After long road former Richmond player Shane Tuck finds happiness in Amateur League with Goodwood Saints
FORMER Richmond star Shane Tuck has gone from the MCG to playing for the Amateur League at Goodwood Oval — and he couldn’t be happier.
SHANE Tuck is in a good place.
The 32-year-old who once struggled with being the son of a football legend has gone from playing in front of a roaring MCG crowd of 94,690 just eight months ago to a few hundred at suburban Goodwood.
He didn’t expect to have taggers hanging off him every week. Nor did he expect some of the lip he has copped.
But he is happy.
“Life’s good,’’ Tuck said at his Glenelg East home before heading to training for a run with SA Amateur Football League side Goodwood Saints.
“I’m having a bit of fun with my footy, the pressure’s off and I’m enjoying going to training, playing with a good bunch of blokes and getting a couple of kicks along the way.
“The family (wife Katherine and children, Will, 6, and Ava, 3) has settled into Adelaide well and work’s good too, so I can’t complain.’’
Tuck’s roller-coaster football ride has seen him become the highest profile and best-credentialed player in the amateur league this year.
After retiring from the AFL following his first final on the national stage in his 173rd game for Richmond last season, the Victorian moved to Adelaide primarily for family reasons. His wife is South Australian.
The offers from SANFL clubs came thick and fast for the wiry midfielder.
West Adelaide — the team which reignited his AFL career in 2003 and where his younger brother, Travis, plays — wanted him badly.
New Glenelg coach Nick Stevens wanted Tuck to play alongside his former Richmond teammate Sam Lonergan and ex-Geelong on-baller Aaron Joseph at the Bay.
But Tuck was happy to avoid the limelight, play for “a little bit of punting money’’ and reunite with great mate, former Bloods teammate and current Saints half-back Luke Donaldson.
“I got offered more money elsewhere but for me it wasn’t about money,’’ said Tuck, the oldest son of 426-game Hawthorn legend Michael Tuck.
“I just wanted to enjoy myself, play with Luke, train twice a week and not have to worry about all the meetings, the video sessions, the ice baths and the extra boxes you have to tick. I’d done enough of that.’’
Tuck had struggled with the demands of big-time football before. He admits he didn’t handle being the son of a champion well.
His dad holds the record for the most games in VFL-AFL history, having played 426 for Hawthorn from 1972-91 before retiring at age 38 with seven premierships.
Tuck played juniors alongside Donaldson at Beaconsfield and TAC Cup for Dandenong Stingrays before joining the Hawks as a rookie in 2000.
But the pressure of being the son of a gun got to him.
“In the early days I did find it a bit of a burden,’’ he said.
“Everyone was saying “oh, you’re going to be as good as your dad’ and putting massive expectations on me.
“When I was young I didn’t think I could reach the heights of the old man and as a kid you don’t really think straight sometimes.
“I let things like that affect me too much and it was a burden. It was only when I got older that I really learnt to be proud of dad for his achievements.
“When I look back I wasn’t as dedicated as I should have been at Hawthorn. It’s one of the regrets I have now, that I didn’t understand how hard you can push yourself at training, that you can play with injuries.
“But I was 18 and I guess that happens to a lot of young blokes.’’
Tuck was dumped by the Hawks after two years and after a one-year stint in the Mornington Peninsula League he moved to Adelaide simply to get out of the hurly burly football world of Melbourne.
Playing in the AFL was the last thing on his mind when he joined his childhood mate Donaldson at West, which was coached by his former Hawthorn teammate Shaun Rehn.
“I didn’t consider getting redrafted at that point,’’ he said.
“I just wanted to get out of Victoria and try something different. Then it got to round seven or eight and my teammates were saying “gee, if you keep this form up you might get picked up again’. I put my head down, worked hard and that’s what happened.’’
Tuck, then 22, helped the Bloods rise from fifth to second in his only year at the club.
He met his wife, who was good friends with Donaldson’s partner and now wife, in Adelaide.
Richmond loved Tuck’s toughness and ballwinning ability and threw him an AFL lifeline by selecting him at No. 73 at the 2003 national draft.
In 10 years at Tigerland, Tuck finished in the top 10 in the best and fairest seven times, highlighting his consistency. He played 104 consecutive games between the opening round of 2005 and round 16, 2009, and had a highest club champion placing of second in 2008.
But while his career took off, Tuck says he wished he’d enjoyed the ride more.
“If you’d told me when I rolled up at Westies that I’d go on to play 170-odd games I would have taken it,’’ he said.
“But there were parts of my career even at Richmond I wished I’d handled better. There were times when my form went and I doubted myself and I also struggled with the strong criticism the team copped when we were struggling.
“We got battered in the papers and I took some of that stuff to heart instead of using it to toughen my skin up. In hindsight I should have just listened to the coach and worried about controlling what I could control, not the other stuff. But I guess that’s all part of the learning curve.’’
Tuck says that’s in the past.
The man who never sought the limelight but wanted to get the best out of himself now just wants to enjoy life and his football.
“I’m just really enjoying being at Goodwood and playing purely for the love of the game again,’’ said Tuck, who works alongside Norwood skipper Kieran McGuinness as a carpenter.
“I’m just one of the boys, there are some great people who hang around the club and they still have the old-style raffles on Thursday nights.
“It’s a good place to be and the standard of footy has surprised me. I’m not getting any cheap kicks but the team’s going well (5-0) and hopefully we can have a good season.’’