ‘They’re changing it next year. What happens is you’ll get a $7000 relocation allowance, which gets you moved over, and then you get some air fares. You’ll get a couple to use to go home in your first year, and the parents get eight. If you play your first game, we fly your parents over for that too. And you get a living-away-from-home allowance, which basically pays your board.’ ‘It’s something that’ll be tough,’ Rohan added. ‘Having followed Trent all the way through, you can’t just get up on Saturday morning and wander down to watch him play. We’re very sympathetic towards it; there’s just not much we can do about it.’ ‘All we can say is that we do our best to look after them,’ Trevor added. ‘But that’s, I guess, where we’re at with what we’re doing. We’re not really here to discuss your footy, but in terms of school, you’re finishing Year 12?’ ‘Yep,’ said Trent. ‘Nearly done. I’m aiming for a score in the 70s.’ ‘To get into uni?’ ‘Yeah. Education, probably. Either that or massage and myotherapy.’ ‘OK. And are you keen to do that after you’re drafted?’ 212


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‘Yeah. I want to do something other than just footy.’ ‘We’re pretty big on that,’ Trevor said. ‘The coach organises training so that everything’s pretty regimented. Every Tuesday you’d have off; training sessions are pretty much the same every week. So when you put your preferences in, are you going to just put Melbourne unis?’ ‘I was going to,’ said Trent, ‘but should I . . . ?’ ‘Maybe talk to your careers person,’ Trevor said. ‘That’s not to say we’re going to select you but it might help out if you do come across. And look, traditionally with our 17-year-old guys we offer them three-year deals. We do that for the guys we pick in the first round as well. I guess from our point of view it’s good security for us. And I’ve seen so many guys come across in their first year and have niggles. With a third year it just means you don’t go through that angst in your second year thinking: am I going to get cut? You’re not on the edge of your seat.’ ‘Do you think it’s a hard team for a young bloke to crack into?’ Peter asked. ‘It’s going to depend,’ Trevor said. ‘So much can happen, but coaches by nature I reckon love to see their new players. Will Schofield ended up playing two games this year and I would’ve thought he was the length of the Flemington straight away from it. Mitch Brown played four or five. Jamie McNamara came off the rookie list and played a final . . .’ ‘Do you rest guys halfway through the year if they get tired?’ Trent asked. ‘We do. Again, it depends on how you’re feeling and we keep tabs on that. There’s a big increase in work load. Mitch Brown got really tired at one stage this year, I had him around for dinner one night and he reckoned he was sleeping 12 hours a day.’ ‘Sounds like someone I know . . .’ said Kath. ‘What about a young guy in his first pre-season?’ asked Trent. ‘Do they do everything?’ ‘They do about half. It depends on the person,’ Trevor said. ‘The one thing we say is if you’re sore, tell someone. I’ve seen so many young guys come along and think they have to do it all, but it’s really, really important that you let someone know if you’re struggling. And as I said, we realise it’s a tough gig to pick you up and take you over. There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge and we know it’s a very anxious time. My comments 213


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to the young guys are to just focus on your exams. You’ve got control over that; you haven’t got any control over the draft now. Easy for me to say, I know . . . But was there anything else you wanted to talk to us about?’ Trent paused. He had a million thoughts running through his head. There was no way he would sign a three-year contract; that was the first thing that occurred to him. If the Eagles picked him, he couldn’t imagine staying for more than two years. But if they did choose him, he’d go with an open mind. Who knew? It might be good. And what would be the point in setting yourself up to be miserable? ‘I felt like saying “No, don’t pick me,” but how can you say that?’ he said. ‘You can’t.’ Instead, he had another question. ‘How did Chris Judd handle it?’ Trent asked. ‘Back when he got drafted?’

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‘ I will withstand any pressure ’

Saturday 29 September 2007 The MCG was quiet, calm and chilly when the Murray Bushrangers filed silently off their team bus at eight-thirty in the morning. It didn’t look like grand final day yet, but it felt like it. Ben had slept well since the Bushies beat North Ballarat in their preliminary final but his stomach had churned all the way to the ground. After the boys dropped their bags in the change rooms, they wandered straight out onto the empty oval. Ben glanced into the stands that would later be filled with Geelong and Port Adelaide supporters, and was glad he thought to do it; when he ran out to play, less than an hour later, he was so pre-occupied that he didn’t think to look up. It was a few days after the game that he realised what he’d been thinking about all that morning: the team playing badly, falling behind and losing. He wasn’t thinking about winning, but he didn’t really know that then. Even Peter Dean felt jittery, walking for the first time down the race – and he’d played in two premierships for Carlton. He’d never been on the ground so early in the day, before it was swallowed by sound, and it felt a little eerie. He knew his players were tired: the tricky thing with country teams was that, after taking so long to get going, they ran out of puff quickly, when all of the long road trips began to wear them out. Only a few weeks earlier, Dean had been on the phone to Dawson Simpson’s boss. Dawson was doing an electrical apprenticeship, working long days and then travelling two hours to train. He was exhausted and unsure how to bring it up, but once his boss found out he told him to take all the time off he needed. 215


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Dean had a few worries: Andrew Browne and Kade Klemke were back from ankle problems and Sam Wright had returned from a rib injury, but all three were rusty. James Saker had dislocated his shoulder in the preliminary final, and it had taken 20 minutes to push it back into place. So, after playing in every single game for the season, he was missing out. The team had trained well on Wednesday night but Riley Milne rolled his ankle and had to be ruled out too. And only on Grand Final eve, Dean had found out about Dawson’s broken wrist. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ he asked him. ‘Because you wouldn’t have let me keep playing,’ Dawson said. Simple. The Bushies were up against the Calder Cannons again; this time they’d be harder to beat. They were in healthier shape and nine of their players had played in the 2006 grand final, when they were well beaten by Oakleigh. Knowing how badly they wanted to win, Dean hoped his players had enough energy left to make their 11-game winning streak last one more week. The previous night the boys wrote on a large white sheet of paper what they would do for the team, and then signed their name beside it. It was hanging up now in the MCG rooms: ‘Rocky – an option up forward’; ‘Kade is going to bring run from the backline’; ‘Pain is only temporary, but glory lasts forever – Dawson’; ‘Brycey – hardness around the footy’; ‘I will withstand any pressure – Macca’. The team rules were pinned on a board beneath: One − Appreciate and celebrate our teammates’ efforts at all times. Two – Never drop our heads. Three – Be a blue-collar unit. Four – Maintain pressure and accountability. And finally, five – Enjoy playing football for the Murray Bushrangers. ‘These blokes don’t respect us,’ Dean told the boys 10 minutes before game time as the noise levels started to bubble. ‘They still don’t respect us and that should drive you blokes. We’ve had a good journey and we’re a good chance to win this game. But it’s about pressure. It’s about who can go the longest.’ The crowd was still small when the teams ran out just before 10 am, although two people had found their seats in the top of the Olympic stand: Craig and Brad Ebert. The Eberts had driven over from Adelaide on Thursday to watch the grand final. If the Power beat Geelong, it would make it that little bit harder for them to get their hands on Brad come draft day, but if Port Adelaide won, Brett would be a premiership player, 216


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and that was a good thing. On the morning they left, Brad’s name had bobbed up in an article in the Advertiser, the story pointing out how often and successfully Geelong had used the father–son rule in recent seasons. Three sons – Gary Ablett, Nathan Ablett and full-back Matthew Scarlett – would play against the Power. Three more − Mark Blake, Tim Callan and a big, bullocking young forward called Tom Hawkins – were waiting in the wings. The Cats were about to add to the list: Adam Donohue, the 17-year-old son of Larry, had spent 2007 in the Geelong Falcons backline, showing plenty of promise. That Brad wasn’t able to go straight to the Power had been bothering the Eberts the closer the draft got, as their uncertainty increased. It didn’t even have anything to do with his great-grandfather, grandfather, uncle or cousin, it was all to do with Craig. He had played 112 games for Port Adelaide, even before he went to West Adelaide. Obviously, the Magpies played in a different competition to the Power, but why was it so different for them? Why did SANFL players have to play so many more games? ‘I can understand the AFL’s reasoning. It sounds OK but it’s bullshit in some ways,’ said Craig. ‘It’s not equal; it doesn’t really give us a chance. They have the rule, but who’s ever going to qualify for it? I just don’t think it respects what players have done in other states.’ Chris was feeling more agitated. ‘It’s the greatest load of crap I’ve ever heard,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair. It’s good enough for some to play 100 games but not good enough for others. And it’s a sideline issue, I know it is. I’m probably only worrying about it because I’m getting nervous but it is a bit insulting. I just feel very strongly about it.’ Whenever she brought it up, Brad stirred her even more. ‘But I’ve already played five games for Dad’s club . . .’ he’d tease her. Brad’s mind was on other things. The week after the Glenelg game, Port Adelaide played Sturt. The Magpies lost again and by the end of the match it really hurt to run. After the game, Brad sat down in the rooms and didn’t know how he’d get up again, his groins were so sore. He had no idea what was wrong, but knew something wasn’t right, and thought it might be a good idea to check in with the club physio. He was diagnosed a few days later with some mild, early signs of osteitis pubis – inflammation around the pubic bone caused by too much running, kicking and changing direction, which in turn put pressure on the pubic bone. It was like a stress fracture, 217


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in a way. Brad’s season ended right there, which was disappointing; he’d always wanted to know when his last game for the Magpies would be, to take the moment in, but he didn’t get that chance. He did nothing at all for five weeks and then started swimming and cycling. The first time he ran, last week, the pain flared up and he got worried all over again. The draft camp was on in four days and he wasn’t sure what, if anything, he’d be able to do there. ‘I just keep thinking: what do I do?’ Brad said. It was on his mind, all the time. ‘I’m not sure whether to go there and not do all the testing and have the clubs think my injury must be bad. But if I do the testing and I do badly, then they might think I’m a bad runner or something. And I don’t want to get injured again and be out for another six weeks.’ People kept telling him not to worry, that the clubs knew what he could do. But he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to make the wrong choice. Ben was, he hoped, about to lead the Bushrangers to their first premiership since 1998. The bad start he had secretly feared didn’t happen, at least as far as the team was concerned. Calder kicked the first 2 goals and the Bushies couldn’t get past half-forward for a while, but by the end of the first quarter they’d found some rhythm and levelled the scores. But they were always lagging a little bit behind; they were never really able to make the Cannons chase them. Ash Arrowsmith kicked 4 first-half goals, Darcy Daniher lunged at each pass sent his way and Jackson Trengove jumped all over Dawson in the ruck. Ben got the Bushrangers’ first goal midway through the first term, when Tom Rockliff pumped a handball to him on the goal line, but since then a couple of balls had slipped through his fingers. ‘That’s my absolute bread and butter,’ he thought, as he saw the ball falling for the first time. ‘If I’m playing well, I don’t drop them ever.’ At half-time, the Bushies were down by less than 4 goals. They were still in it, just, although Ben half wished they were further down: maybe then they would have felt a little more urgent. ‘If we can get one or two through early they’ll be worried,’ Dean urged the boys in the break. ‘They’ll be thinking: “Shit, here they come.”’ It didn’t happen. Murray hung in for a while, but could never bridge that 3- or 4-goal gap, Calder winning by 50 points after a final-quarter splurge. In the rooms, Daniel Boyle cried and Tom Rockliff felt guilty too – his job was to kick goals and he’d missed so many simple shots. 218


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Dawson was hurting too, but felt certain he’d made the right choice: footy was definitely what he wanted to do with his life. ‘We just weren’t quite good enough,’ Dean told the team. ‘There’s a lot of disappointment, which is good to see. It’s good to see it hurts, because this should build your character. You’ve got 15 years of football ahead of you and I hope you get the chance to play in another grand final. Work your backsides off, wherever you go. Remember you’re only going to get there by being in a good team.’ Ben’s eyes were dark and he didn’t feel like talking. His stomach was in knots, he didn’t want anyone even looking at him. He sat in the crowd to watch Geelong humiliate the Power, managing to enjoy the match and not let his mind wander. The team had a function that night in Benalla and the boys hit the Shepparton nightclub scene before hanging out the next afternoon at the Goulburn Valley grand final. It was eight o’clock on Sunday night by the time Ben got home; he was absolutely exhausted but it was only when he tried to sleep that the match began to play back over in his head. He lay awake wondering if he could have done more. And if so, how? ‘I was thinking about everything and nothing, in a way,’ Ben said. ‘I’d pretty much decided there was nothing I could’ve done on my own to change the result, but my mind was just wandering around, doing what it wanted.’ Eventually, he slept. He spent the next day on the farm and in the river; the next afternoon he had to collect Dawson, drive to Melbourne and then fly to Canberra for the draft camp. He planned to do his best on the tests – Ben always did his best – but he used to sweat on how well he’d go, and didn’t feel anywhere near as worried this time. He knew the recruiters would hound him about the grand final, and wasn’t looking forward to those conversations, and he hadn’t picked up a school book properly in what felt like a very long time. ‘I’m tired. I’m mentally exhausted,’ he said. ‘I just want a break from having to front up week after week and do what people tell me. I love this game, but you get to a point where you want a break from the obligation. I just want a few days off.’

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Grand Final day: Ben with Dawson Simpson (number 45), after losing

A long way from the G: Ben at work on the farm 220


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Draft camp at the AIS: Junior doing the agility test

Draft camp at the AIS: Trent and Pat talk to veteran Collingwood recruiter, Noel Judkins 221


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33

‘ Can this person handle the pressures of being an AFL footballer? ’

AFL Draft Camp Wednesday 3 October 2007 Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra Day One Each decision on draft day cost a club at least $300 000, once you factored in a draftee’s initial two-year salary and access to coaching and other resources. Hence, the first day of draft camp really was a meat market. When the 78 boys arrived in Canberra on Tuesday night, they were handed a grey t-shirt with an identifying number plastered on the front in big, black digits, then split into groups of seven positional types and sent for a medical check. Ahead of the camp, health checks and any necessary scans had been done, with the medicals covering everything from heart, chest, nose, throat and ear checks to a full musculo-skeletal examination of their spine, hips, shoulders and feet, among other body parts. The boys had simpler things measured too – height, weight, arm length, skinfolds and hand span. Their eyesight was tested and strings of beads were held to their nose to assess their peripheral vision. Since 2005, a physiotherapist or doctor from each club had been able to get their own hands on the boys during the first day of camp. They broke into fours and the players moved from station to station, answering questions and being poked and prodded. ‘Be honest,’ Kevin Sheehan implored them in his pre-camp briefing; it was hard to make the boys understand that there was no point in hiding things, but it was one thing 222


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for a 17-year-old to be hit by a car the day after the draft, and another for a draftee to break down with a pre-existing knee condition, never play a match and be gone in two years – which meant the screenings caught more and more each year. The boys’ hips were scanned for the first time in 2007, and something interesting had turned up: a small, bony bump growing on Matthew Kreuzer’s right hip joint. Carlton and Richmond had some research to do before draft day. Brad’s pre-draft scans showed his osteitis pubis was still mild. He was lucky, and relieved he’d reported it so quickly; everyone he’d asked had told him not to do the testing and not to worry that he couldn’t do it. Pat was booked in to have his shoulder surgery done in another week, but the reason he couldn’t jump and run was because his hamstring was still sore. Trent’s excuse was obvious – he arrived wearing a fibreglass cast from beneath his left knee to his toes. His foot hadn’t improved by the end of grand final week, so the Knights’ doctor sent him for an MRI and a weight-bearing X-ray, which revealed a fracture at the top of his foot, near his ankle. Had the bone broken right through, he would have needed a pin put in it; had he broken the next bone across, the navicular bone, he could have been in big trouble. Geelong defender Matthew Egan had recently broken that same bone, missing out on a premiership. Trent spent 20 minutes on grand final day having the cast made – he’d have to wear it for six weeks and hobble through draft camp on crutches. ‘At least I know now,’ he kept reminding himself.

The first draft camp was held at Waverley Park in 1994. The previous year, Essendon had invited a bundle of prospects out to Windy Hill for a day of running and ball drills. A handful of other clubs liked their idea and did the same thing, prompting the AFL to hijack the concept and ease the boys’ burden. There was some basic psycho-motor testing at the first camp, a skills session and the sprints were run through the concreted entrance to the ground, timed with a stop watch. The camp soon moved to the AIS and clubs quickly began to bring bigger crews along; from senior and assistant coaches to conditioning coaches and psychologists. The Collingwood chief executive, Gary Pert, was there for a look in 2007 and for the second time Adelaide brought a young player, Jason Porplyzia, 223


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to sit in on the club’s interviews. Three days after he watched his team win the premiership, Geelong’s Stephen Wells was the first recruiter to arrive at the camp. The grand final was just the fifth time he’d seen his club play live all season. Clubs were trying to get a final line on what they thought of the draft pool and whether they wanted to use their picks, get more picks, or trade them for players. No deals could be done until the following week, when the trade period officially started, but occasionally a pair of recruiters would wander off into a corner together, deep in conversation. One year, two had almost come to blows over a Melbourne-based player wanting a trade back to his home state. Lists of the 50 boys each club most wanted to see at the camp had been submitted by the second week of August, although the names weren’t released until late in September, in case of a late call-up. This year, Alex Grima’s late form for Tasmania had won him a spot. The boys who received four nominations were invited to the camp, while those who got at least one vote were asked along to separate screening days in the major capital cities. Tactics, of course, came into it: what if you liked a player, believed no-one else had noticed him, and didn’t want him to come to draft camp, star, and capture everyone’s attention? Did you nominate him, or decide you weren’t too fussed about his fitness results, leaving him off your list? Or organise some of your own testing, on the sly? There was no physical testing until the end of the first day, but it was possibly the most tiring day of all. After the medicals, the boys were rotated through different rooms to do some psycho-motor testing and three psychological assessments. The psycho-motor testing covered things like reaction times and peripheral vision: the boys had to hit buttons when lights lit up on a control board. For the first time, psychologist Noel Blundell, who had run the tests since the camp began, sat players side by side, adding a bit of extra pressure to see how their decision making, speed and accuracy held up in competition. Trent took to it quickly. ‘Was down 2–1 being solidly beaten, then stepped up to produce two personal bests to find a way to win,’ noted Blundell in his report. The other boys’ results said something about their personalities too: Brad was a ‘very solid competitor’ and while Junior improved when it became a contest, he was ‘never comfortable during testing.’ 224


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Junior wasn’t comfortable at all, really. He’d flown to Canberra from Darwin, where, as expected, he had relaxed into his school holidays. He wished he wanted to be at the camp, and did in a way, he just had somewhere he’d rather be: home. He didn’t know any of the other boys well, struggled to see the point of the psycho-motor testing and found the psychological tests even more boring. Junior wasn’t a fan of running but it was almost a relief to do some repeat speed testing before dinner – six 30-metre sprints with a short breather in between – to see if he could run fast and then back up and do it again. Coaches and recruiters lined the running track and, after Junior’s first couple of efforts, were all thinking the same thing: wow. He got slower but still notched a total time of 24.01; third-best at the camp. It was better than sitting in a room, answering questions for an hour. The psychological tests were not so much tests as personality portraits. The Attentional and Interpersonal Style inventory (TAIS), run by Blundell since the early years of the camp, was a series of 144 questions, such as whether the players liked to spend time alone or if they became distracted by sights and sounds while talking to people. The boys could answer in one of five ways – never, rarely, sometimes, frequently or always – and their results were graphed, helping the clubs anticipate how the boys might behave if they were placed in different on- and off-field scenarios. Often, Blundell’s results matched what the recruiters had seen while watching the boys play, which was the aim. It was all about understanding each player and how he might react to moving states, being tagged, being injured and a thousand other things. Rosie Stanimirovic, the performance psychologist with the AIS-AFL Academy, had introduced two tests at the 2006 camp. The Raven involved solving graphic- and numerical-based problems, while the Bar-On assessed EQ (emotional quotient or emotional intelligence). EQ evaluated how an individual functioned in everyday life by studying their intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, such as assertiveness and independence, empathy, stress tolerance, impulse control, flexibility and optimism. The boys received a summary of their results, as did the clubs, who could only access the complete version through a registered psychologist. It was important that it was interpreted properly and the last thing Rosie wanted was for clubs to consider kids stuck like they were. ‘What we’ve got to remember 225


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is the person who plays football well is a person first,’ she said. ‘The basic question we want to answer is: can this person handle the pressures of being an AFL footballer? And if not, what can they develop? If a person’s functioning well, they’re usually doing well at their job.’ Even though Brad couldn’t run, he had a busy first day. He did a TV interview, another with the AFL website and got grabbed by a club every time he turned around. Each club was assigned a room in the AIS residence halls with boys booked in for interviews late into the night. A lot of clubs liked to get some done earlier, even if only to sneak off for dinner, which meant setting up camp in some strange little nooks and crannies before they got access to their rooms. West Coast sat outside on a sloping piece of pavement underneath a large tree; Collingwood discovered a spare patch of the indoor soccer pitch; Geelong set up under a big pot plant in a corner of the corridor and Essendon found a dim, dark corner of the auditorium. One kid, asked during an interview what his biggest asset was, had mentioned a certain body part. ‘That’s the best one I’ve ever heard,’ said one recruiter. The other talking point was Patrick Dangerfield, who was reminding clubs he planned to finish Year 12 in 2008 at his own high school. It wasn’t going to be a huge issue if a Victorian club chose him: Luke Ball and Xavier Ellis were a couple of recent draftees who had combined school footy with an AFL pre-season and a few VFL games in their first post-draft year. But it would become more problematic if an interstate club chose him. Sydney had picked Daniel Currie in 2006 and left him at home to finish school; he’d trained with the Northern Knights, played for Parade College, worked one-on-one with a Swans assistant coach and snuck up for the occasional reserves game. Dangerfield went to a state school, so the football wouldn’t be at the same level. He hoped to play another season with the Geelong Falcons, even if he got drafted, but the AFL clubs were bound to kick up a fuss about that. Telling the clubs what he intended doing wasn’t necessarily easy. ‘A few of them have given me a hard time about it but I’ve made up my mind,’ said Dangerfield, a strong-minded kid who knew that, should he get picked by an interstate team and do a pre-season there, it would be hard to tear himself away. ‘I’ll be thinking: “I want to be out there doing it,” but I really want to finish school. I’ve had mates doing Year 12 and 226


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thinking about the draft and it’s really stressed them out, so that’s the other advantage. If I get on a list, I can focus properly on school next year, and after that it’s all footy. The clubs are always telling you that education is important, anyway. It’s important to me that I do it.’ One of Brad’s first interviews was with the Kangaroos. It was also one of his toughest ones because a couple of times, he wasn’t sure what they were expecting him to say. ‘They asked, if I saw one of my teammates taking drugs what would I do?’ he said. ‘I said I’d maybe confront them and tell them it’s not the best thing. But you never know if they’re expecting you to tell the coach, or what. You’re not sure what they want to hear.’ Another tough club was Melbourne. Brad had expected Chris Connolly, the former Fremantle coach turned Melbourne’s new football manager, to be light-hearted and funny, like he was on TV. He wasn’t. ‘He’d ask me a question and then just sit there staring back at me,’ Brad said. ‘He was a bit scary.’ In his interview with Brisbane, the Lions gave him a number for a physiotherapist who might be able to help with his injury. Was that a sign? ‘I thought about that a bit,’ Brad said. ‘Everything they said was really positive. But it’s so nerve-racking. When a club grabs you, you feel a bit nervous, and then you sit down and you’re looking straight at Dean Bailey or John Worsfold. It starts to sink in, that you might be playing for their club one day soon.’ Ben had the opposite experience in a couple of his early interviews. He was surprised by how many clubs wanted to talk mostly footy, thinking they’d try and get into his head a bit more. His interview with Adelaide felt like a relaxed, casual chat, but when it was over he wondered whether he’d been lulled into some sort of comfort zone. ‘They drilled me a bit, mostly about how I played in the grand final, but a lot of the time they were mucking around and bagging the coach for leaving me at full-forward,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if I concentrated enough. I got to the end and felt like I’d been a bit relaxed.’ Slightly more edgy before his West Coast interview, John Worsfold surprised Ben: the coach barely said a word. ‘I think I said more than he did,’ Ben said. Ben’s Melbourne interview turned out tough for him too. He just had a different bad guy: Dean Bailey, the new coach. ‘You walk into the room and there’s five sets of eyes drilling you and he was really drilling me,’ Ben said. ‘He said to me: “OK, you just got drafted, you’re standing opposite 227


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Dean Cox, what do you do?”’ I don’t know, Ben wanted to say. Run away? He cobbled together an answer, then there was a second question: ‘OK, so you’ve beaten him for the tap, now what?’ Ben found that most clubs did a similar thing. ‘They put you in situations where they get you to keep rambling on,’ he said. ‘You finish talking and there’s this awkward silence while you wait for someone to speak. I’d finish talking and get into these stare-offs with Dean Bailey. That was pretty tough.’ Day Two There was action in every corner of the AIS gym during the first, two-hour block of physical testing. The 20-metre sprint course ran along one wall, where the players’ times appeared on a projector screen. The agility test – a short, tight obstacle course demanding several changes of direction – was set up in the middle of the gym. There were four different vertical leap tests – running and standing, off both feet. The testing gave clubs a clear, comparative line on the boys’ athletic qualities, although in most cases it confirmed what they had already seen or not seen on the field. They already knew if a player was dead slow, or really fast, so the results were more like the last little piece of the puzzle. Every year, someone would bob up and do something eye catching, but the question always came back to whether he could play football or not. In 2004, a small Sturt player named Danyle Pearce smashed the 20-metre sprint and the agility records; he didn’t get drafted and Port Adelaide threw him on its rookie list instead. Driven to prove people wrong, Pearce won the AFL’s Rising Star award two years later in 2006. But in 2005, another Sturt player, Tom Rischbieth, had set records of his own in the endurance testing, smashing both the beep test and time-trial records. Clubs asked the same question: can he play? Tom missed out on draft day and the Power rookie-listed him, but he didn’t work out as well as Pearce did. So much was happening in the gym that it was impossible to see everything. Some recruiters set up in front of one test and didn’t budge, others wandered around; some thought they could figure out who the other recruiters had their eye on by trailing them to see who they were watching. Brad was watching and felt frustrated, wondering how he would have gone. Trent had to watch too, and felt a little bored. ‘I just wished I could do it and prove myself,’ he said. ‘They were all asking me about my 228


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running and my tank and I couldn’t prove anything to them.’ Pat wasn’t overly happy to be sitting things out either. ‘I felt like I had a really good sprint in me,’ he said. ‘I just had a really good feeling, but there wasn’t much I could do. At least I didn’t do it and go really badly. That would have been worse.’ Ben didn’t think he’d run a good 20-metre sprint, and the best of his two efforts was 3.28 seconds. ‘A few people came up to me and said it wasn’t so bad and I just said there was no need to bullshit me,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t offended. At least I wasn’t the slowest one.’ Junior’s best 20-metre time was 2.96 seconds. He was quick, but some recruiters were still dubious. ‘I’m not sure how hard you’re trying, Junior . . .’ thought Matt Rendell. ‘I reckon you’re a bit quicker than that.’ The one thing Junior knew was that his hamstrings were sore. They’d been sore since halfway through the repeat speed test. He’d played a sevenand-a-half game season, when you added up all the time he missed with injury, and he felt unfit. Back in the gym at five o’clock to run a beep test, he wasn’t excited. ‘I just want to sleep,’ he thought, wandering to the start line. Beep tests were no fun at all, really. Running between markers placed 20 metres apart, the boys had to reach each one by the time a ‘beep’ sounded, and the time between beeps became shorter as each minute (or each level) passed. It was an endurance test, and a painful one. ‘I don’t know who thought of it,’ Ben said. ‘But they have problems.’ The recruiters placed varying levels of stock in it, the fitness coaches even less, but it was an easy, organised way to test such a big group, and it always provided some drama: to see how hard players pushed themselves mentally was a big part of its value and it wasn’t unusual for someone to vomit at the end. In 2001, Chris Judd had arrived at the draft camp fresh from a shoulder reconstruction. He hadn’t been training but he wanted to run and made it to level 15. In 1998, Brett Burton had injured a thigh early in the camp, it was heavily strapped and as he ran the bandage began to unravel. Burton kept going, lasting into the high 14s – not his best, but good enough to prove that he could fight through some discomfort. The first few levels of the beep test were easy but Junior was very conscious of the recruiters and coaches sitting crowded around every edge of the basketball court, watching. ‘Shit,’ he thought as he started running. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, here.’ By level 8 he had pain shooting up his calves and quads every time he reached the line, turned and pushed 229


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off. ‘Make the next line, make the next line,’ he kept thinking, then his mind started to drift and his head began to wobble. Late reaching one of the markers, he was given a warning by one of the spotters, but thinking he’d been told he was out, stopped. He reached level 11.11 and knew the recruiters wouldn’t be happy. ‘I was pretty pissed off,’ he said. ‘My body was finished.’ Before Ben ran, his legs were aching, too, and he told himself to relax. ‘There’s always that sense of dread at the start because you know what you’re in for,’ he said. He actually found the earlier, slower stages harder to deal with than the more torturous last part. In the late stages, there was no time to think about how much you were hurting, you just had to run. Early on, when nothing hurt, his mind kept thinking: ‘I really don’t want to be doing this . . .’ Ben found the coaches’ presence amusing more than off-putting, but early on he heard a spotter, who was standing near where he was running, say the same thing every time he reached that end: ‘Keep going; make the decision to turn around and keep going . . .’ It was a distraction. ‘I was trying to get my head in the right spot and he wouldn’t shut up,’ Ben said. ‘I wanted to stop and punch him, and I’m not a violent person. Then as soon as we got to the hard levels he was gone. I was thinking: what’s the point of that?’ Ben made it to level 13.9, his third-best-ever result. Pat watched, wondering again how he would have gone. But only for a minute; he had something new to think about. That afternoon, Mark Williams had arrived at the camp. He came straight from the airport, dragging a couple of bags through the gym and sending an instant shudder through the assembled group. The Port Adelaide coach was a draft-camp legend; no coach instilled fear in teenage boys quite like him. His interviews from previous years had become urban legends, handed down through generations of draftees, and Pat had heard all the stories. One year, the story went, Williams had asked a player whether he thought he was tough. When the boy said he believed he was, Williams pointed at a window and told him to jump through it. Another year, he’d asked a player to take his t-shirt off, and prove he wasn’t fat. One of the players Williams made a beeline for after arriving was Brad Ebert. ‘What are you telling the other clubs?’ he asked him. ‘What can we say, what can we really put them off with? Have you told them your injury’s really bad? Have you been rude to them? Just be rude, just tell them you don’t want to go there . . .’ Brad found it funny. The first few times, at least. But when 230


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Pat noticed that Williams was there, he gulped. He had an interview with Port Adelaide that very night. Back in Melbourne, Trent’s dad, a cabinet-maker, had spent the day working at a Footscray school. During the afternoon, his phone rang, and a Herald Sun reporter was on the other end. It was the day after former West Coast wingman Chris Mainwaring died from what was later revealed as a drug overdose, and the journalist wanted to know what Peter thought about the possibility of Trent becoming an Eagle as part of the Chris Judd trade. Peter told him what he thought: he didn’t really want his son to go there. He chatted for a few minutes, hung up, and didn’t think any more of it. Day Three Trent’s camp had been quiet. Grabbed early on the first day by Richmond and West Coast, he had spoken to just a couple more teams since. The Tigers told him not to tell the other clubs about his pre-season Vo2max test; Wayne Hughes from Carlton said he would tell whoever he decided to pick at No. 1 ahead of time, but that it would be a surprise: he’d just turn up on his doorstep one night. Trent’s interview with Melbourne lasted for more than half an hour, but felt a lot longer. Dean Bailey wanted to know how he’d go about playing on Gary Ablett Junior and asked him why he’d be a better captain than Jack Grimes. How do you answer that? ‘It was hard,’ Trent said. ‘You want them to pick you, but you don’t want to put yourself ahead of your friends.’ Throughout the interview, Chris Connolly called him Brett. ‘I’m just trying to keep your feet on the ground . . .’ the football manager promised when they finally let him leave. The Eagles wanted to introduce Trent to John Worsfold, and asked what he’d learned from being tagged. It was something he’d thought about a lot in his last few games. ‘I realised it’s something I don’t like. Not being tagged, but being beaten,’ he said. ‘Everyone asked and I just said I try to work to all the contests I can. I feel like I can beat them, if I’m there.’ Back at home, his family’s phone had rung not long after 7 am. ‘Great story!’ said the producer from A Current Affair, as Kath relaxed in bed with a cup of tea and a book. ‘Can we come out and talk to you about it?’ She told them to ring Peter, already off at work, then hauled herself out of bed and to the nearby shop for a copy of the Herald Sun. 231


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At first, Peter told the TV show it was OK to come out. Then he started feeling uneasy, tracked down his own copy of the paper, and felt sick. ‘West Coast Eagles worry Cotchin’s father’, read the headline. Peter got on the phone to Anthony McConville, who told him: don’t let A Current Affair come to your house, whatever you do, and don’t say another word to anyone else who calls. McConville was used to managing mayhem: he’d had to cart a client off to hospital early one morning, after he put his fist through a window. In 2006 he’d had to deal with a major crisis, when Geelong player Tom Lonergan ended up in a coma, minus a kidney, after an on-field collision. Peter’s drama was much less serious, but unique and mildly amusing. He had phone calls from Adelaide radio and Perth TV and all day long his friends rang, telling him what a sook he was. He listened to talkback radio while he worked, and every second person mentioned him. ‘It was Peter Cotchin this, Peter Cotchin that,’ he said. ‘I was thinking, this is terrible! I don’t want to hear this anymore!’ Peter had said everything he was quoted as saying, that wasn’t the problem. If the story made West Coast think twice about drafting Trent, then maybe that was a good thing. But the article wasn’t exactly right, either: it didn’t capture his complete thoughts. Peter thought the Eagles had problems, so did Kath, but they didn’t want Trent to play for Fremantle, either; the distance was the issue and they trusted Trent to make good decisions wherever he happened to end up. ‘I don’t worry about someone handing Trent drugs and him taking them,’ said Kath, who felt better after she heard Jan Schofield, the mother of young West Coast player Will, interviewed on radio praising the club for how well it had looked after him. Still, she kept thinking about how far away Perth was, as did Peter, who also felt a bit guilty. ‘I felt bad for Trent because it was all over the news: Trent Cotchin says he doesn’t want to go to West Coast, and Trent has never said that. If he could choose, he’d choose another club, but all he wants is to play AFL footy. I felt like I’d embarrassed him. It wasn’t what I was trying to say.’

Junior finally got to kick a ball during the skills session on the third and last day. ‘I hope this is what they pick us on,’ he thought. At the end of 232


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the session, the boys’ kicking action was filmed, from front-on and from the side. It went onto a DVD, along with the testing results, medical information and psychological profile, that was sent to each of the clubs. Walking off the ground, Junior chatted briefly with Mark Williams, who liked standing in the middle of the oval to get a closer look. ‘He was saying how good Port Adelaide was, how all the Indigenous boys love it,’ Junior said. ‘I wouldn’t mind going there.’ It was fair to say that Junior hadn’t made a brilliant impression on most of the clubs. His honesty had cost him at times: he’d told a couple of them that he liked to have a few drinks on the weekend now and then. ‘Most of the clubs sort of said “fair enough”, but I don’t know what they were thinking,’ he said. ‘But you can’t just stay in the boarding house every day.’ Plenty of clubs had given him a hard time about his fitness, and Junior admitted he didn’t like hard work. But by the end of the camp he was sick of being asked the same questions, over and over. One recruiter considered his interview to be the worst he’d experienced in his 17 years in the caper, and it wasn’t even that Junior said anything wrong. ‘He was too tired to even speak,’ he said. ‘He actually even said: “Sorry, I can’t talk.”’ A lot were worried that he spent too much time hanging out at Dean’s place, although his other company, private school boys, didn’t concern them as much, and there was a theory that Essendon had told him not to say too much, in an effort to get him through to their second-round pick. ‘Either that,’ pondered one recruiter, ‘or he’s trying to throw everyone off the scent of his own accord.’ In truth, Junior simply didn’t like talking himself up. ‘I pretty much just answered what they asked me,’ he said. ‘When I was with the Bombers they said are you like one of the Davey boys and I said: “I can’t compare with him, he’s a good player.” I just don’t like bragging about myself.’ Pat had heard a brand-new horror story before he saw Mark Williams – apparently the coach had called Matthew Lobbe a mummy’s boy – so he decided to be confident and talkative, to be himself. His tactic for all his interviews had been to admit the bad stuff up front: yes, his skinfolds were back up to 71; no, he hadn’t been eating as well as he should have; and yes, he had to improve his endurance. Brisbane had asked him about fly fishing, which he’d listed as a hobby on a profile sheet. ‘They thought I made it up; they thought I was yanking their chain,’ Pat said. ‘They said 233


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to me, you don’t look like the sort of kid that would like fishing.’ He had to fill in a written questionnaire during his St Kilda interview: questions about his strengths and weaknesses, and what he would do in certain on-field situations. He felt most comfortable talking to Stuart Maxfield, Kinnear Beatson and the rest of the Sydney people. ‘Stuart Maxfield just kept giving me compliments,’ he said. ‘He was saying I love the way you play, I’ve been watching you for two years and you seem to have a real heart for the game. I told him I hadn’t tested well and he said every time he’d seen me test it had been all right. It gave me a real boost.’ The first thing Mark Williams asked when Pat stepped through the door was why he had the words ‘horny’, ‘devil’ and ‘Pat’ in his email address. ‘I made it up in Grade 6,’ Pat replied, wondering how he had possibly known about that. ‘Grade 6?’ said Williams. ‘Geez.’ After that, Pat felt fine. He had to watch some video of a centre bounce in a Brisbane game and explain what he thought would happen; the passage of play unfolded just like he said it would, and Williams told him he had footy smarts. ‘They asked me a bit about my hair, how it was blond, then black and blue-black, and now I’m normal,’ he said. ‘He was asking questions about my family and its heritage because my surname is Hungarian. He knew more about me than I did. He even knew what the capital of Hungary was.’ When it ended, Pat walked out feeling good. ‘Then I thought: I don’t know if I want to live over there. It’s a bit of a hole. I hope they didn’t like me too much.’ The camp finished on a grassed running track back at the AIS. There was one last bit of pain to endure: the 3-kilometre time trial. For Ben, it completed a good camp: in his interviews, he had made a completely different impression to Junior. ‘He’s like a 30-year-old farmer,’ said Essendon’s Adrian Dodoro. ‘He’s the next Prime Minister of Australia,’ said Wayne Hughes. ‘Brad Ebert is his deputy.’ Ben hoped to finish the time trial in less than 11 minutes − a tough ask on sore legs and a warm, windy afternoon. His stomach was cramping after two laps and he felt like throwing up. But he kept running, lunged over the finish line and collapsed on the ground. His time: 10 minutes, 58 seconds. As Junior took his spot on the start line, he was simply hoping to 234


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finish. He knew he could do it but had no idea how. He started to struggle in the first lap and it only got harder and hotter. Dropping quickly to the back of the pack, he fell in alongside Cruize Garlett, a West Australian kid he’d struck up a friendship with. Lagging badly behind, the pair kept switching spots until the last few metres, when Cruize fell over the line just ahead of him. Junior could sense the other boys, already finished, watching him drag his feet around the oval, and felt embarrassed. He finished after 12 minutes and 38 seconds of pain, glad he could get on the bus, go to the airport and go home. Ben flew back to Melbourne with Dawson and they stayed the night at his aunt’s place, too sore and tired to drive home. Dawson had been apprehensive about the testing, and being surrounded by so many coaches. As it turned out, the tests were fine and the coaches became easier to talk to after meeting one or two. Being in the company of so many other good young players had been the most daunting thing, and all he hoped was that he’d done enough now to be drafted. ‘Surely . . .’ he thought, as he and Ben raided the fridge for beer. ‘It would be like the last chapter for me.’ When Trent walked through his front door in Wollert, Peter watched his face, wondering how he’d react to the Herald Sun article. Trent picked it up off the kitchen bench, scanned it briefly and placed it back down. He felt bad that his dad had been caught out like that, but who knew? Maybe West Coast would be put off, or at least have second thoughts. ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ he said, heading off to bed.

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34

‘ What are we doing to make

sure the players who come to this club are of the highest possible character? ’

Saturday 27 October 2007 Waverley Park Twelve, 29 and 45. At the end of the Hawthorn season, those were the magic numbers. The Hawks’ year had ended in the second week of the finals, with a 33-point loss to North Melbourne. Collingwood beat West Coast in the other semi-final, leaving the Hawks holding pick No. 12 in the first round of the draft and the Eagles with No. 13. For the first time, Geelong – as the premiership team – would enter the draft last. Three Hawthorn players had retired: captain Richard Vandenberg, Ben Dixon and Joel Smith. Josh Thurgood and Matt Little had been delisted and Luke McEntee had been upgraded to the senior list after two years on the club’s rookie list. The five-day trade period, held the week after the draft camp, had altered the draft order. In recent seasons, clubs had been reluctant to trade away very high picks – a top-5 selection hadn’t changed hands since 2001, when Hawthorn sent Trent Croad and Luke McPharlin to Fremantle for the No. 1 choice later used on Luke Hodge. But Chris Judd’s return to Melbourne had changed things. After effectively interviewing a handful of teams, Judd settled on Carlton as the club he wanted to play for. West Coast wanted the Blues’ No. 1 pick; Carlton had no plans to give it up. On the Thursday of trade week, the deal was finally done – Judd went to 236


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Carlton for picks 3 and 20 as well as young forward Josh Kennedy, drafted at No. 4 by the Blues two years earlier. Two more moves affected the first-round order. Collingwood traded out of it, swapping the No. 14 pick for Brisbane ruckman Cameron Wood, while the Lions sent that pick straight to Melbourne, for Travis Johnstone, a skinny, long-haired No. 1 pick 10 years earlier. On the Monday of trade week, the new father–son system had its first run, Darcy Daniher testing it. He had chosen Essendon over Sydney, but the Kangaroos then offered their second-round pick for him during the bidding process. The Bombers still got him but, under the new rules, they had to use their next pick in the draft to secure him. Because they’d finished below the Kangaroos, that pick ended up being their third-round choice. After two busy years, Hawthorn had an uneventful trade week – lots of meetings, talks and phone calls but not much action. There was interest of varying levels shown in 16 of their players, but 13 had been chosen in the last three drafts and Chris Pelchen saw no point in getting young players to the club only to trade them away before they had time to mature. Brisbane asked after Mark Williams, but only once; St Kilda was interested in Chance Bateman but offered only a second-round pick for him. ‘We need to get more players like Chance into our club,’ said Pelchen, ‘not give them away.’ The Bulldogs, one of four teams to mention Tim Boyle, were the only one to make an offer for him, pitching a third-round pick, plus a swap of their pick 22 and the Hawks’ pick 29. ‘The second part of that scenario interested us because we were determined to get another pick inside the first 25,’ Pelchen said. ‘We were open minded on listening to offers for any of our players and we have a big group of emerging forwards. But at the end of the day, the offer for Tim simply wasn’t good enough.’ Hawthorn ran a string of names by other clubs – Adelaide’s Graham Johncock, Collingwood youngster Nathan Brown, Essendon pair Alwyn Davey and Andrew Lovett, Fremantle defender David Mundy, Melbourne’s Aaron Davey, Richmond flanker Danny Meyer, St Kilda defender Sam Fisher, Sydney runner Nick Malceski and Western Bulldog Daniel Giansiracusa. To most, the answer was a flat no. For the second year, the Hawks also asked after Carlton full-back Bret Thornton and having refused to lose him for anything less than pick 6 at the end of 2006, the Blues were willing to talk this time – but only for the No. 12 pick. The 237


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Hawks weren’t willing to cough that up and with Thornton still under contract, any deal died there. That left Meyer, but that went nowhere fast too. ‘We expressed some interest in Danny at the start of the week and Richmond said they would take it on board,’ Pelchen said. ‘They asked us to consider a deal for Beau Dowler or Travis Tuck but we declined on both players, and it basically ended there. It would have been good to secure an extra pick inside 25, but we weren’t in a desperate position to trade this year.’ The Hawks had already improved their salary cap position, and made 20 changes to their list in the past three years. ‘We thought it was time to encourage some stability within the player group,’ Pelchen said, ‘and allow it to start to mature.’

The Hawks’ draft seminar ran over a weekend. The idea was to compile the final thoughts of the recruiters before Graham Wright, Gary Buckenara and Pelchen pieced together their final talent order and determined which players they wanted and who they thought they could get. After the seminar they’d have individual player ratings to refer to, as well as stateby-state combined lists and a national consensus. The scouts had been sent video footage of 113 boys and worked from a thick book filled with information on each of them. Having filled no spots in the recruiting model during trade week, the Hawks were still looking for the same types – the small, crumbing forward; the key defender; and the outside midfielder. The players needed to be able to kick and compete, but the over-riding quality was character. ‘I challenge all of you in the next month to go and find out something else about the players you’re pushing forward,’ Chris said. ‘Not whether they can kick, mark or handball, and not how fast they can run; I challenge you to come back to Bucky or Wrighty and say, “Do you know that this player’s been in trouble? Or that this guy has a family member who has done this or that?” If you don’t learn anything extra that’s OK, but at least try. There’s no point having it written on the board if we don’t follow through with it.’ Day one was spent reviewing almost every player from every state, video packages played on the big screen as the recruiters spoke. The first state was South Australia. Hawthorn had 11 players listed, plus a smokey: 238


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a country kid from Meningie called Brodie Martin, who had finished the year off strongly with the Sturt Under-19 team. Brad Ebert was first up, though. He read the ball well and used it well, said Gary. He looked a solid, genuine midfield player. ‘Did he look as good as Bryce Gibbs at league level?’ asked Bocca. ‘Bryce had more breakaway pace at his best,’ Gary said. ‘I think Ebert’s strength is that he gets to the right positions and is a solid kick. He’s a very consistent player.’ ‘He’s really good at clearances,’ said Paul Whaley, one of the two Adelaide scouts. ‘He’s never fazed. He’s stepped up from Under-17s to reserves to league and hasn’t had a problem.’ ‘His character’s very good too,’ Gary said. ‘Chris and I interviewed him in Adelaide − we had dinner with his family. He’s a level-headed kid who has a really good way of approaching things. He’d be a very coachable kid.’ ‘Would Adelaide look at him?’ asked Bob Simpson. ‘Adelaide might actually be under pressure to take him,’ said Paul. ‘They’re definitely under pressure,’ added Michael Kenneally, the second South Australian scout. ‘No doubt about it. It’ll be an interesting call for them if he’s there.’ Levi Greenwood was the second-ranked South Australian. Levi refused to be intimidated, said Gary. He thought he might turn out a little like Campbell Brown, but still queried his kicking: was it precise enough? ‘There’s definitely no grey areas with him,’ said Paul. ‘He’s all-out.’ Jared Petrenko and Tom McNamara were discussed, and one they did like was Tim Walsh, who had played in the ruck during the Under18 championships, and through the junior grades at Port Adelaide. He’d grown up on a farm and was extremely raw but Gary loved how well he’d started to read the play, and kick goals from tight angles. ‘I think he’s getting stronger and stronger,’ he said. ‘The kid can kick well, and mark, and read the play. You might end up with a player.’ There were 18 players on the West Australian list. Gary knew Cale Morton had no chance of getting through to No. 12 now and, after suspecting that Chris Masten might have, earlier in the year, he’d changed his mind. ‘I think West Coast will pick him,’ he said. He thought Palmer had finished the season better than the other Perth boys and had been 239


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tempted to push David Myers past Morton. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met a better kid,’ he said. ‘He’s a future captain of an AFL side.’ Tayte Pears was another defensive option, and a player they thought might get through to pick 29, but Alex Rance wouldn’t last that long. Early in the year, Gary had questioned his decision making but he thought Alex had gained confidence during the Under-18 carnival and that he was making less mistakes now. He’d also seen him play through the midfield towards the end of the year. ‘This guy’s teammates ranked him the most competitive player in the side,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked him about his height – he was measured at 192.5 – and his family told me his growth plates are still wide open. They think he might get to 196 centimetres. He’s one you should pencil in that we’re going to have to consider. I think he’ll still be there at pick 12.’ No New South Wales players had made a late impression but Tom Collier was the first of six Tasmanians on the list and, as an occasional key defender, he demanded some debate. Tom had missed the second half of the year with a finger injury, which Graham thought might make some clubs forget about him a little. ‘He’s improved out of sight,’ he said. ‘He’s got good speed, he’s an attacking defender who runs the corridor well. I think he’s a first-round pick.’ A pair of midfielders were next up: Aaron Joseph and Alex Grima, both of whom Graham liked. ‘Alex is a long strider, which I think might make him look a bit slower than what he is,’ he said. ‘He’s a good kick and his decision making’s OK. He sits his kicks up, but his technique isn’t a problem. I think he’s very much a naive country kid, at the moment. He’ll really develop in an AFL environment.’ Ben McEvoy was at No. 1 on the Vic Country list. Graham loved how he challenged his teammates and thought playing him at fullforward had cost the Bushrangers on grand final day. But as a ruckman, he wasn’t what they were looking for this year. Lachie Henderson was, and they thought he might fall to them because of his injuries and their on-field consequences. ‘There was one day where his kicking really lacked penetration but we found out later that he’d hurt his foot the day before and still played,’ Graham said. ‘I thought he’d be in the first five or six this year, but he seems to be slipping.’ ‘As a defender, what type of forward would he play on?’ asked Anthony DeJong. ‘He’s got good skills, his pace is fine and he makes good decisions,’ 240


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said Graham. ‘I think he could play on any type.’ Scott Selwood had settled at No. 6 in Hawthorn’s overall Victorian rankings, while Patrick Dangerfield had won Graham over with his dashing end to the season. ‘He’s very courageous and I think he’ll get to 190 centimetres when he’s done growing,’ he said. But he didn’t really want Dan McKenna – who had measured in at 195 centimetres during the draft camp – to get any bigger. ‘He’s the perfect size right now . . .’ he said. ‘Is he competitive enough?’ asked Steve. ‘I haven’t noticed a problem,’ Graham said. ‘He’s certainly a beautiful kick. He tested well and he’s a nice kid. After the carnival I think he got a bit ahead of himself, and the coaches at Gippsland had a crack at him. We asked him about it and he was a bit surprised he’d done it and was very honest about it. I think he’ll be a good player.’ There were seven players on the Northern Territory list. Chris had sent Gary to Darwin twice to watch Cameron Stokes play for his local side, having liked his national carnival and heard he’d played through a bit of the flu. But only one player was discussed at any real length. It would not have surprised Buckenara if another club drafted Junior Rioli before the Hawks had the chance to. ‘The only thing I’m not sold on is his work ethic. He’s competitive, but I’m not sure he likes to work all that hard,’ he began. ‘He tackles well,’ Bocca said. ‘That’s the thing,’ said Gary. ‘He does, but his fitness right now doesn’t allow him to do it often enough. If he could do that – chase blokes down time and time again – you’ve got a really special player on your hands. He’s got some real brilliance about him.’ ‘His beep test was only 11.11,’ said Anthony. ‘Any reason behind that?’ ‘He’s been injured and he’s been in a bit of a comfort zone,’ said Graham. ‘But he’s a good, quiet, respectful kid. He came down as a Year 9 to go to boarding school and stayed through after his cousin went home. I think that’s pretty impressive.’ ‘Will he be there at 12?’ asked Paul. ‘I think Adelaide could be the threat,’ said Chris. He had spent much of the day observing from the back of the room, taking in everyone’s thoughts. 241


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Sunday 28 October 2007 The second day of the seminar started with the last of the state reviews: Queensland and Vic Metro. The first Queensland player up was Brendan Whitecross. Barry Clarke thought he’d gotten better and better as the season unfolded but that he might still be there at their last pick, No. 45. Wright wasn’t sure about that: he saw him as a tough, courageous hard runner who would slot in somewhere between 12 and 29. ‘He’s a kid who finds the footy and understands the game well,’ he said. ‘He’d be worth picking, but I don’t think he’ll get to us at 29.’ Joey Daye was more likely to. At 17, Joey was young enough to spend another year in the Under-18s. He needed work, but was he worth bringing into the system now and investing that bit of extra time in? ‘Joey oozes athleticism,’ Graham said. ‘He virtually has no right foot at all, but he kicks the ball really well with his left. There’s a question on his competitiveness but he has some really special qualities.’ ‘As a speculative pick, there’s a big upside there,’ said Gary. ‘Put him in the draft next year and he might be a reasonably high pick. I suppose we have to decide whether we can get the best out of him. I think you could see some real improvement in two years.’ ‘I agree,’ said Graham. ‘Looking forward, I see real improvement. He needs work but he has a heap of potential.’ Matthew Kreuzer and Trent Cotchin were the first players on the Vic Metro list, but both would be long gone by Hawthorn’s first pick. James Polkinghorne, Addam Maric and Jarrad Grant were discussed for some time and Graham was a fan of the brave Callan Ward, as well as Hugh Sandilands. ‘Hugh’s got speed right at the point of the contest, and long arms to spoil,’ he said. ‘He’s improved his kicking this year, but he didn’t test well and he might slip a bit because of that. He could be around the mark at 29.’ Jack Grimes would need to be picked higher than that, if Hawthorn wanted him. He was a natural leader, competitive and had clean skills. ‘Whether he fits what we’re after is probably the thing,’ Graham said. ‘But you won’t go wrong having him at your club.’ Three more Northern Knights were discussed next. David Zaharakis was, like Joey Daye, considered a speculative pick. Wright would have liked to see him take players on more often – to run, attack and take 242


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bounces. ‘He’s got the speed,’ he said. ‘He just has to learn how to use it.’ Brett Meredith had tested well at the camp, running a 2.96-second sprint, which was quicker than Graham thought him capable of. Peter couldn’t believe how comprehensively he’d changed his body shape, and Steve liked how he involved other players around him, especially with his hands. ‘He’s one who really does bring other players into the game,’ Graham agreed. ‘He’s a very good kick and seems to have a real appetite for it. I’ll be interested to see where he lands.’ He felt the same way about Pat Veszpremi. ‘He understands the game and reads it so well,’ he said. ‘He’s never tested well but it doesn’t seem to show out on the ground.’ ‘He’s another one who runs the lines,’ said Steve. ‘I’ve still got a query on his repetitive efforts, that’s all.’ ‘He can blow up quickly,’ said Gary. ‘He doesn’t have the endurance but he can do special things.’ ‘He’s a quietly confident kid . . .’ said Bocca. ‘He’s more than quiet!’ laughed Steve. ‘He’s a nice kid,’ Bocca said. ‘I like him. “Pizza Supreme” we call him, remember. I told him that up in Canberra and he said: “What am I, a bit of everything?” I was happy with that.’

The player review ran until lunchtime. After a break for sandwiches and half an hour of the midday movie – Bocca’s favourite, Elvis – it was time to figure out the combined talent order, the national consensus. To do that, each of the 14 recruiters wrote their top few players up on the whiteboard and the six players who won the most votes were transferred onto a main list. The recruiters then got up again, to write the next names on their list. There was consensus on the first six – Matthew Kreuzer, Trent Cotchin, Cale Morton, Ben McEvoy, Chris Masten and David Myers – but it became a trickier and more arduous process as more players came into the mix. By the time they reached the mid-twenties, opinions were differing noticeably, making it clear why a second pick inside 25 would have been ideal. On a couple of occasions, only two players made it to the final list; at times Chris had to ask for a show of hands or get everyone up to the board again to split two or three boys by voting between them. It took 243


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13 separate trips to the whiteboard, and a little over two hours, for 50 names to make it to the main list. The last task took less time. At the end of the day, each recruiter nominated who they would choose at pick 12 and which players they believed would best fit the three last spots on the recruiting model. They weren’t allowed to choose from the first seven players on the combined list because it was doubtful they’d have access to any of them. All but three scouts chose the same player – Cyril Rioli – as their preferred No. 12. Junior got all 14 votes as the best crumbing forward, Alex Rance (eight votes) and Lachie Henderson (six votes) were nominated as the best key defenders, while Jack Grimes got 12 votes as the best onballer. Finally they picked some roughies: players who might prove inspired late choices. Dean Putt received two votes and the rest one vote: David Zaharakis, Matt Austin; South Australians Nick Salter and Tim Walsh; West Australians David Gourdis and Tony Notte; plus Aaron Joseph from Tasmania. Wright opted for Joey Daye while Buckenara chose a small, smart West Australian forward, Jarrhan Jacky. The next day, Gary flew home to Perth. For the next week, he and Graham worked on their independent, individual top-50 lists. It played on their minds: Wright listed his first three or four players easily enough but found the next batch of 10 or 11 difficult. ‘You’re constantly swapping them around and looking back over your thoughts from earlier in the year,’ he said. ‘But at the same time, you have a pretty clear idea of the ones you’d really like. Sometimes that’s the balancing act – you might have someone at 15 or 16 that you like but wind up moving others in front of them. It takes time.’ Once they were done, Chris spent a week looking over each recruiter’s list and talking to them separately. The week after that – two weeks ahead of the draft – Buckenara, Wright and Pelchen came together for another two full days. On the first day, they quizzed each other and tried to work out which players would definitely not be there at pick 12. The few weeks before a draft were filled with gossip − everyone wanted to know what everyone else was doing and, while some clubs were talkative, others said very little. Hawthorn eventually settled on the seven players they didn’t think they’d have a call on, then discussed which of the remaining ones they’d 244


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prefer to pick at No. 12, back-ups included. After much discussion and debate, they came up with a final list − a talent flow chart of their top-50 players. The first 25 looked like this: Matthew Kreuzer, Trent Cotchin, Cale Morton, Chris Masten, David Myers, Rhys Palmer, Cyril Rioli, Jack Grimes, Brad Ebert, Alex Rance, Lachlan Henderson, Tom Collier, Scott Selwood, Patrick Dangerfield, Ben McEvoy, Jarrad Grant, Patrick Veszpremi, Tayte Pears, Callan Ward, Brendan Whitecross, Dan McKenna, Tony Notte, Brett Meredith, Levi Greenwood and Addam Maric. It was a year of work on one page. Seven of those players were in the pick-12 mix − Rioli, Grimes, Rance, Henderson, Collier, Selwood and Dangerfield – and another 15 players were to be considered at picks 29 or 45 if they hadn’t been snapped up by another club: Pears, Ward, Whitecross, McKenna, Meredith, Maric, Sandilands, Farmer, Motlop, Polkinghorne, Browne, Daye, Hinkley, Reid and Zaharakis. From there, Pelchen broke the list down further. The 50 players were split into positional pools – 6 ruckmen, 21 utilities, 13 midfielders, 3 key forwards and 7 key defenders – with 20 of them suiting the three spots left on the recruiting model. Listed in position, by order of preference, Rance, Henderson, Collier, Pears, McKenna and Sandilands were the defenders; Grimes, Selwood, Dangerfield, Whitecross, Meredith, Polkinghorne, Hinkley, Reid and Zaharakis were the midfield options; and Rioli, Maric, Farmer, Motlop and Browne were the short utilities, the crumbers. Another two players were listed in a separate category: ‘other’. One, Callan Ward, didn’t fit any of the three player types they were looking for, but would need to be considered if he slipped to 29, simply because of his talent. The second name on the list didn’t fit the model either, but was under consideration for other reasons. His name was Stuart Dew.

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‘ You can’t really be a kid anymore ’ Friday 12 October 2007 43 sleeps to go Almost 10 months after being injured at pre-season training, Pat’s loose left shoulder was repaired. When his mum took him to hospital at six o’clock in the morning, he felt a bit silly – it didn’t even feel sore – and nervous; he wasn’t a huge fan of needles. He was wheeled into the operating theatre just past nine and woke up later feeling sick, dizzy and hungry, with three small holes in the front, top and back of his shoulder. ‘Can you stay?’ he asked Jennie, then noticed that the hospital had Foxtel. ‘That’s OK,’ he told her, as she rolled her eyes. ‘You can go now. . .’ He went home the next morning, ready to rest and glad it was finally over. ‘I built it up so much in my head that it became this really big thing,’ he said. ‘As soon as I woke up I realised it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.’ Now, he just had to wait four months until he could play football again. In the meantime, he planned to hang out with his mates, start driving, go to a few eighteenth parties and enjoy being a teenager. The first time he went for his licence, he’d forgotten to stop at the stop sign. Since arriving home from Canberra, Pat had spent most of his spare time with his Pa, fishing at all their old spots. With his yellow learner plates attached to the little blue Hyundai, they’d head off, with Frank’s dog Rex in the back seat and some corned beef sandwiches for lunch. Three days before his shoulder operation, they spent the morning on the Maribyrnong River, hoping for some bream and chatting about the clubs that had interviewed him. 246


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Pat had spoken to 12 teams at the camp and Melbourne were coming out the next week, which meant he officially had no idea where he’d end up. He’d hoped for Collingwood and his heart sank on hearing they’d traded the No. 14 pick for Cameron Wood. ‘I didn’t realise how much I wanted them to pick me,’ he said. At least now he knew he wouldn’t play there unless he made it to the Magpies’ second pick, and in a way that was better. He couldn’t pin his hopes to just one team, and most of the others had seemed positive. ‘A few of them asked if I wanted to be a captain . . .’ he told Frank, as he dangled his fishing rod over the river bank. If he got drafted interstate, mornings like this would be rare. ‘I bloody hope you said yes,’ said Frank. ‘Nah. Not straight away,’ Pat said. ‘Maybe down the track . . .’ ‘You’re a bloody captain if ever I saw one.’ ‘But you can’t just go straight in there and do it,’ Pat said. ‘You have to make yourself a player first. You have to be dominant. You can’t be up and down all the time.’ ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Frank. ‘You’re the best one there is.’ The draft was a month and a bit away, and Pat decided as he left hospital to choose Mark Kleiman as his manager. He still wouldn’t sign until his name was called out but he liked how Mark turned up to their meeting in a t-shirt and jeans. ‘You’ve got to give people a go,’ he told his mum. ‘I want to help him start out.’ Every now and then Pat wondered why he wasn’t feeling nervous. Maybe the nerves would still come but he hadn’t had any more dreams, he was barely thinking about the draft, and even when people asked him about it, which happened five times a day, he didn’t start to feel anxious. He still hoped a team would pick him, more than truly believed it, but he felt calm inside. All year he’d been thinking: what can I do, what should I do, what’s the right thing to do? ‘I don’t have to think those things now,’ he said. ‘I only have to wait.’

Wednesday 17 October 2007 37 sleeps to go The Eberts watched West Coast sack Ben Cousins from their living room couch. Two days earlier, the bare-chested midfielder had been pulled over 247


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by police in broad Perth daylight and arrested on drug charges, which were later thrown out. ‘Look at his face. . .’ said Chris, as Trevor Nisbett, the Eagles’ chief executive, confirmed in the television newsbreak that Cousins would never play again for the club. He looked devastated, and she felt terrible for him, but she also felt a shiver run down her spine: the previous week, West Coast recruiter Rohan O’Brien had flown from Melbourne to interview Brad. Sacking Cousins surely meant the Eagles were serious about getting on top of their troubles, but did that mean Chris had to feel fine about the prospect of her 17-year-old son ending up there? Tonight that felt impossible. Tonight she hoped that the Eagles didn’t want him. Every time someone said it couldn’t possibly be that bad over there, she agreed; it couldn’t be. ‘But if it was your son,’ she’d then start thinking, ‘how would you be feeling?’ Brad wasn’t worried about West Coast but Perth seemed a long way away, he kept remembering how long the flight was. If he went there, there’d be no ducking quickly back home. But as a team, he liked the Eagles, who seemed to give their young players a chance no matter where they were on the ladder. The things that had happened to and around the club seemed a little unreal to him, a bit like a TV show, and while he was sure the club would be completely normal if he happened to end up there, he understood why his parents would prefer him to go somewhere else. When Rohan had visited, Chris had to ask about what had been going on with Cousins. She just had to, and he answered all her questions, which was comforting, because he seemed so shocked by what had unfolded. Craig didn’t feel comfortable suggesting in the interview that they didn’t want West Coast to pick Brad – even if they didn’t want him to go there, it wasn’t their call, it wasn’t their lifelong goal. But as the press conference continued, they became more concerned. The West Coast rumours had always been just that – gossip, innuendo and things people had heard. Now, there was evidence; now, it was true. ‘You think about it logically and you tell yourself it can’t be that bad, that he’d be happy over there,’ Chris said. ‘And to think that they’re looking at him, that’s great,’ added Craig. ‘They wouldn’t be coming over if they weren’t serious, and that’s good . . .’’ ‘That’s the thing,’ said Chris. ‘I’m thinking: “It can’t be that bad, it can’t be that bad.” But I still hope they pick someone else.’ 248


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All that aside, Brad was starting to feel better. He was less sore than he had been and had booked in to see the physiotherapist Brisbane put him in touch with. By draft day, he hoped to be able to run, kick and not feel too far behind. He’d spoken to 12 clubs, which was another load off his mind, and John Beveridge from St Kilda was flying over after his last exam. The Lions had interviewed him twice, as had Essendon, and the Crows wanted to talk to him again when their coach got back from overseas. For some reason, he had a feeling about the Lions, maybe because Michael Voss rang the other week saying he’d put a good word in for him. ‘Thanks for that,’ Brad said, then he hung up the phone and wondered if Vossy had been serious or was just joking around. He had been dreaming about the draft, too, and he could tell that his parents were becoming more nervous. His mum had no way of hiding it, but even his dad had been acting a little differently. The other night he’d gotten up at three in the morning to bring washing in off the line. Some nights, Brad would lie awake, thinking. Whenever he was alone, the draft crawled straight into his mind. ‘If I’m on my own, that’s when I start to think about it. It’s my dream and it’s sort of getting closer to reality,’ he said. ‘It’s at that stage where you can reach for it, but you can’t reach too far because it might get pulled away. Somebody still has to give it to you.’

Thursday 25 October 2007 29 sleeps to go Junior buttoned up his blazer and slipped into his seat in the Scotch College memorial hall. Stewie wasn’t too far away. The Year 12 speech night started with the sonorous sounds of the organ, as a line of robed teachers filed quietly up onto the stage. This night, this week and this month had seemed to come so quickly. Wandering down the hill from the boarding house to school last Thursday, for his final day of classes, it struck Junior that he was doing it for the last time, and that he might actually miss it. He still had exams coming up, as well as one last trip home before the draft, which he was feeling very ready for. Almost straight after the draft camp, Adelaide’s Hamish Ogilvie 249


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had organised another meeting, rounding up Steve Holding, Rob Smith and Mick Smith. He told them that Junior was in the mix for pick 10 but that he hadn’t won the coach, Neil Craig, over at all, and asked how they thought he would cope under the Craig ‘regime’ – doing every bit of preseason training from day one, until he couldn’t keep up. Rob wasn’t sure he’d handle it well at all. ‘That would be a real struggle for Junior,’ he said, hoping the Crows wouldn’t knock too much personality out of him. ‘I think he’ll mature into it. I think he’ll learn to become a solid trainer. He’ll never love it, but he’ll adapt.’ Mick had the same doubts. ‘I hope they let him be Junior,’ he said. ‘He’s his own person and you wouldn’t want to change that. He has to get himself fit. But if you let him win games for you, he will.’ The Kangaroos were another club heading out for a second chat; after watching Junior struggle through the time trial, recruiting manager Neville Stibbard kept wondering: was this kid lazy, or just unfit? He suspected the latter, and was bringing the club’s coach, Dean Laidley, along for a second opinion. The ‘where’ part of the draft didn’t worry Junior; in spite of what everyone around him seemed to think he had no great desperation to go anywhere in particular. Adelaide? ‘Yeah, that’d be OK.’ The Kangaroos? ‘Yeah, that’d be good.’ Essendon? ‘That’d be the best, but I just want someone to pick me.’ Still, each time he met Michelle Linossier in her office and she asked what his latest interview had been like, he shrugged and never said much. ‘I think he’s a bit scared about wanting it too much,’ she said. ‘Because if it doesn’t happen, what will happen?’ As the Scotch boys bunched at the side of the stage, waiting to be handed their certificates, Cyril and Kathy Rioli leaned forward from the upstairs level of the dimly lit room, wanting a closer look. The past four years had passed quickly for them too, although as Kathy watched Junior step up on stage, she felt as though she didn’t know him as well as she used to, that in sending him away she had sacrificed that. ‘I feel like I haven’t done my job as his mother,’ she said. ‘All of a sudden he grew up, and he doesn’t need to ask me anything anymore. I don’t really know him like I used to.’ She kept leaning forward, as far as she could without bumping the people in front, and as Junior reached the other side of the stage he glanced up, like he knew exactly where his parents were sitting, smiling his little smile. 250


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Sunday 4 November 2007 13 sleeps to go At the Bushrangers’ best-and-fairest night, Ben won the Ned Kelly statue easily. He was grateful for the honour, another unexpected one, but even as he accepted the award he was wishing the team had won the grand final instead. As soon as the function was over, another tradition began: the Bushies’ footy trip, two days of ‘singing and yahooing’ that began with an early-morning visit to the coach’s house, continued with a pub crawl through three nearby towns and finished up at the McEvoys’ place, swags scattered everywhere. Ben wore the ‘Kiss Me Before I’m Famous’ t-shirt he’d been peer-pressured into buying by some persuasive female cousins. It only cost $15, and it wasn’t a bad conversation starter. At one of the pubs, people kept coming over to wish him luck in the draft; he kept wondering who they were, and how they possibly knew who he was. ‘It made me think it must be hell for AFL players,’ he said, ‘getting recognised all the time. But from my point of view it wasn’t such a bad predicament to be in. . .’ On Sunday night it was back to his other life – he slipped inside his room with some books, to finally get some studying done. The end of classes had been a good thing, in some ways. As much as he’d enjoyed the year, there were times when it had felt stifling. Ben needed time to himself, when no-one needed him, when the phone didn’t ring and when there was no need to be anywhere. The end of school had also been fun: sad fun, when you’re glad you don’t have to do something anymore but still miss the idea of doing it. ‘Whenever something ends it makes you think, “what now?” and you wish you could do it all again,’ Ben said. He had friends who knew vaguely what they wanted to do in 2008, but some of them had no idea at all, which made him feel grateful he wasn’t sweating on his exam results. ‘I’d hate to be doing them under that sort of pressure,’ he said. ‘I’m lucky. I know what my career is, I just don’t know where it will be.’ He was starting to get some idea. St Kilda had called and would come up after his last exam; the Eagles and Kangaroos had visited and Port Adelaide would be up soon too. For some reason, Ben had a hunch he was headed to Fremantle. ‘I think it’s because I don’t really want to go there,’ he said. ‘Like I’m preparing myself for what I don’t want.’ Before Rohan O’Brien from West Coast drove up, Sharon joked about messing the house up and walking around in her daggiest clothes, in a lame attempt to put 251


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him off. She was a teacher and knew that most kids would be exposed to drugs, no matter where they lived or what they did for a living. But although the Eagles had publicly promised to set things right, they hadn’t done it yet. ‘I’m not sitting around thinking: “Oh no, Ben’s going to get caught up in drugs,”’ she said, ‘but football players are like gods in Perth and an 18-year-old with heaps of money and time is a dangerous thing. I think that’s what the AFL has to work on, more than anything. It’s really hard to be an elite athlete, where your whole life is spent training. You have to find the right outlets and be around different groups of people, or you lose touch with things.’ Ben had thoughts of his own on the Eagles, and the hysteria Ben Cousins’ downfall had caused. ‘I don’t blame West Coast and, in terms of Mum worrying about me being there, I think that’s a bit ridiculous,’ he said. ‘She’d hate me being so far away and that’s only natural, but I think it’s a matter of personal decisions. That’s what annoys me, that people don’t take responsibility for themselves. It makes me sad sometimes. People are always looking to blame other people for what they do in their own lives.’ Ben had made a final call of his own: to appoint Dan Richardson as his manager. It was a tough decision, and harder still to tell the people he’d decided against. Dan had been up a few weekends ago and John watched him and Ben take off on motorbikes, wondering who would have more trouble adjusting to life post-draft: Ben, when he left, or him, when Ben left. The family’s entire weekend routine would change and Pete would have to roll up his sleeves for a bit more farm work. Luckily, his knee was all better: he was playing lots of tennis and had signed up for a cricket team. John believed that where Ben went would play a significant part in whether or not he made it. ‘That’s your first job,’ he told Dan, when they brought the bikes back in. ‘What’s that?’ asked Dan. ‘Find him some space,’ John said. ‘He’s going to need it.’

Thursday 15 November 2007 8 sleeps to go Trent had one last exam to do, then Year 12 would be over and he’d be off to Echuca to spend six days in the sun. For the first time in a long time, he 252


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had nothing coming up − nothing to get ready for, nothing to wear him out or worry him. Except of course the draft, and he had no control over what would happen in that. It would be nice to spend a few quiet days wrapping his head around what had happened in this slow but speedy year. Things were coming together and Trent felt calm. Having his leg in a cast had made it easier to sit still and study, and his foot was feeling much better. He got off crutches last week, his leg was weak and he still had a small hobble, but the specialist thought he’d be running again by not long after the draft. Trent really hoped he was right. ‘I just want to go off to a club and be normal again,’ he said. ‘I want it to be like this never even happened.’ Even better news was that Lilah was coming home earlier than expected: she’d fly home next Thursday night from Europe. Trent’s frustration and uncertainty had started to evaporate as soon as she called to tell him. ‘I think everything will be fine now. Everything will be like it was,’ he said. ‘It’s sort of another reason I want to stay in Melbourne. I feel like I’ve put all this pressure on her to come back and be here, it wouldn’t be a good thing to leave her.’ That was the one thing he was waiting to know: which club would pick him and where he would be living in two weeks. Wayne Hughes hadn’t knocked on his door, but was it too early for that? He hadn’t been to the Kreuzers’ place either; if he had, surely his father would have worked it out of Matt’s dad. Trent had kept his fingers crossed throughout trade week that Chris Judd would somehow end up at Collingwood or Melbourne, leaving the No. 3 pick where it was; but that didn’t happen and Anthony McConville seemed sure the Eagles wouldn’t let him get past them. At least the whole thing had kept his friends amused: a group of them had wanted him to enter their end-of-school show wearing a West Coast guernsey, with the Vanilla Ice rap song ‘Ice Ice Baby’ playing in the background. ‘That might not be the best idea. . .’ Trent told them. He’d had his own fun, though: after the camp he prank-called his dad, pretending to be a reporter. It worked – for half a second. On the day Ben Cousins was sacked, Peter did get a call – from Kevin Sheehan, telling him Andrew Demetriou wanted to ring, from his endof-season overseas holiday, to make sure there would be no fresh round of Eagles hysteria. ‘I’m not saying one more single word – ever!’ Peter assured 253


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Kevin, who passed the message on. Still, Peter raced for the phone every time it rang during his tennis game that night – the last person he wanted to go through to voice mail was the AFL’s chief executive. Like Trent’s mind, his wandered off occasionally, wondering where the years had gone. ‘Everything he did as a kid used to make me think, “How good is this?” And now he’s almost there,’ Peter said. ‘You just have to think how lucky you are. Even Trent said it to me the other day. He said I don’t know how it happened but suddenly it’s here. He said I don’t have to chase it anymore, it’s looking for me now.’ But which team would it be? After getting off his crutches, Trent went out into the backyard with his sister. ‘If I kick this,’ he told Tess, pointing between two verandah posts, ‘Richmond will pick me.’ Trent flipped the ball over in his hands. He looked down, glanced up and aimed. Then he kicked.

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‘ Selection one . . . ’

Saturday 24 November 2007 Telstra Dome, 10.05 am Andrew Demetriou was sitting at a raised table at the front of the Telstra Dome function room. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Selection one: Carlton.’ Wayne Hughes leaned forward into his microphone and started the draft for the third consecutive year. ‘Player No. 114064,’ he said carefully. ‘Matthew Kreuzer, Northern Knights.’ The recruiting manager settled on Matthew a few days after Carlton secured Chris Judd. That Judd had become the midfield addition the coaches were desperate for influenced his decision, but he still wanted to pick the best player he could. Hughes wasn’t struck by any blinding flashes, and needed to research Matthew’s hip condition before deciding to draft him. The condition was called femoroacetabular impingement – FAI – and it was something experts had only recently begun to understand, to the point that some radiologists still didn’t know the term. The small, bony bump on the ‘ball’ part of Matt’s ‘ball and socket’ hip joint was a lesion. It could sit there forever, not doing a thing, but if it started to grind into his hip cartilage, it would damage it, causing guaranteed arthritis. An arthroscopy would remove the lesion and the potential for damage, but if the surgery was left until symptoms surfaced, it would be too late to prevent the arthritis. For a footballer, that might mean losing two or more years off a career. But the question with Matthew was whether you should put a healthy 18-year-old – who wasn’t yet showing any symptoms – under anaesthetic and into immediate rehab for something that might happen. 255


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The AFL controlled all the medical testing done on draft prospects, so that they weren’t being called in by 16 different teams. Clubs could request all the extra scans or consultations they wanted, but the results would be fed to everyone. The league had sent Matt off to a specialist, who recommended he keep training and playing but predicted he’d need surgery, and a three-month rehab program, in the first two years of his career. The Blues’ doctor, Ben Barresi, read the reports, consulted with the specialist and the club drafted Matt knowing exactly where he was at. It was a good thing: knowing the lesion was there, they’d be able to keep an eye on it, a much better scenario than having him break down out of the blue. ‘Most of the kids these days come through with some sort of injury,’ said Hughes. ‘You just have to know how significant it is.’ Hughes chose Matt over Trent and it wasn’t an easy call. On the Tuesday before the draft, he explained his decision to the executive match committee – the coach, chief executive and two board members – by showing them a 15-minute highlights package of each player. ‘How hard is that?’ he asked them. ‘Hard,’ they agreed. Picking at No. 1 brought pressure: for the player being picked and for the club choosing him, they couldn’t change their mind. The day after the meeting, Hughes turned up at the Kreuzer house to take the teenager and his family out to dinner in Lygon Street. Until Judd came into the equation, Hughes had two picks to work with: No. 1 and No. 3. Had he kept them, and had Kreuzer and Cotchin been the first two players picked, he would have chosen Rhys Palmer at No. 3, setting the draft off on a whole new path. Instead he had only one pick. Ultimately, he chose Matthew because he believed he was and would be the better player. ‘There were just too many things he did well.’

Richmond was at the next table and Francis Jackson was ready. ‘Player 112015,’ he said. ‘Trent Cotchin, Northern Knights.’ After the Tigers traded for Mitch Morton, the popular theory was that they’d draft his brother Cale and re-unite them at Punt Road. Cale was one of the club’s clear top-3 prospects – Matthew Kreuzer and Trent were the other two – but there was never any truth to the rumour. Both Jackson and 256


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football director Greg Miller considered Trent the best, most complete player they had access to, and Francis had been pleased to see him shake a few taggers off at the end of the TAC Cup season. The one match he thought he’d struggled in was the late-season game against Bendigo, where he hadn’t wanted to wear a GPS monitor and had a hard time out-running Scott Selwood. It was only the next week, when Jackson asked around, that he found out Trent had been so unwell he’d needed a few days off school. ‘Trent never mentioned it and that’s a good sign,’ he said. ‘A lot of them will make up all sorts of excuses.’ Jackson was like any recruiting manager. He flipped players’ names around in his head right up until the day. ‘You think about some of them constantly,’ he said. ‘But never Trent. I always felt sure about Trent.’

West Coast had pick 3. ‘Player 111643,’ said Trevor Woodhouse. ‘Chris Masten, East Fremantle.’ Having lost Chris Judd and Ben Cousins, the Eagles went looking for midfielders. The Judd trade had been good news for Masten; having thought for most of the year that he’d probably have to move east, he got to join the club he had grown up supporting. The Eagles picked him because they considered him the best midfielder behind Trent Cotchin. ‘We picked him because he’s good,’ Woodhouse said. ‘He’s well credentialed, he’s performed at every level and he’s played a year of league footy. He’s already shown he can play.’ Had the Eagles wrenched the No. 1 pick from Carlton, Trent would probably have been Perth-bound. ‘That would have been a fairly safe bet,’ Woodhouse said. The Eagles’ eyes flicked quickly back to their list. Their next pick was No. 13. Who would still be there?

It wouldn’t be Cale Morton. Melbourne rated Cale in its top-3 players, so Craig Cameron didn’t hesitate. ‘He’s tall, he can run and he’s skilful,’ said the recruiting manager. ‘He has a lot of scope for where he can play on the ground.’ Had West Coast chosen Morton, the Demons would have chosen a more traditional onballer. ‘We would have drafted Rhys Palmer,’ Cameron said. He wanted Jack Grimes too; badly. He’d contemplated 257


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picking him at No. 4 but felt that was a bit early. Would he be there at No. 14, when the Demons were up again? ‘I hope so . . .’ Cameron thought, as the draft kept moving. If not, he had a small, clever forward in mind: Addam Maric.

The Western Bulldogs had pick No. 5. Everyone knew who they were planning to pick and Scott Clayton didn’t mind: he’d set his heart on Dandenong forward Jarrad Grant early in the year and taken coach Rodney Eade to meet him in August. He ranked him alongside Matthew Kreuzer, Trent Cotchin and Cale Morton because he had height, speed and quick hands, could kick goals and had a sharp, fast brain. Some had criticised his body language but that didn’t worry the Bulldogs; people had been just as harsh on Andrejs Everitt, their first-round choice in 2006, and he was soon to inherit Chris Grant’s No. 3 guernsey. ‘They don’t all fit beautifully in the box,’ Clayton said. ‘They’re not all the same and some of the TAC clubs can be hard on them if they don’t all fit in the box. He can play footy and that’s why we picked him. On talent, I reckon he’s right up there with the other three.’ Clayton was pleased that West Coast opted for Masten over Morton, believing Melbourne would have picked Grant had Morton been gone. ‘They even said it to us on draft day, that if Morton doesn’t get through, you boys are going to be very disappointed,’ he said. ‘We were lucky the Eagles got pick 3. The Eagles getting that pick and steering away from Morton enabled us to get Grant, basically.’ The Bulldogs had settled on Grant ahead of West Australian defender Alex Rance and got a big shock when Rance made it all the way to No. 18 – one more spot and the Bulldogs would have got both. Instead, they happily picked Callan Ward who, as dozens of boys were drafted to new states, got to join the club around the corner. At the back of the Bulldogs’ draft table, Eade sat with a handful of new assistant coaches – Peter Dean among them. Recently placed in charge of the club’s backline, his work as the Bushrangers’ coach wasn’t entirely done: despite reminding his players all year long that not all of them would get drafted, he’d have to spend the next few days consoling some disappointed boys. 258


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Essendon settled on David Myers, a running backman from Perth, the day before the draft. List manager Adrian Dodoro’s theory was that you might as well take every available minute to make the best-possible decision. He chose Myers ahead of Rhys Palmer, Lachie Henderson and Alex Rance, after interviewing Henderson the day before the draft, with Brad Ebert next in line after that group. ‘We were trying to make a case for Henderson because big, strong key-position players are hard to find,’ Dodoro said. ‘And if you talk to them late, you can find out who else has been speaking to them.’ Junior Rioli was in the Bombers’ thinking too – but never for pick 6. Michael Long’s nephew would have to go somewhere else. ‘He wasn’t in contention at pick 6 because he didn’t measure up to those other guys in terms of the things we were looking for and the sort of player we wanted,’ Dodoro said. ‘We’ve been watching him since he was 10 years old and waiting for the day, but you can’t let sentiment get in the way of making a decision. He could be a star, I’ve got no doubt, but there were other guys ahead of him. We needed to pick the best player available that most suited our needs.’ Dodoro suspected Rioli would be drafted between picks 10 and 15; but you never knew, maybe he would get to their next choice, No. 23. He’d pick him there in a second.

At pick 7, Fremantle drafted Rhys Palmer. It was an easy choice because the Dockers had ranked him at the very top of their list. They’d considered him in 2006 but that year’s draft was strong, and Palmer was smaller, slower and stricken with osteitis pubis back then. ‘I think he’s the ideal modernday midfielder,’ said Phil Smart, the Dockers’ recruiting manager. ‘He’s got good endurance and loves to carry the ball. He’s got a great ability to cover the ground, particularly big grounds like Subiaco, and that’s something we need to consider because we play so many games there.’ Had Essendon drafted Palmer, the Dockers’ choice would have been equally easy. ‘We would have drafted David Myers,’ said Smart. ‘We were always going to pick the player Essendon didn’t.’

At pick 8, Brisbane chose Lachie Henderson. Henderson was the fourth player on the Lions’ list; Brad Ebert was seventh. ‘Had Henderson been 259


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gone, we would probably have drafted Brad,’ said football manager Graeme Allan. Having picked Henderson, Brisbane turned its mind to midfielders, but at No. 25, their second-round pick, Tom Collier was still there and impossible to pass up: the club had him ranked in its top-10 list too. Choosing Collier had an impact on their plans, and on other players: Allan liked Calder Cannons ruckman Dean Putt and the Lions would likely have chosen him with their third-round pick had they drafted Ebert or another onballer earlier in the draft. Instead, having picked two tall players early, they added James Polkinghorne and Matt Austin to their midfield mix. Putt was drafted at No. 51 by Richmond, and got to stay home.

The Saints had pick 9. ‘Player 111527,’ said recruiting manager John Peake. ‘Ben McEvoy, Murray Bushrangers.’ The Saints had three players in mind at No. 9. One of them – Henderson – was gone. The other one they had strongly considered was Jack Grimes; had the Saints not traded their second-round pick for Sydney pair Adam Schneider and Sean Dempster, they would have probably used their first choice on Jack and their second on Dawson Simpson, leaving Ben waiting. But once they had just the single choice, Ben became their priority. He’d grown steadily on Peake and John Beveridge throughout the year and when the recruiters lined him up against Matthew Kreuzer he’d averaged one more disposal, two more marks and two fewer hit-outs. He wasn’t as quick but his endurance was fine and the Saints saw him having a better overhead mark. ‘I thought: he’s almost 200 centimetres and he can run and read the game,’ said Peake. ‘Going up to interview him was what sealed it. He’s an organised kid, he’s going to be the best he possibly can. Even his family looks like one that just goes and gets things done.’ Did they draft him as a ruckman, or a forward? ‘His mum asked me that,’ said John Peake. ‘We see him as a ruckman but we know he can take a mark and play in other spots.’ That, said John Beveridge, was another reason the club picked him. ‘We’ve never drafted a ruckman with our first-round pick,’ he said. ‘We’ve always traded for them. We thought it was time we had a crack at one.’ * * * 260


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Adelaide had pick 10. Matt Rendell cleared his throat and leaned forward. Was he going to pick Brad Ebert? Had he swung around on Cyril Rioli? ‘Player 112413,’ he said. ‘Patrick Dangerfield.’ Rendell had crossed Junior’s name off a few weeks earlier. He thought he had enormous talent, and his initial interview at school had been fine, but he hadn’t been satisfied with what he’d seen since. ‘His testing was abysmal, to be truthful, and his psychological stuff worried us,’ he said. ‘We thought he’d have trouble moving interstate, and who knew when we’d see his best footy. It would have been a massive call and I would have had to suffer a lot of pain for three or four years. It would have been too hard a call for us, but I’m going to get a lot of enjoyment out of watching him play, that’s for sure.’ The Crows had seven picks in the draft, choosing the name at the top of their list each time – except at No. 71, when they felt they’d picked enough midfielders already and opted for Aaron Kite, a tall young Calder Cannon. It meant choosing Dangerfield was easy – he was their No. 3 and they had no problem with leaving him at home to finish school. At one point during the year, Rendell had even ranked Patrick at No. 2, behind Matthew Kreuzer and ahead of Trent Cotchin. ‘I kept looking three or four years down the track,’ he said. ‘I was thinking, if we wanted Dangerfield to play on Cotchin and not let him get a kick, I reckon he could do it. But I doubt whether it could be reversed, because Dangerfield’s just too explosive. If he becomes a good player he’s going to be very hard to tag.’ In the end he pushed Cotchin back ahead. ‘I did that because Cotchin’s got less rough edges. Patty still has a few rough edges. There’s less wrong with Cotchin, but I was worried about how easily he got tagged out of that game in Perth. I think Dangerfield will be a more powerful runner, in time.’ After Dangerfield on the Crows’ list were Myers, Morton and Henderson. Brad Ebert was their seventh player, with Scott Selwood, Alex Rance and Matthew Lobbe rounding out their top 10. Rendell didn’t overlook Brad because there was anything wrong with him; he liked him. The Crows simply liked another player better and backed themselves, knowing that overlooking the local boy would send radio talkback, internet sites and possibly even the entire city of Adelaide into meltdown. ‘You have to trust yourself,’ Rendell said. ‘There are four full-timers here and 261


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we kept asking each other: have we got this right? No-one wavered. And at at the end of the day, I’m not trying to pick players to see Adelaide go shit. I picked him because I think he’ll be a great player.’

At pick 11, it was Sydney’s turn. ‘Player 112453,’ said Stuart Maxfield, the Swans’ head recruiter. ‘Patrick Veszpremi, Northern Knights.’ Maxfield tried not to get distracted by ineligible players, but had found it impossible to ignore Pat during 2006; he’d played with such get up and go. He would’ve liked to see him play in the Under-18 championships but, had the draft been held in July, would have still picked him at No. 11. He liked how quick Pat was but also how well he used his speed. ‘You get a lot of kids who are really quick off the mark but tend to get the ball and stop and look for someone to give it to,’ he said. ‘You have to teach them to get the ball and run with it. Patty reminds me of some of the rugby league players up here – his natural instinct is to take off the second he gets the ball.’ Knowing Pat was the one he wanted, Maxfield would have preferred he had his shoulder surgery done while his thumb was on the mend. ‘I suppose from our point of view you want them to come into the club as fit as they possibly can be,’ he said. ‘But at the same time, no AFL club will give any kid a guarantee at that stage of the year. He wanted to do the right thing by the team and that’s a good trait. And he didn’t seem to carry his shoulder at all. That should be good for his self-confidence, to know he can play with an injury.’ One early-season match convinced Maxfield that Pat had some real spunk about him. It was in round 5, when the Northern Knights played Sandringham. Pat came off the bench midway through the first quarter and got instantly involved in the game. ‘He had an impact from the second he came on; it really grabbed me,’ Maxfield said. ‘I was pretty sold on him after that game.’ Pat had been banished to the bench that day, for arriving a few minutes late.

With pick 12, Hawthorn drafted a small, skilful forward from Darwin who had spent a few years at Scotch College. 262


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At pick 13, the West Coast recruiters paused, for exactly 11 seconds. The Eagles had arrived at the draft holding four of the first 22 picks – 3, 13, 20 and 22. They were only going to use those picks, which had made planning for the draft much easier than in other years: rather than rank 70, 80 or more players, they simply drew up a list of 30 players they’d happily pick. Trevor Woodhouse thought Ben McEvoy might be available at pick 13; he wasn’t. Alex Rance was in his thinking – but for one of the two later picks, never for No. 13. He’d been contemplating Scott Selwood at No. 13, not believing he’d make it through to No. 20 but, as it turned out, Selwood hung around even longer than that. Melbourne had the No. 21 pick and the Eagles couldn’t see them taking Selwood, given they’d just drafted Jack Grimes. So they drafted Tony Notte – who they believed Melbourne was more likely to pinch − with the No. 20 pick, the Demons chose Addam Maric and West Coast got Selwood with their final choice. But at No. 13, it was obvious which player they had to pick. This kid was a natural, genuine midfielder who did everything well, and they never thought he’d still be there. ‘Player 113293,’ said Trevor Woodhouse. ‘Brad Ebert, Port Adelaide Magpies.’

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37

‘ Strange things

happen on draft day ’

Saturday 24 November 2007 10 am Gary Buckenara and Graham Wright sat at the front of the Hawthorn draft table, with Chris Pelchen and Alastair Clarkson just behind them. Graham checked off names, keeping tabs on which players had and hadn’t been picked; once a draft started, it could unfold quickly. It was his first time up front and it was exciting: draft day was like a recruiting manager’s grand final. Gary’s job was to read the players’ names and registration numbers out, and he had the numbers listed in extra-big print. At his debut draft, back in 2004, he’d accidentally called the wrong number and temporarily drafted Luke Franklin − a 22-year-old fitter and turner from Morwell who hadn’t played footy in two years – instead of Lance Franklin. The draft rules said that if you made a mistake picking a player, you sacrificed the selection. Buckenara quickly corrected himself, picked Buddy and breathed a very big sigh of relief. At pick 12, the Hawks’ choice was an easy one. ‘Player 111112,’ said Gary. ‘Cyril Rioli, St Mary’s, Northern Territory.’ At the end of their final pow-wow, the two recruiters and Chris Pelchen agreed that if Junior was available at their first pick, they would draft him. Unlike some clubs, they hadn’t been scared off by his poor fitness testing; if anything, it was a bonus. ‘Andrew Russell was confident that while he may never have the endurance to play for long periods in the midfield, he could at least get him to a much higher level,’ Pelchen said. ‘So rather than discounting it and simply deciding that we couldn’t 264


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get him any better, we felt that if he could play such good football now, imagine how well he could play once he did improve his fitness base.’ Similarly, Junior’s psychological reports hadn’t worried the club. They had interviewed Junior on several occasions and spoken with Rob Smith, Steve Holding and Mick Smith. Everyone who had anything to do with him said he took time to feel comfortable around new people but was generally a good kid. Wright had heard the suggestions Junior would have trouble adjusting if he was moved to a new state, but reminded himself he’d already moved states: as a 14-year-old, on his own. ‘I don’t know if you should be making decisions based solely on the psych profiles, anyway,’ he said. ‘What it did was make us understand and feel more comfortable with what we were getting with Junior. It meant once we did pick him, we knew how to support him properly and make him feel at ease.’ Pelchen agreed. Junior’s profile also indicated he might have trouble sustaining concentration and focus, but rather than write him off because of it, they looked for reasons why. ‘It was concerning but it wasn’t damning,’ he said. ‘We had to look at him in other ways, that’s why we interviewed so many people around him. We were able to form a clear impression that football and family were the two most important things in his life; that he was committed to his football and saw it as a genuine career path.’ Junior beat two other players – Jack Grimes and Alex Rance − at pick 12. A fourth option, Lachie Henderson, had been chosen by Brisbane. The Hawks had some concerns about Jack’s back injury and believed they would be able to pick up a similar type of player – their midfielder − with a later pick. Making that decision led them to another – what did they require more, the key defender or the crumbing forward? They went with the crumber. ‘In the short term we thought we could cover the defensive positions with Trent Croad and Campbell Brown playing there, Stephen Gilham improving and Jarryd Roughead possibly to go back in the future,’ Pelchen said. ‘We felt there was a greater urgency to get a crumbing forward into the team because that type of player didn’t currently exist on our list. We weren’t sure we’d be able to secure a key defender with a later selection, but we didn’t think there was a small forward nearly as good as Cyril in this draft. That’s why we decided we had to take him first.’

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At pick 29, Hawthorn chose a player it never thought would be there. ‘Player 112916,’ called Buckenara. ‘Brendan Whitecross, Zillmere.’ Having found their crumbing forward, the Hawks were still hoping for either a key defender or a midfielder – both, if possible. They looked at their talent order – who was left? Brett Meredith, the twenty-third player on their list, had been chosen by Sydney at No. 26. Dan McKenna – an occasional key defender and their twenty-first player – was still available. So was Whitecross, listed at No. 20. While McKenna might be able to play as a key backman, the Hawks weren’t entirely sure it was his best position. Whitecross, they believed, suited the model better as a midfielder than McKenna would have as a key defender. ‘The recruiting staff had Dan at No. 21, so we obviously liked him as a player. But he’s 195 centimetres and there’s a real possibility that he might keep growing,’ Pelchen said. ‘We thought he may end up too tall to play as the type of defender we were seeking. We felt more confident in Brendan’s capacity to play as a midfielder than we did in Dan’s ability to play as a genuine key defender.’ Neither Buckenara nor Wright had expected Whitecross to get past Brisbane’s pick 25, let alone to them. ‘That’s why you’ve got to be prepared,’ Gary said. ‘Strange things happen on draft day.’ Wright considered Brendan to be as much of an ‘inside’ as an ‘outside’ player at this point in time – mostly because he didn’t yet understand his own capabilities. ‘He’s interesting,’ he said. ‘He wins a lot of his own footy inside but he’s got the speed and endurance combination to run outside as well. He’s played inside so much that people haven’t seen a lot of the other stuff yet, but I think we will in the future and that’s obviously why we picked him. He’s a confident kid who’ll listen and take advice and keep learning. He’ll fit in really well with the coaches and players. They’ll help him develop those qualities.’

Hawthorn’s third and final pick was No. 45. The recruiting managers turned to the back table, where Chris Pelchen sat with Alastair Clarkson, Mark Evans, Greg Boxall, Geoff Morris and Ian Robson. There was a decision to make. At the end of 2006, Stuart Dew, a member of Port Adelaide’s 2004 premiership team, had retired after 180 games. At 27, he had battled persistent groin problems, hadn’t enjoyed football as much as he once 266


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did and felt it would be unfair to his teammates and club to push through another season if he didn’t feel completely motivated. After travelling overseas at the start of 2007, by the middle of the year Dew was back home in Adelaide, weighing about 120 kilograms and wanting to play football again. By September, he had been in contact with Clarkson, who knew Dew well from his own days at the Power, hadn’t forgotten how lethal his long, left-foot kick was, and had just seen three of Hawthorn’s most experienced senior players retire. There was no way the club could have drafted Dew in the shape he was in and the coach made that clear, but Clarkson also told Dew that if he wanted to play football, he should think about playing AFL football again. Dew acknowledged he had a lot of work to do and, when he spoke to Clarkson again at the start of October, he had started it, hiring a personal trainer, contacting Andrew Russell for regular advice and dropping some weight. By November, Clarkson was even more interested. Dew was still well over his playing weight but had lost a few more kilograms, kept training and spent his own money on a trip to a health retreat. The coach had met with him in person, as had Russell and Geoff Morris, both of whom came away equally convinced of Dew’s commitment. The sticking point, then, became whether to dedicate a draft pick to him ahead of the draft. The coaches wanted to, mostly to keep Dew motivated, and Pelchen wasn’t as much concerned that they wanted him, as he was in wanting to protect the process, feeling they couldn’t determine whether drafting Dew at No. 45 was the most appropriate decision the club could make until they actually knew which other players were available. An hour into the draft, it was time to make the call. All the discussion, debate and emotion had dissolved – the mood at the table was calm. First, they looked at the talent order to see which players were on offer. David Zaharakis, their fortieth player, was ruled out first. They liked him, but believed that in Whitecross they already had a similar player type. Mitch Farmer was discounted for similar reasons and Joey Daye was ruled out. They liked his athletic potential, and expected to be discussing him again throughout 2008, but he didn’t specifically fit the recruiting model. That left Dew and two other boys: Dan McKenna and Hugh Sandilands. Both were defensive prospects, both suited the model and both were ranked above No. 45 on the talent flow. Buckenara and Wright 267


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put forward short, concise cases for each of them. McKenna, Gary told the group, was tall, mobile and had a good frame. Like the rest of the recruiting staff, he’d been impressed by McKenna more in the first half of the season than towards the end of the year; but tall, athletic players were hard to find. Sandilands, Wright reminded everyone, had long arms and good closing speed. ‘Both of them are really good kids,’ he said. ‘Dan’s played in the forward line for the last couple of years, but he played all his junior footy at full-back and has a good knowledge of how to play as a defender. Hugh is more of a shut-down defensive type, who’s focused and has some strong athletic qualities. They both have the potential to play as key defenders.’ As potential defenders, picking either of the boys would have meant completing the original recruiting model. But both would be works-inprogress, they’d need a few years to develop and the reality of the draft is that not every player can or will make it. Dew, on the other hand, was 28, coming out of retirement with a recent history of injury problems. His fitness and body shape were improving, though, and he was genuinely determined to make it back to AFL level. The retirements of Dixon, Smith and Vandenberg had left the 33-year-old Shane Crawford as the only Hawthorn player older than 28. Dew would bring experience, one of the best kicks in the competition, and he had recent premiership success. He didn’t need any long-term development and should be able to play almost straight away, but his recruitment would be a direct deviation from the club’s plan, if a temporary one. After lengthy discussion, 20 seconds were left to make a call. ‘After hearing all that, do you still want Dewy?’ Pelchen asked Clarkson. He did, very much so. ‘So you understand the reasons for and against selecting him compared to the other boys?’ Pelchen said. Clarkson did, and still wanted Dew; ultimately, he thought he would help the coaches develop the large group of young players the Hawks already had on their list. ‘OK then,’ said Chris. ‘Let’s go with him.’ Buckenara turned back to the microphone. One of the things he most liked about draft day was that as soon as you picked someone, they belonged to the club. They instantly became Hawks. ‘Player 9444,’ he said. ‘Stuart Dew, Port Adelaide.’ 268


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38

‘ Just like that, he was gone ’

Saturday 24 November 2007 10.05 am Junior didn’t hear his name get called. The big screen didn’t light up in time, but his phone started beeping and ringing, all at once, and he guessed something must have happened. ‘Hawthorn!’ announced his cousins, Randall and Shannon, calling from Dean’s place. ‘They’re joking . . .’ Junior thought. ‘Hawthorn!’ said his manager, Dan Richardson, calling from Telstra Dome. ‘Hmmm . . .’ thought Junior. Maybe it really was Hawthorn. After an hour, Junior saw his name on the screen, which was finally fixed, and believed it for the first time. Pick 12. Hawthorn. Cyril Rioli. Standing up to thank his family once the draft was over, he got a bit tearful again. ‘I started shaking,’ he said. ‘I can’t really explain how I felt. I think I just felt like I knew, finally. It was over.’ Junior’s new colours meant an instant, new allegiance for those around him, which, in the first few minutes after the draft, struck Kathy as strange, and a little sad. It was hard to comprehend until the moment it actually happened – out of nowhere he became a Hawthorn player. ‘We’ve been with St Mary’s forever and we love Essendon. We’ve never really had another club,’ she said. ‘We were all sort of like . . .’ well, it’s not the Bombers, but that’s OK. I think it will be good for Junior. He’ll get to be himself.’ The next day, Junior would leave home again, no end-of-term holidays to look forward to this time. His mother hoped he was ready for it. A few people from Hawthorn phoned during the day, checking up on 269


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his medical history and making sure he had a valid passport. The following Friday, the club was taking a group of young players to Papua New Guinea to trek the 96-kilometre Kokoda Trail. As in, next Friday. As in, eight days hiking along steamy jungle tracks, carrying sandbags and getting to know the group of strangers that had just become his teammates. Kathy looked over at Junior, laughing with his cousins, so glad his long wait was over. She had been taken aback when he broke down during his speech because he’d seemed so settled all week. Later, he really did look relieved and it was only then that she realised he hadn’t quite been himself in the few days before the draft. He looked happy, satisfied, and she wondered if he had any clue what he was in for. ‘I don’t think Junior’s even heard of the Kokoda Trail.’

Trent heard his name get called where he wanted it to be called, but the moment passed so quickly that he wasn’t really conscious of how he felt when it happened. He forgot to remember, if that makes sense. Then he was swept away, thrown into a yellow-and-black shirt, and plonked in front of a camera. ‘There wasn’t any time to think,’ he said. ‘People were talking to you, taking you places and calling you over to them. Everything happened so quickly.’ Later that night at his party, a friend told him how relieved he had looked on TV and he realised that was exactly how he had felt. It was like more thoughts had escaped his mind in that instant than entered it. All the ‘what-ifs’ vanished and he was left with the simple realisation that now he was a Richmond player. The party went until after midnight, but Trent had already slipped off to bed well before then. He wanted to think about what had happened, what was about to happen. How he was due at training first thing Monday morning; how he wanted to train really hard and get his foot right; how he might, maybe, get the vacant No. 9 jumper and how the club wanted him to live with Kane Johnson, the captain, until he was old enough to drive. How it was all going to get so much harder from here. ‘I’m so happy,’ he thought. He wanted to soak it up and sleep, the party could go on without him. ‘It’s all come to an end, and now it starts again.’

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Ben knew he had been drafted when he heard his mother burst into tears at the opposite end of the house, then come tearing down the hall. ‘St Kilda!’ Sharon squeaked, through the tears. Ben smiled, got up from the computer and gave his mum a big hug. It was a moment she planned to remember. To be drafted by a Melbourne club was a huge relief, much bigger than Ben had imagined. He’d been so determined not to waste energy worrying that he didn’t appreciate how much he really wanted to stay near home until he knew he would get to. Other minds were eased too. After half an hour on the mower, John McEvoy began to wonder why no-one had come dashing out with news. Driving past the back gate, he looked across at Ben, who had come out to sit on the porch, to take it all in. Ben held up a bunch of fingers, but his dad couldn’t tell if it was nine or 10. He relented, heading inside to find out how far from the farm Ben was moving. Ben was choofing around on a tractor, later in the day, when his phone rang. He reached for it, answered, and the person at the other end was Nick Riewoldt. Ben tried not to choke, then he tried to sound normal. ‘I got off the phone and thought: “Shit. In a week’s time I’m actually going to be training with that bloke,”’ he said. His dad rang straight afterwards, and Ben told him to go and tell Pete who had rung. ‘I knew how much it would shit him.’ Ben finally felt his first butterflies three days after the draft. His parents and Pete had headed off to school and he was throwing some clothes in a bag, getting ready to drive to Melbourne on his own for the first time. He would be back in a few days, for his high school graduation, so the trip didn’t feel permanent; but Ben would be meeting his coach and teammates for the first time, and spending the first night with his host family. All he could think about was how good it would be when things didn’t feel so new anymore. ‘I can’t wait until I can go in there every day and know everyone and not feel conscious of the things I’m doing or saying,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to everything feeling normal, like my everyday life.’

Pat’s reactions were caught on the Fox Sports camera. When the Western Bulldogs chose Jarrad Grant at pick 5, he squeaked ‘Yes!’, rising from his 271


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seat slightly. No-one fell for it, but it made him smile. When his own name was called, six selections later, he clapped, smiled and leaned back on the couch, running his left hand through his hair, lifting both feet off the ground. ‘I was happy but I was numb inside,’ he said. ‘I’ve never felt like it before. It was like an accomplishment or something. I started thinking: “So what do I do now?”’ He hugged his mum, then leaned over to shake Matt’s hand. Less than 10 minutes after his name was called, the Swans took their second selection and chose his friend, Brett Meredith. Perhaps because he was calmer, Pat almost enjoyed that moment more. He had to leave, but he could go with one of his mates. He sat beside his Pa on the couch and, in his own way, tried to tell him that things would be fine. ‘They have good fishing in Sydney . . .’ he said. Frank had been feeling sick in the stomach just before the draft started and wondered what someone his age was doing getting nervous. The Fox Sports reporter asked him whether it was a proud day and he didn’t have to think. ‘My oath it is,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying he’s the best footballer ever, but to me he is. The best. I always said he’d play on the MCG and I wanted to see the day and live long enough to see the day. It doesn’t matter which side he plays for, I’ll be there. But that’s both the boys. When I speak about one, it’s about both of them.’ When Matt heard Pat’s name get called, he felt intensely proud, then realised it was Sydney. He’d thought that wouldn’t worry him – he was planning to take over Pat’s bedroom. Instead, it made him feel sick, and sad. He disappeared into his bedroom for an hour, inconsolable. ‘You told us we’d always be together,’ he told Jennie, over and over through deep, heaving sobs. ‘You said nothing would come between us.’ She had no idea what to say that could possibly make him feel better, and Pat didn’t know either. Matt’s reaction surprised him; he knew family mattered to him but had never realised how much. He wanted to say and do the right thing, but his own head was spinning with strange ideas. ‘How do you think you’ll go rubbing shoulders with Barry Hall?’ asked the Fox Sports reporter. ‘It’s a bit intimidating,’ Pat said. ‘I don’t really want to rub his wrong shoulder.’ The next afternoon, Jennie drove Pat to the airport. He couldn’t stop 272


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chattering on the way, and his first day away was stranger for those he left behind. Each time Jennie closed his bedroom door, Matt opened it up, and they did it all day long. Late that night, Jennie sat in Pat’s room, rummaging through his old footy memorabilia. ‘I was so proud of him,’ she said. ‘I was so happy but it was sad, too. He grew up in a second, in the end. Just like that, he was gone.’ At work on Monday, Jennie still felt a little down. Then the phone rang. ‘Pat’s taken all my good t-shirts,’ Matt grumbled. She smiled. Half an hour later, the phone rang again. ‘Actually, he hasn’t,’ Matt said. ‘But he did take my best pair of shoes.’

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39

‘ They’re the team that picked me ’ Saturday 24 November 2007 12.30 pm An hour and a half after the draft finished, Telstra Dome had almost emptied out. The dreams of 64 young footballers had come true and the hundreds who had missed out were wondering what to do next. It was a day of change in other ways: the federal election was on and a new government was being voted in. Brad Ebert was sitting in the West Coast Eagles’ Melbourne office underneath the stadium, wearing a brand new blue-and-yellow shirt. His head was swirling and his hands were full. Ian Miller, the Eagles’ welfare manager, had just handed him a form to fill in with his family’s contact details, an itinerary for the team’s trip to South Africa in three weeks and two small information booklets. The ‘Information for interstate draftees’ booklet mentioned things like the relocation allowance he’d buy his new bed and TV set with, the need to organise his own contents insurance and to have a voice-mail message put on his mobile phone. It told him where to take his medical bills, how to arrange his own Medicare card and to remember that his weekly boarding costs would be taken straight from his pay. It was a lot to take in and halfway through Mark Nicoski, one of his new teammates, called. ‘Hi,’ Brad said. ‘Yep . . . thanks for that . . . yep . . . yep . . . good . . . OK . . . yep, thanks for that.’ So much had happened in so few seconds that Brad had felt what happened, before realising what it meant. His mother, sitting behind him, understood before anyone. As Matt Rendell recited the first few digits of Patrick Dangerfield’s number, Chris thought: ‘That’s not Bradley.’ When 274


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DRAFT DAY 2007: BRAD

Trevor Woodhouse started speaking, she said it out loud: ‘That’s Bradley.’ She was right. It was him. Brad slumped in his seat and his head dropped to one side. His stomach plummetted, and the blood rushed from his face. He’d been drafted. By West Coast. He’d been drafted. Not by Adelaide. He’d been drafted to Perth. But it had happened – he’d been drafted. Brad was the thirteenth player picked, and the seventh of 36 boys chosen by clubs a plane trip away from their home. ‘I didn’t feel anything and I felt a million things,’ he said. ‘It felt like a big thud inside of me, more than anything. I looked over at Dad, he looked unsure, and then Mum was so upset. I didn’t know what I was meant to be thinking, in a way.’ After the draft, Brad was rushed into another room to do a media conference with Chris Masten and John Worsfold. His phone wouldn’t stop ringing and it started to sink in: he was going to have to move. Still looking pale, he sat beside his new coach and, as the cameras started rolling, felt like this must all be happening to somebody else. ‘It was surreal,’ he said. ‘I was sitting there thinking: “That’s John Worsfold, and I’m sitting right next to him, and we’re doing a press conference and he’s my actual coach now.”’ Brad felt an unusual, instant connection with West Coast the second they called his name. Little things popped into his head, like how they wore his favourite Puma boots. But the Crows were on his mind too. Like his parents, he felt angry, upset and confused. In the instant they overlooked him he’d felt all of those things, at once. ‘I felt disappointed,’ he said. ‘And then I just thought: “What were they thinking?” It’s nothing against Patty, because I like him. But I feel like I’m as good as him and, if they picked me, I wouldn’t have been a liability or anything. I was just sitting there, and I didn’t know what more I could have done. It was weird because, at the same time, I was so happy. I was so happy to be drafted.’ Downstairs, Ian Miller did most of the talking. He said a lot in a short space of time, but was warm and friendly. ‘Don’t call me Ian, call me Serge,’ he began. He told the boys he’d keep careful track of how often they were speaking one-on-one with the coach and how important it would be to let someone know if they felt tired, or sore or, in Brad’s case, missed home. ‘It’s really important that you don’t try and push yourself with any of it,’ he said. ‘Make sure you let us know.’ More than anything, 275


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Miller tried to make the Eberts feel comfortable, despite their tumultuous emotions. ‘We know we’ve had some problems off-field and all we can say is that we’re putting a lot of things in place to make sure we are a great, young footy club,’ he told Chris and Craig. ‘If there’s anything you have an issue with or think could be a problem, make sure you talk to me. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you think it is, the last thing I want you to do is, after speaking to Brad on the phone, turn around and say: “I think something’s wrong.” It might sound silly Brad, but if you are feeling a bit homesick, let us know, we’ll send you home for a few days. Just pick up the phone or come see me. At the end of the day, we all want you to succeed.’ Half an hour later, the Eberts were in the foyer of their hotel, their bags at their feet and a taxi on the way. Every now and then, the colours red, gold and blue would flicker into their minds: Chris wasn’t happy with the Crows at all. ‘When you hate them already . . .’ she said. But the fact was that West Coast had chosen him. ‘They chose him and they’ve given him a chance,’ said Craig. ‘I think you have to trust them. All we’re hoping is that when he gets there someone’s going to look out for him. It’s going to be a big change, but Perth’s not the end of the world. If he needs us, we’ll jump on a plane and we’ll be there.’ He looked across at Brad, who had a bit more colour back. ‘So long as you pick us up from the airport, that is . . .’ Brad was also starting to think more about what had happened, rather than what hadn’t. The club had told him to wait a week before flying over, to go to his graduation first, but he wondered whether he should head over on Monday, to have a quick look around before heading home for the weekend. ‘It’s going to be good. It’s going to be really good,’ he said. ‘I just want to go over and train hard and show people that they were wrong not to pick me.’ Then he paused, and started over. ‘Actually, that’s not what I want. I want to show the Eagles they were right to draft me. No other club gave me that chance, and they did. They’re the team that picked me.’

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40

‘ You can’t go all your life with your mum waking you up every morning ’

In round 1, 2008, Junior Rioli played his first game for Hawthorn. The match was a twilight one against Melbourne at the MCG and Junior was worried about how he would ever fill in so many hours. He slept for as long as he could, only to find the day disappeared quickly once he got up. Junior felt nervous on his way to the ground, and shivered a little as he pulled on his jumper. Running out for the pre-game warm-up, he heard his name being called and glanced up into the southern stand, where a bunch of cousins, his sister, his girlfriend Shannyn and some uncles, all down from Darwin, were sitting. His first opponent was Ricky Petterd, and the fact that he already knew him eased Junior’s nerves. His first kick was a quick one, spinning out of a pack, and when he scattered two Demon defenders and threaded his first goal, midway through the last quarter, he pointed up at his family with a smile. He looked one thing: happy. ‘I loved it – the crowd and all the noise,’ Junior said. ‘I was waiting for it my whole life.’ Junior’s parents were on the other side of the ground that night. They’d been invited to one of the club’s pre-match functions and, walking in with Cyril, Kathy felt a little out of place – like everyone knew who they were even though they didn’t know a single soul. They soon relaxed and felt welcome though, and fell in love with their new club. A few weeks later, Kathy took her father to Brisbane to see Junior play. Before the game Jack Long was invited into the rooms, and when he came back out, he could hardly speak through his tears. The coach had come up to him, as 277


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had some of the players, and he told Kathy that as much as he loved Kevin Sheedy and Essendon, he’d never felt as close to Michael as he had to Junior that day. Halfway through the season, it was safe to call Junior an instant hit. He had played in every game, kicking goals in all but a few. His coaches had given him simple instructions – to pressure, chase and find crumbs – and by round 13 he had laid more tackles than anyone at the club. He got a Rising Star nomination against Richmond in round 6, and made an entry for Goal of the Year on the same day. Junior snaffled Buddy Franklin’s spilled mark, brushed through two Richmond tacklers and, squeezed up against the boundary line, dropped the ball one-handed to his left boot and watched it bounce through. ‘I didn’t really even see the players I had to get past,’ he said. ‘I just saw the ball fall down and thought, “I’m going to have a go here.”’ Junior found a team with a place for him to fill. From his first day at the club people kept telling him how lucky they’d been to get him, and it made him feel good about himself. Going to Papua New Guinea in his first week was hard, he found it difficult to speak up – but after sitting around each night with his new teammates he started to feel more assured. The trip made pre-season training easier, too. ‘Every time I thought it was hard, I’d think back to Kokoda and how I’d rather be training than walking,’ said Junior, who survived almost all of summer training, got his skinfolds down from 75 to 48 and surprised himself by settling in so quickly. ‘I felt like I knew people,’ he said. ‘The group that went away – I felt like I’d sort of shared something with them.’ By round 13, though, he was sore. His legs were heavy and he looked forward to spending some time in Darwin over the split round, hoping that his body would hold up and that the coaches would want to keep him in the team. ‘I still wonder about it,’ he said. ‘All I’m thinking about is one week, then the next week, then the next week. I don’t want it to stop.’ During May, Junior went back to Scotch College where his 14-yearold cousin, Jack Long, had started Year 8 and was spending most days in Rob Smith’s office, crying. ‘I said to him, “I’m not going to hold you back,”’ Junior said. ‘I said “Go home, do whatever you want to do.” I said I hadn’t been happy either, but I stuck it out – but that he should do what he wanted. It was a tactic, I guess.’ By the end of second term, Jack still 278


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missed home and Junior hoped he would stick it out. ‘I look back on it now and I’m so glad I stayed,’ he said. ‘I guess I wanted to play AFL. Deep down I must have known what to do.’

Brad Ebert made the round 2 West Coast side. After he finished training on the Wednesday before the game one of the coaches, Peter Sumich, told him he was a chance to play and so, eating dinner that night, Brad kept his phone close, waiting for confirmation. Playing his first game in Adelaide, against the Crows, was strange – he got to go home, but he stayed in a hotel and had to leave again so quickly. By June, Brad felt settled in Perth. He got a little teary moving back after the Christmas break – it all felt so permanent and he still missed home, in moments and hours that had started to pass more quickly. The Eagles moved him in with a couple, Jo and Terry Taylor, in the Perth suburb of Jolimont, only a few minutes from Subiaco. While his parents and Ashleigh missed him badly – in small ways, like when they’d all sit around watching TV together at night – they were happy with how the club had looked after him. Chris spoke often with Jo, who could tell her about the things she couldn’t see in Brad’s face, and who rang during May to say he seemed a little down, and to ask whether she was better off making him talk or letting him be. Ian Miller was in touch all the time and the Eberts felt involved, like Brad hadn’t just been torn away. Still it was strange – having driven to Melbourne to watch the Eagles play Collingwood, they only got to see him for about 10 minutes after the match, before the team headed off to the airport. ‘You get to see just bits and pieces,’ said Craig. ‘But I think he’s in a good place.’ Brad did a little more than half of summer training, which helped get his confidence up, giving him the sense that he wasn’t way behind everyone else. He played in all the Eagles’ pre-season games but in round 1 was sent back to his WAFL side, Peel Thunder. He’d met the coach once before, but didn’t know a single player until he walked into the rooms before the game. ‘That was hard,’ he said. ‘That was maybe even harder than meeting all the Eagles guys for the first time. With the Eagles guys you could get to know them all summer. But that day, I got there, I didn’t know anyone and then I had to play a game with them.’ 279


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By the middle of the season, Brad was a solid, smart and improving nine-game player. He’d dealt with that first week at Peel, with getting dropped after his second match and with finding his way back – all while juggling his own excitement with playing in a team that kept losing. The trickiest part of his first few games was convincing his teammates to give him the ball– he felt like was running to good spots but still had to prove himself to them. ‘There’s so much to learn,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to understand how each person plays, where they move and what they do – and then there’s all the different styles of play. At the start I felt like I was getting in everyone’s way, but I think I’m getting better.’ Still, he didn’t feel safe. ‘I suppose you’re always wondering what will happen,’ Brad said. ‘You’re sort of thinking, “This guy’s coming back from an injury, or maybe they’ll want to bring someone else in, so I might be the one to go out.” It’s weird, because when I think back to last year, I played five games for the Magpies and I’ve already played more than that here. It feels like it’s happened so quickly.’

Trent Cotchin played his first game for Richmond in round 8, and it was entirely unexpected. First things first, though. Ten days into his first pre-season, Trent ran for 10 minutes on the treadmill and felt fine. The next day he ran for 15 minutes and didn’t feel so great: all he could hear and feel around the back of his ankle was a grinding sensation. His training was put on immediate hold – he had an Achilles injury to get right, and it meant he couldn’t run for any of the pre-season. Some days, all he could manage were a few calf raises or hops, he even had to stop using the rowing machine because it put pressure on his foot. He was placed on the long-term injury list before his career even started and it was immensely frustrating. ‘I was so bored,’ he said. ‘The conditioning coaches gave me all these things to do, and that was only so I could run again. You just feel so far away and you have to learn that even though you want to do more, it’s not a good idea. But at least now I know how to handle something like that if it ever happens again. I was always thinking that, just trying to find some sort of positive.’ A few weeks into the season, Trent played for the first time. After his second VFL match Terry Wallace told him to aim for the round 9 280


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Richmond side, but that he had to earn a game, he wouldn’t just be given one. In round 8, the Tigers played Geelong at the MCG, with Coburg playing a VFL curtain-raiser. Trent lived with Kane Johnson, in the captain’s city apartment, and before Trent left that morning Kane glanced out the window at the grey, cloudy sky and told him he might be a chance to play. Then, after warming up on the ground with the VFL side, Trent went into the rooms and was told to put his tracksuit on, that he might be playing seniors, but he might not too. For some reason that annoyed him, he’d been so focused on playing well for Coburg. ‘I went and sat down and I was filthy,’ he said. ‘Kayne Pettifer came up and said “What’s wrong, are you injured?” I said “Nah, I might be playing in the ones,” and he said “Don’t be so down then!”’ Ten minutes later Wallace called to say he would replace Adam Pattison. Trent went back to the club’s Punt Road base to do some ice baths and scoff a couple of jam sandwiches. As he got ready with the senior team a couple of hours later, he realised he wasn’t yet across all the finer details of preparing for an AFL match. ‘I didn’t know when to put my boots on,’ he said. ‘I was looking around thinking “OK, he’s got them on; he hasn’t; he has; he has; ah, what the hell, I’ll put them on . . .’ Trent started on the ground, strangely feeling no nerves, and scored a goal with his first kick, crouched at the bottom of a goal square pack. He tapped another goal-bound ball to Brett Deledio, scored again on his own and played against the likes of Jimmy Bartel, Tom Harley and Darren Milburn. The Tigers lost, yet he couldn’t help but feel happy. Trent quickly adjusted his pre-season goal – to play one game – to keeping his spot, and improving. ‘I just want to keep getting better, and I want to know what it feels like to be fitter,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to having a pre-season.’ He still felt grateful to be out there, though. Partly because of what happened 10 days after he joined Richmond, but also because of what happened the night after he played his first game. Heading to bed back home in Wollert, Trent’s ankle felt a little tender. He reached down, rubbed his ankle, and could feel the same old grinding. ‘It felt really creaky and I thought, “Oh no,”’ he said. ‘I messaged the doctor and the physio, and got on the anti-inflammatories and iced it. In the morning I knew it would be OK, but at the time I panicked, I thought it was back. I thought my good run was over for a while. It would have just killed me.’ 281


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Ben McEvoy wore the No. 5 St Kilda jumper for the first time in round 13 – finding out he would debut through teammate Andrew McQualter, who had read all about it in the Wednesday Herald Sun. The game against Fremantle was on a Friday night and all day long Ben was a nervous wreck, finding it impossible to get the match off his mind no matter what he did. He was going up against two of the biggest ruckmen in the AFL and as he fell in alongside the 211-centimetre, 125-kilogram Aaron Sandilands, running on midway through the first quarter, he looked unusually small. He struggled to get his hands on the ball when Sandilands was around, but took a few strong marks, hit the post with his first, long kick and expected to be reminded about his first piece of action for a while – on a first-quarter lead, the ball slipped through Ben’s hands and whacked him in the nose. One of the strangest things to adjust to was the amount of crowd noise, he had to listen more intensely than ever before to know what was going on. It was fun though, and the best part about it all was winning, being in the rooms with his new teammates afterwards. ‘Those first 20 minutes after the game, they were awesome. That was when you sort of realise you’re actually doing it, that you’re one of them,’ he said. ‘It was such a good feeling.’ Arriving at St Kilda, Ben didn’t expect to play a senior game in his first year and felt fine about that; he was there to develop, he kept telling himself. At first, he was very conscious about being where he was supposed to be on time – one night, he set the alarm on his phone for 5.30 am, having to be at a 6 am session, and put it on the desk at the end of his bed. The next morning he woke up at 5.48 am, with the phone somehow in his hand and the snooze button punched twice. As the season got underway, Ben was at his locker when his coach, Ross Lyon, wandered through the change rooms and asked him if he felt ready to play an AFL game. ‘I didn’t,’ Ben said. ‘I just didn’t feel ready, I didn’t feel prepared. If I had have played then, I would have been really, really worried about it.’ But a few weeks in, when he could feel the things he was training himself to do start coming off in games, he began to want it and to feel like he had something to give. ‘I got to a point where I just thought, “Stuff this,”’ he said. ‘I thought, “I want to play for the Saints.”’ Ben was named as an emergency three times leading up to his debut, and was flown to Brisbane one week, where Steven King was having a fitness test. It didn’t mess with his emotions too much – in a way, he prepared his body to play but not his 282


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mind – but he felt bad for his family. John and Pete flew to Brisbane that weekend, only for him to miss out again, while Sharon had been stuck in central New South Wales visiting family. ‘She would have been devastated if it happened and she wasn’t there,’ Ben said. ‘I suppose that’s where you feel guilty.’ By midway through his first year, Ben had been home only once, in January. He lived with a couple and their three 20-something sons in Hampton, a minute or two from the beach and – after scoring 93 on his VCE – had started an online management course. He had tried studying biological science at RMIT’s city campus, but it was too difficult to attend all the classes he was supposed to. He felt like he was rushing there, then rushing back to the club – it was a hassle, not the escape he had hoped for. Ben missed the farm, but not as much as he suspected he would have. ‘I thought I’d be going crazy by now, but it’s not too bad,’ he said. ‘I still have my days. Every now and then I’m as shitty as all hell, but there’s not a lot you can do about it. You can’t really get fresh air here, but you can get space. I can get down to the beach and find some.’

By the end of June, Pat Veszpremi was in the best shape of his life. When he returned to Sydney after Christmas, Pat’s shoulder was all better and he was able to train with the team properly. It helped him settle – watching everyone else run around during his first few weeks, while he couldn’t do much, had been tough. By the end of the pre-season, Pat was able to play for the Swans reserves – he kicked plenty of goals in his first few games but was only able to go for a few minutes before running out of puff. When he developed some groin soreness six or seven weeks in, he was put on a tough, 6-week running program. The goal was to get to a point where he could play 100 minutes of a reserves game, to ensure he’d be able to handle 60 or 70 minutes at AFL level. Pat’s confidence was high, his skinfolds were down to 41, and he had knocked 30 seconds off his best-ever time trial time. He felt good about himself and was determined to do whatever he could to convince the coaches to play him by the end of the season. Pat moved into teammate Matthew Laidlaw’s house on the beach at Maroubra, and realised he’d moved away from home on his first trip to 283


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the local Coles. ‘I was mesmerised,’ he said. ‘I looked around and I had no idea what I was doing there. I had to go home and look at what Matt had on his shelves, then go back and copy him.’ He cooked a stirfry in his first week – the first time he had ever really cooked anything – and took a liking to it. Soon steak and vegetables, mushroom sauces and roast chickens were also among his repertoire. There were other things to get used to, too, like getting paid decent money for the first time. ‘I keep looking at my bank account and there’s actual money in there, it’s weird,’ he said. ‘The first week I spent it all at once. I was thinking, “I could so easily just go and buy that shirt over there.” But then you start thinking the rent has to be paid, and all the bills. You go through all these things in your head and you have to make yourself be disciplined.’ Matt had shown him some ropes, too. ‘He gets me into a routine,’ Pat said. ‘Every now and then he just says to me, “I think you’d better clean your bathroom . . .”’ Back home, Pat’s family missed him badly, but tried not to ring him unless there was something specific to say – noticing that his calls home started to rise when he was feeling a bit down. His brother Matt had been up to visit, as had Jennie and Rob, but Jennie kept thinking that as much as they wanted to be near him, they had to remember that Matt had a life too, and that what he was doing was equally as important as what Pat was up to. Frank hadn’t been too well, which stressed Pat out more than anything and he had also given up fishing. ‘I think he thinks it’s our thing,’ Pat said. ‘Sometimes I worry about him. It’s still my goal, to play a game of AFL while he’s alive to watch me. I feel like I have to do it as soon as I can, just in case.’ Watching the likes of Trent Cotchin and Matthew Kreuzer play on TV, it occurred to Pat how lucky they were, to be where they’d always been. Still, he felt like people at the Swans wanted the best for him and were there for him, and that he’d have had to grow up at some point. ‘It’s hard to be away, but you can’t go all your life with your mum waking you up every morning,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I think, “The Swans are such a good club, I wish they could be in Melbourne”, but you’ve got to do things for yourself one day. I think about my mates at home, they go out all the time and if I was there, there’d be all this pressure to go out with them. Up here all your friends are footy players, pretty much. Everyone’s focused on the same thing. I’m sort of thinking, “Could I stay here? Could I live here?” but it’s still my first year. I think it could be good for me.’ 284


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2007 NATIONAL DRAFT AND ROOKIE DRAFT PLAYER LISTS

2007 AFL NATIONAL DRAFT AFL club 1. Carlton 2. RICHMOND 3. West Coast 4. Melbourne 5. Western Bulldogs 6. Essendon 7. Fremantle 8. Brisbane Lions 9. ST KILDA 10. Adelaide 11. SYDNEY 12. HAWTHORN 13. WEST COAST 14. Melbourne 15. Kangaroos 16. Port Adelaide 17. Geelong 18. Richmond 19. Western Bulldogs 20. West Coast 21. Melbourne 22. West Coast 23. Essendon 24. Fremantle 25. Brisbane Lions 26. Sydney

Drafted player Matthew Kreuzer

Club of origin Northern Knights

TRENT COTCHIN

NORTHERN KNIGHTS

Chris Masten Cale Morton Jarrad Grant David Myers Rhys Palmer Lachlan Henderson

East Fremantle Claremont Dandenong Stingrays Perth East Fremantle Geelong Falcons

BEN MCEVOY

MURRAY BUSHRANGERS

Patrick Dangerfield

Geelong Falcons

PATRICK VESZPREMI NORTHERN KNIGHTS CYRIL RIOLI

ST MARYS

BRAD EBERT

PORT ADELAIDE

Jack Grimes Robbie Tarrant Matthew Lobbe Harry Taylor Alex Rance Callan Ward Tony Notte Addam Maric Scott Selwood Tayte Pears Clayton Hinkley Tom Collier Brett Meredith

Northern Knights Bendigo Pioneers Eastern Ranges East Fremantle Swan Districts Western Jets Swan Districts Calder Cannons Bendigo Pioneers East Perth North Ballarat Tasmania Northern Knights

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27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

Adelaide Port Adelaide Hawthorn Adelaide Collingwood Kangaroos Port Adelaide Geelong Western Bulldogs Carlton Kangaroos Adelaide Essendon Fremantle Brisbane Lions St Kilda Western Bulldogs Geelong Hawthorn Carlton Collingwood Western Bulldogs Port Adelaide Geelong Richmond Brisbane Lions Melbourne Essendon Fremantle Brisbane Lions St Kilda Adelaide Sydney Geelong

Andy Otten Marlon Motlop Brendan Whitecross Jarrhan Jacky John McCarthy Levi Greenwood Matthew Westhoff Dawson Simpson Sam Reid Steven Browne Scott Thompson Myke Cook Darcy Daniher Chris Mayne James Polkinghorne Jack Steven Easton Wood Scott Simpson Stuart Dew Dennis Armfield Toby Thoolen Jarrad Boumann Mitchell Farmer Dan McKenna Dean Putt Brad Dalziell Kyle Cheney Cale Hooker Mark Johnson Matt Austin Fraser Gehrig Tony Armstrong Craig Bird Adam Donohue

Oakleigh Chargers Wanderers Zillmere Subiaco Dandenong Stingrays Port Adelaide Central District Murray Bushrangers Zillmere West Perth Geelong VFL Sandringham Calder Cannons Perth Calder Cannons Geelong Falcons Camperdown Dandenong Stingrays Port Adelaide Swan Districts Bendigo Pioneers Dandenong Stingrays Calder Cannons Gippsland Power Calder Cannons East Fremantle North Ballarat East Fremantle Essendon North Ballarat St Kilda NSW/ACT Nelson Bay Geelong Falcons

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61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

Collingwood Jaxson Barham Kangaroos Josh Smith Western Bulldogs Guy O’Keefe Richmond – Pass Carlton – Pass Melbourne Tom McNamara Western Bulldogs – Pass Essendon – Pass Fremantle Kepler Bradley St Kilda Eljay Connors Adelaide Aaron Kite Kangaroos Blake Grima Melbourne – Pass Fremantle – Pass Adelaide Taylor Walker

Geelong Falcons West Perth Geelong Falcons

South Adelaide

Essendon Bendigo Pioneers Calder Cannons Kangaroos

Broken Hill North

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2008 AFL ROOKIE DRAFT 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

Richmond Carlton Melbourne Western Bulldogs Essendon Fremantle Brisbane Lions St Kilda Adelaide Sydney Hawthorn West Coast Collingwood Kangaroos Port Adelaide Geelong Richmond Carlton Melbourne Western Bulldogs Essendon Fremantle Brisbane Lions St Kilda Adelaide Sydney Hawthorn West Coast Collingwood Kangaroos Port Adelaide Geelong

Clayton Collard Aaron Joseph Trent Zomer James Mulligan Rhys Magin Brent Connelly Phil Smith Glenn Chivers James Moss Matt O’Dwyer Hugh Sandilands Lewis Stevenson Luke Casey-Leigh Nathan Grima Nick Salter Brodie Moles Jarrod Silvester Lachie Hill Austin Wonaeamirri Henry White Jarrod Atkinson Luke Pratt Pat Garner Luke Miles Jared Petrenko Brendan Murphy Timothy Walsh Ashley Arrowsmith Kevin Dyas Cruize Garlett Daniel Boyle Jeremy Laidler

Fremantle Tassie Mariners Eastern Ranges Southport Zillmere Gippsland Power Calder Cannons Oakleigh Chargers Central Districts Sydney Oakleigh Chargers Claremont Sandringham Dragons Central Districts Woodville-West Torrens Tasmania Coburg Tigers Oakleigh Chargers St Marys North Adelaide Bendigo Bombers Swan Districts Brisbane Lions Swan Districts Woodville-West Torrens County Carlow, Ireland Port Adelaide Magpies Calder Cannons County Armagh, Ireland Perth Murray Bushrangers Calder Cannons

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33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

Richmond Carlton Melbourne Western Bulldogs Fremantle Brisbane Lions St Kilda Adelaide Sydney Hawthorn West Coast Kangaroos Port Adelaide Geelong Richmond Carlton Melbourne Fremantle St Kilda Adelaide Sydney Hawthorn West Coast Kangaroos Geelong Sydney West Coast Kangaroos Sydney West Coast

Tristan Cartledge David Ellard Jake Spencer John Shaw Calib Mourish Pearce Hanley Andrew McQualter Edward Curnow Jake Orreal Alex Grima William Sullivan Alan Obst Ryan Willits Chris Kangars Cam Howat Michael Shields Shane Valenti Ryley Dunn Khan Haretuku Brodie Martin Matthew Beckmans Cameron Stokes Callum Wilson Michael Wundke Shane Mumford Aaron Bruce Beau Wilkes James Wilsen Dean Terlich Ryan Davis

North Ballarat Swan Districts Redlands-Toowoomba Sandringham Dragons Fremantle County Mayo, Ireland St Kilda Geelong Falcons No club affiliation Tassie Mariners Western Jets Adelaide Port Adelaide Geelong Falcons Richmond County Cork, Ireland Sandringham Fremantle Eastern Suburbs NSW Sturt Turvey Park Darwin South Fremantle North Adelaide Geelong VFL Eastlake West Coast St George Murray Bushrangers North Shore

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2006 INTAKE, AIS-AFL ACADEMY SQUAD Each year, 30 young players from around Australia are given scholarships that give them expert and personal skill development for 12 months under the guidance of AIS-AFL Academy high performance coach Alan McConnell. Brad Ebert, Hamish Hartlett, Tom McNamara, James Wundke, Scott Reed, Clayton Garlett, Cale Morton, Nicholas Naitanui, Tony Notte, Daniel Rich, Dylan Ross, Tom Swift, Chris Yarran, Joseph Daye, Brendan Whitecross, Sam Reid, Trent Cotchin, Steven Gaertner, Addam Maric, Ashley Smith, Luke Stanton, Tyrone Vickery, Dale Walker, Patrick Dangerfield, Lachlan Henderson, Patrick Veszpremi, Jack Grimes, Aaron Cornelius, Michael Gugliotta, Marlon Motlop, Alan McConnell (coach), Jason McCartney (assistant coach), Leon Harris (assistant coach), Michael Voss (assistant coach), Kevin Sheehan (national talent manager), Craig Notman (AFL talent co-ordinator), Nick Ames (physiotherapist), Russell Jarrett (conditioning coach), Hamish Osborne (doctor), John Wassell (head trainer), Ken Raven (umpire). HAWTHORN RECRUITING TEAM Victoria: Graham Wright (East Coast Recruiting Manager), Steve Barker, Greg Boxall, Craig Coombes, Anthony DeJong, Mark Pelchen, Michael Porter (IT/Video), Peter Ryan Tasmania: Carl Saunder NSW/ACT: Steve Middleton Queensland: Barry Clarke Western Australia: Gary Buckenara (West Coast Recruiting Manager), Cam Robbins, Robert Simpson South Australia: Paul Whaley, Michael Kenneally Northern Territory: Garry Smart

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PICTURE CREDITS

The photographs on pages viii, 28, 36, 42, 48 and 54 are from the families’ private collections. The photographs on pages ii, 88, bottom of page 89, 164–5 and 218–9 were taken by Emma Quayle. The photograph at the top of page 89 is courtesy of Dr Hamish Osborne. The photographs on page 285 are by Greg Elms.

Colour section Page 1: Photographer George Salpigtidis, courtesy of Newpix. Page 2: Photographer John Donegan, courtesy of The Age. Page 3: Photographer John Donegan, courtesy of The Age. Page 4: Photographer John Donegan, courtesy of The Age.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In September 2006 I received an email from Andrea McNamara at Allen and Unwin, asking if I would be interested in writing some sort of book on the AFL draft. I can’t thank Andrea enough for her guidance, encouragement and crisis intervention over almost two years, but first of all for thinking of me to begin with. Thank you to my family, Sue, Ron and Steven, for dragging me along to the footy in the first place and for putting up with my various moods while I was writing this book. I’m grateful also for the support of Alex Lavelle and my colleagues at The Age, as well as my copy-editor, Tricia Cortese, who helped me turn a big lump of words into something resembling a book. I couldn’t have written this book without the help of a huge number of people; not least the many recruiters who let me pick their brains. Thank you to Alan McConnell, Kevin Sheehan, Craig Notman, Michael Voss, Jason McCartney, and everyone associated with the 10th AIS-AFL Academy intake. Rob Smith, Peter Kennedy, Paul Satterley, Peter Dean, Andrew Carson, David Dickson, Tim Ginever, Brenton Phillips, Robert Hyde and Damian Hale all let me go behind the scenes and were hugely supportive. Thank you to Matt Burgan, Adrian Caruso and the Champion Data crew, Scott Heinrich at Fox Sports, Dr Jake Landsberger, John Donegan, Anthony McConville, Dan Richardson, Tom Petroro and my official readers – Shane Brown, Carolyn McCabe, Rohan Connolly and Roger Vaughan. I’m very lucky that James Fantasia told me way back in September 2006 to pick Trent, and thanks also to John Turnbull (for lots, including convincing me to get Pat involved). My huge thanks to the Hawthorn Football Club, particularly Chris Pelchen, Graham Wright, Gary Buckenara, Ian Robson and the recruiting crew for seeing the merit in this project, allowing me such insight and access and most of all for trusting me! Trevor Woodhouse and Rohan O’Brien at West Coast also went above and beyond. 293


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THE DRAFT

To get this book written meant removing myself from the world for a while. I wouldn’t have made it if not for my friends, who got me through every slump, dragged me out of the house when I needed social interaction and made sure I was eating something other than dim sims. I don’t have room for everyone, but want to mention Fiona Holland, Chloe Saltau, Melissa Ryan, Di Lloyd, Holly Cooper, Jacinta Waide and Angela Teuma. You did so much for me while living very busy lives of your own and I will never forget it. I gained five new families while writing this book: the Cotchins, Eberts, Riolis, McEvoys and Veszpremis, as well as all the friends and relatives I got to meet and spend time with along the way. It has been such a pleasure getting to know you all and I can’t thank you enough for letting me into your lives. I’ve made some great friends out of this. Finally; Ben, Brad, Junior, Pat and Trent. Where do I even start? I’m so glad I picked each one of you and would have been nowhere without your honesty, right the way through and no matter what was going on in your lives. I hope this book becomes something you can look back on in years to come and I can’t wait to see how your stories turn out.

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Draft, The: Inside the AFL's Search for Talent

Inside Assisted Living: The Search for Home

A Talent for the Invisible

The Search For Spock

The Search for Spock

The Search For WondLa

The Search For Spock

The Search for Spock

The Search For Spock

The Search for Spock

The Search for Truth

The Search for Truth

The Search for Truth

The Search For Zei

The Search For Spock

The Search For WondLa

The Search For Spock

The Search for Spock

The Search for Mind

The Search for Truth

The Search for Spock

The Search for Truth

The Search For Spock

The Search for WondLa

The Search for Truth

The Search for Truth

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