AFL 2020: Orazio Fantasia opens up about family and his move to Port
Moments after Orazio Fantasia’s trade to Port Adelaide became official, it dawned on his Adelaide-supporting family they’d have to switch allegiances. Here’s what happened.
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There’s a piece of jewellery particularly special to Orazio Fantasia.
It’s a men’s chain that belonged to his paternal grandfather, his nonno, a man he never met, but whose name he bears.
The senior Orazio, an Italian immigrant from a village near Naples, died before Fantasia was born, but the chain the man wore around his neck – with the number 13 attached to it – now belongs to his grandson, the Aussie Rules footballer.
When Fantasia plays footy, he likes to wear that same number on his back.
Since 2016, he’s played with the No. 13 on his jumper as a speedy small forward at Essendon, after swapping from No. 46 for his debut 2014 and ’15 seasons.
But the 80-game player is at a new club now, having been traded to 2020 minor premiers Port Adelaide on Thursday night.
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Despite having another year to go on his contract with the Bombers, Fantasia requested a trade, knowing the time was right to return home to be closer to family and friends.
On Thursday night, Fantasia was sitting at his family home, in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs, with his mum and dad, Anna and Pasquale, as the Port and Essendon deal was being finalised.
“They were glued to the TV, I’m not much of a watcher, I was just sitting on my phone communicating with my manager, and trying to calm them down and mum and dad were saying every 10 seconds: ‘Any news? Any news?’,” the 25-year-old says.
The Fantasia family are traditionally Crows supporters, but it took no time for them to swap allegiances.
“As soon as the deal went through dad said: ‘Right, you’ve got to get me a scarf, and I’ll need a guernsey’. I said: ‘No worries, I can do that’.”
At the news, his mum cried, as she has done every time her son has returned home only to leave again over the seven years he’s been in Melbourne since being drafted in 2013. This time, it was happy tears.
Family is important to Fantasia. So is football. It always has been. Even as a youngster at Magill Primary School, football was his passion; his mum still has a piece of school work from those days in which Fantasia wrote he wanted to be a footballer when he grew up.
Fantasia says of his days at Norwood Morialta High School as “I there for a good time with my mates”.
And, of course, there was football.
“I was probably 80 per cent footy growing up, I finished school and I’m still very proud of finishing school, but I probably didn’t give it the effort that everyone else would have liked,” he says.
He’s making up for lost time, because he’s now studying business law at university.
GETTING AROUND THE RATBAGS
NOT ONE to shy away from annoying a teammate or two, Fantasia loves banter.
All the “getting up and about” that is football.
He’s left the Bombers at the same time as his good mate, fellow forward and banter-exchanger Joe Daniher. And ‘Raz’ – as he’s known – leaves behind another good mate Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.
What he’ll remember about playing with them is: “We’re smiling, we’re having fun, we’re kissing each other on the head … that’s the bond you create with those guys and the fun you have.”
From the outside looking in, there’s a few Port boys who Fantasia thinks he might connect well with on a similar level. Zak Butters for one.
“I met Connor Rozee and Boyd Woodcock (on Friday) … Dan Houston was here. I feel like we’ve got a good young crew and a good older crew who we can lean on for that experience.”
On paper, Fantasia’s best season so far was in 2017. He played a career-high 20 games for the season, kicked 39 goals, averaged 13 disposals, averaged two tackles and two inside-50s and had seven Brownlow votes. That’s the form he wants to return to at his new club.
Fantasia was traded to the Power along with Essendon’s pick 73, with the Bombers receiving Port’s pick 29 and a future third-round selection.
There was a bit of last-minute haggling between the clubs, with Port adamant it needed to receive a late pick too (it’s about saving up some trade points so if any clubs attempt to draft Port’s Next Generation Academy player Lachlan Jones next month, Port will be able to match the bid).
The Power’s general manager of football, Chris Davies, says it might have been a nervous wait for Fantasia as the two clubs negotiated, but as soon as the 25-year-old committed to coming to Alberton, Port was committed to him.
“I’d like to think we’re a club that when we say we’re going to do something, we going to do it,” Davies said.
“(The trade) was worth the wait. To get Orazio, a player who not only can play a spot on the ground that we think can help us, but also help other areas of the ground, see some players move into other spots is going to provide some real value to us.”
One of Fantasia’s junior coaches was Norwood’s cult hero Garry McIntosh who coached him at Payneham Norwood Union Football Club.
McIntosh agrees with Davies, that Fantasia will add real value to the Power’s squad, recalling how he played the speedy, agile forward in his PNUFC A-grade side when he was only 16 and probably hovering around the 65kg-mark.
“He was a little, skinny kid with long arms … he was just a good kid, good attitude, with a really good skill set,” he says.
There’s only one issue for McIntosh – that time last year when Fantasia dyed his hair blond.
“Most people who dye their hair blond … they start to get ahead of themselves, it’s all about the look and they forget how to play the game,” he laughs.
Repeat that to Fantasia and he recounts receiving a text message from McIntosh last year saying the exact same thing.
So it will come great relief to McIntosh – and perhaps Port fans – that Fantasia has no plans to ever dye his hair blond. Ever. Again.
Fantasia explains that it was all part of an internal club fine because he gave away a 50m penalty on the field. And he only had himself to blame because he was part of group of Bombers players who introduced the fine system.
“We were doing things that weren’t our standards … so if you gave away a 50m penalty, or were late to a physio, whatever it was, (the fines were) to keep us accountable.
“I gave away a 50m, which might not have been there, but it was given, and so I rolled the dice, rolled a six and it was either dye your hair blond or pay $100 to the kitty and I said: ‘Well, effort really, I’ll go blond’.
“I was wanting to set the standard from the start, but it didn’t go down well, I don’t reckon.”
That commitment to a cause is what Fantasia will bring with him to Port. He also brings with him a set-shot routine that he’s had since he was 15 and was passed on to him by the late SANFL great Robert Oatey (don’t ask him what it is, he’s not giving it away) and it’s helped him kick 111 goals across his 80 games.
WHEN THE FATES ALIGNED
HE’S ALSO a big believer that everything in life happens for a reason.
In 2019, Fantasia first explored a trade to Port, but it fell through and he stayed at the Bombers for his seventh season in the black and red.
But a combination of factors – including a desire to work with Port’s medical staff to finally rid his body of its propensity for soft tissue injuries – saw him revisit the possibility of coming home.
It helps that former Crows champ Nathan Bassett – Fantasia’s former head coach at Norwood in the SANFL and assistant at Essendon – is on Port’s coaching staff.
Fantasia credits “Bas” with much of his footballing work ethic.
“I first met Bas, I must have been 12 or 13 at the time and I’ve known him for more than half my life,” he says.
“He’s always pushed me to work hard. I probably wasn’t the most talented or the strongest or the fastest when I was growing up through Norwood, but he always instilled that work ethic in me to work harder.
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“He was at Essendon when I got there (at pick No. 55 in the 2013 draft) and I feel like he’s a big part of me getting there, I probably wouldn’t be in the AFL I don’t think without him and he showed a lot of confidence in me and showed everyone else that I could play the game … I owe a lot to Bas.”
That brings his story back to the No. 13: the number that Fantasia’s Nonno wore around his neck, that the junior Orazio now wears around his.
It’s no done deal, but there’s every possibility Fantasia will be able to take that number for the 2021 season (he’s worn it since 2016 at Essendon), since it’s currently free.
But whatever the number on his back, you get the sense that a relaxed, fit Fantasia back at home with loved ones will flourish at Port.
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