AFL 2023: Charlie Dixon to play game 200 against Gold Coast
Charlie Dixon’s long-time mentor Ken Hinkley and first AFL coach shed light on the Power star’s early days at Gold Coast and what drives the key forward.
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In reality, Saturday night will be Charlie Dixon’s 200th game.
Ask Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley about the milestone and it holds extra significance.
“Charlie getting to 200 feels like it’s 400,” Hinkley tells The Advertiser.
“I’ve seen a lot of players over my journey play much bigger milestones – Trav (Boak) is on 340-odd games now (339).
“But Charlie’s had to battle so many things, he’s had so many setbacks.
“Some of them are caused by himself, but most are caused by collision injuries.
“I’ve seen him break his leg out here (Adelaide Oval), I’ve seen him do some horrible injuries like hurt his ankle badly at training one day and the pain he was in.
“But there was never any doubt that he still wanted to keep playing.
“Even today, when he plays sore and looks sore, he just wants to help his teammates and that’s what you love about him.
“I couldn’t be more proud.”
Dixon, 32, will fittingly reach the milestone against his former side, Gold Coast, at Adelaide Oval.
Hinkley is also an ex-Sun so has seen all bar three years of Dixon’s 13-season AFL career first-hand.
Their relationship dates back to the start of last decade, when Hinkley was in charge of Gold Coast’s forward line and Dixon was a burly teenager from Cairns with more interest in hoops than Aussie rules.
“I think if you asked him now he’d probably prefer to play basketball, almost,” Hinkley says with a smile.
“He thinks he’s pretty good at it, but he’s not, he’s very good at football.”
Dixon was Gold Coast’s first ever player signing in August 2008, two-and-a-half years before the club’s debut AFL season and 12 months ahead of Hinkley’s arrival from Geelong.
They met when the Suns were preparing to rise from the Victorian under-18s competition to the VFL.
Hinkley’s first memories of Dixon are of “an incredibly confident, big, angry person”.
“He’s always been the same, he’s not changed,” he says.
“He’s matured, there’s no doubt, and he’s been able to handle more challenging situations better, but that’s just growing up.”
Attention to detail was an early weakness for Dixon, one that Hinkley constantly rode him about via brutally honest feedback.
“Kenny would hold the forwards accountable – hit them in the eyes when he needed to and cuddle them when they needed,” inaugural Suns coach Guy McKenna tells this masthead.
In the Suns’ formative years, they had a rule that players could not go into Surfers Paradise after 6pm without telling the club, which would then send people to keep an eye on them.
“Charlie was about 19, on his Ps, gets his first contract and gets a you beaut new ute that sits about two inches off the ground, hotted up,” McKenna recalls.
“All of a sudden a phone call comes in ‘one of your players has been spotted’.
“The problem was Charlie drove his car in and his number plate had ‘Dicko 23’ on it.
“I said to him, ‘I shouldn’t be saying this but next time ring me and you can borrow my car’.
“He wasn’t doing anything wrong (in Surfers Paradise), it was all harmless, but he didn’t tell anyone.”
Hinkley says back then Dixon sometimes needed correcting that life at the elite level “wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought it may be”.
“Being a fully prepared AFL player was different to just rocking up and training once or twice … and being big and strong,” he says.
“You have to prepare like a professional.”
What could not be questioned from the outset of his AFL journey was Dixon’s passion, particularly for his teammates.
Even as a youngster at the Suns, he would speak his mind, crash into packs and find it nearly impossible to hide his emotions on the field.
“Coaching him, sometimes the blood would boil in his head and he wouldn’t be able to see or think straight,” McKenna says.
“The way he would approach trainings and contests in games, it was frightening and almost a recipe for disaster (injury).
“He has white-line fever, but he’ll hit a pack just because he has to hit a pack, he’s not looking for numbers or to clean anyone up.
“He goes as hard as he can – you’d almost call him mad in some aspects.
“That’s just what he thought his role was to do and so he did.
“It didn’t matter whether he was playing on (Matthew) Scarlett or (Darren) Glass, he’d just crack in.”
Dixon led the league in contested marks in 2020, but struggled to hold them during night games in his initial years at the Suns.
It prompted Gold Coast board member and football legend Malcolm Blight to ask “have we ever tested his eyes?”
“Sure enough, he was as blind as a bat,” McKenna recalls.
“He got glasses and he certainly improved.”
Hinkley remembers Blight’s suggestion and says he has received plenty of others from punters about his star forward.
“It was only yesterday I had someone stop me and say ‘have we done this with Charlie because he does that when he runs under the football quite often?’
“What I know is Charlie gets to a contest and he gives everything he’s got when he’s in that contest.”
Hinkley reckons Dixon’s on-field aggression is ingrained.
“You’d probably have to ask his Mum (Helen) and Dad (Gordon) about that, why’s he been a beast? Why’s he been an angry man all his life?
“He was probably an angry kid and grew up really competitive.”
Today, Dixon’s hard public image is enhanced by appearance.
He is 200cm, 110kg with a beard, shaved head and tattoos, including the words “love” and “pain” on his knuckles.
It belies what he is really like.
“His bark’s bigger than his bite,” McKenna says.
“He’s as soft as a pussy cat.”
Hinkley adds: “I’d use his own words ‘I’m a big teddy bear’.
“He loves a cuddle.
“He’s aggressive and he plays a strong game of football, but Charlie’s a lover not a fighter.”
Three years after leaving the Suns to join Port Adelaide, Hinkley headed back to Queensland in August 2015 to pitch to Dixon about joining the Power.
They met at the Brisbane apartment of Dixon’s then manager, Peter Blucher, who also was also the Power coach’s agent.
Later that month, Dixon told both clubs of his plans to shift to SA.
McKenna had been sacked by Gold Coast a year earlier, replaced by Rodney Eade, and was sad Dixon left, but also happy to see him spread his wings.
“It would’ve been made easier because of Ken but it was a big move for him because he’s a Cairns boy,” he says.
As for Hinkley’s reaction at the time to Dixon’s decision?
“I was a little surprised, I’ll be honest, because I was quite hard on Charlie,” Hinkley says.
“Surprisingly, Charlie wanted a firm coach to look after him.
“The reality was he thought I’d be good for him and I knew he’d be good for us, so it worked.”
The Power gave up pick 10 and a future second-rounder for selection 49 and Dixon, whom it signed on a five-year deal.
Hinkley is the reason behind Dixon’s move to Adelaide and, as the key forward has said this week, is why he is playing football.
Their special bond has been strengthened through personal challenges, such as Dixon’s long road back from breaking his right leg and damaging ankle ligaments against West Coast in round 21, 2018.
The injury was described as car crash-like, the type some players would not come back from.
Dixon required more surgery in March the next year, sidelining him until round 14, 2019.
After five games, Hinkley axed his star forward, who later conceded he was not in the right headspace to play.
Dixon has been brave in speaking up about his mental health battles.
The support of his family, teammates, Hinkley and fellow coaches, and a love of restoring cars him through that period and since.
Dixon’s recovery culminated with earning his first All-Australian honour in 2020, a year he played a huge role in the Power’s surge to a preliminary final.
He lined up in all 24 games the next season, only for ankle and quad issues to restrict him to 12 in 2022 and 10 so far this campaign.
McKenna is not surprised Dixon has endured plenty of injuries, saying the big man has always fought the odds because of the make-up of his body and the way he plays.
“I’m glad he got to 200 because physically everything was against him,” he says.
“He’s got a great, big heart … so he certainly deserves it.
“On and off the field, he’s someone who just looks after his mates.
“He was always giving lifts to people, so I said to him ‘you should’ve bought a Tarago, not a ute, because you’re always ferrying blokes around’.”
As much as Dixon is loved by his teammates, so too is he adored by Power supporters.
Hinkley says that is because the Queenslander plays in the spirit of Port Adelaide.
“Him and Pep (Sam Powell-Pepper), those sort of players who are aggressive and strong at the ball, Port Adelaide people just love,” he says.
Saturday night will be Dixon’s 135th match for the Power after 65 at Gold Coast.
He kicked the Suns’ first ever goal in the AFL – in round 2, 2011 – and booted two majors in the club’s inaugural win, coincidentally against the Power, in April that season.
McKenna expects Dixon, who is glad to be sharing the spotlight with 100-game teammate Jeremy Finlayson, to show far he has come on Saturday night.
“Early days, he’d overcook it, overplay it, invent new ways to handball or kick the ball,” he says.
“I reckon he’ll settle pretty well and I’m sure he’ll have a big impact on the game.”
McKenna will be thrilled for Dixon if his tough road from Cairns to 200 games leads to a maiden premiership later this year.
To help get there, the Power is seeking to make it 13 wins on the trot on Saturday night.
Dixon will have 18 members of his family at Adelaide Oval.
He will walk onto the ground with his niece and nephew, the children of his brother Jesse.
“I know how tight he is with his whole family,” Hinkley says.
“Everything to Charlie is family and that’s the way he plays.
“We’re his family away from home and he plays for us like we’re family.
“That’s what we love.”
‘Don’t be a d***head’: How Ken gets best out of Dixon
Charlie Dixon says he had no idea what he was walking into when he joined Port Adelaide at the end of 2015.
The key forward arrived from Gold Coast on a five-year contract knowing only ex-Suns assistant turned Power coach Ken Hinkley and former teammate Nathan Krakouer.
Dixon did not like his first impressions of South Australia nor think he would stay long-term.
“It was wet, windy, cold, felt like it was raining every morning and I felt like I was going to do my five years and get out of here,” Dixon said.
Almost eight seasons on, Dixon has surprised himself by sitting on the cusp of 200 games.
The 32-year-old will reach the milestone at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, fittingly against the Suns.
He described the journey to 200 matches as physically and mentally tough, having battled a raft of injuries, including a broken right fibula and ankle ligament damage in 2018.
“I’ve been in the system a long time and probably should’ve been there a little while ago, but I’m definitely grateful for the opportunity to have even played one game,” he said.
“I don’t think many people thought I’d get this far, so it’s pretty humbling to play this many games.”
It meant a little more to Dixon that his milestone was against the Suns, where he played 65 AFL matches and rose from the under-18s and VFL to their inaugural squad in 2011.
“I’ve always got a soft spot for Gold Coast … because I spent seven years there and like to think I helped the club building from ground zero, which was an amazing experience,” he said.
Dixon said his biggest personal growth since the start of his career was his composure.
He was seeing a psychiatrist every two weeks at one point “helping me deal with things the average person wouldn’t normally deal with”.
Honest feedback from the coaches and maturing were key ingredients.
“I can fly off the handle a bit and just try to keep my s--- together,” he said.
“Knowing things don’t always go your way and controlling the controllables is something Ken’s helped me a lot with.”
Dixon said he would not be playing if not for Hinkley, who lured him to the Power.
“He’s always been brutally honest with me and that’s the way I respond and how I like my feedback,” he said.
“Mainly call me a d---head when I’m being a d---head … and making sure I’m accountable on and off the field, and representing the club and myself in a proper manner, and being a good human.”
Dixon is out of contract at season’s end but is expected to re-sign sometime in the next month.
The 200cm, 110kg Queenslander felt he had one or two seasons left in him.
Dixon has managed a bit of fluid around his knee for about 10 weeks and has a fresh corkie through his calf and quad, as well as some lower limb issues.
He said he was glad to be sharing the spotlight on Saturday night with teammate Jeremy Finlayson, who will be celebrating his 100th match.
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