How Norwood ruckman Peter Ladhams went from top draft prospect to lost soul and back again
NORWOOD giant Peter Ladhams had to face it — his AFL dream was slipping away. So he swapped his dreadlocks for hard work and now again appears bound for the big time.
SANFL high performance manager Brenton Phillips says it “might have been the slap in the face that he needed’’.
As much as it hurt, Norwood giant Peter Ladhams is certain it was.
At the start of the season the 203cm ruckman-forward, who shone as an under-age player at last year’s AFL under-18 championships, was regarded as one of SA’s top 2016 draft prospects.
He was a member of the prestigious AFL Academy and appeared to be on the fast track to success.
But despite a second consecutive strong national under-18s carnival, Ladhams’ football world came crashing down around him in July when he checked the AFL draft combine invites list on facebook and was stunned that his name wasn’t there.
“It was devastating,’’ said the 18-year-old, who had chopped off his controversial dreadlocks two months earlier to try to improve his image and break his laconic tag.
“I couldn’t believe it and was pretty upset because all I’ve wanted to do since I started playing footy at age five was to be a professional footballer and my goal at the start of the year was to make the combine.
“I thought I’d blown everything and Mum had to calm me down and tell me to stick with it, that I could give myself a chance (of being drafted) again if I just kept working hard.’’
Hard work, it seems, had been an issue. When Ladhams rang his State under-18 coach Phillips to ask his thoughts on why he had shockingly missed an invite to the draft combine — 80 players earned an invitation after being nominated by at least five AFL clubs — Phillips thought it was best that he hear some home truths straight from a recruiter’s mouth.
“He put me on to a Sydney recruiter (Kinnear Beatson) and he didn’t pull any punches,’’ Ladhams said.
“He told me that my start to the season was pretty average and that I needed to be more competitive, had to cover more ground and that I was only playing to my potential in patches in games.
“It wasn’t something that I really wanted to hear but it was good feedback and obviously being a recruiter he knew what he was talking about so I had to take it on board.’’
To his credit, Ladhams reacted positively.
He described his combine snub as “the real tipping point for me, a wake-up call’’ and went to work.
“Obviously I was really disappointed but the best way for me to act was to prove people wrong, to use the disappointment as motivation to get better,’’ he said.
“I decided to push myself really hard, get into the best physical condition I could and try to make a point at the State combine (where SANFL players who had been nominated by at least two AFL clubs were put under the microscope).’’
Ladhams hit the gym and asked Norwood teammate Stefan Giro, an elite runner who won this year’s Macca’s Cup under-18 MVP, if he could train alongside him.
He quickly shed some weight, toned up and improved his beep test from a score of 11.8 at the start of the season to an excellent 13.6 at the State combine — the second-best result recorded behind West Adelaide’s Conor Noonan.
Ladhams’ 20m sprint improved from 3.12 seconds to 3.05 and he won the running vertical jump challenge with a leap of 90cm, wooing AFL recruiting scouts with his new-found power and athleticism.
“I think the penny finally dropped for him,’’ Phillips said of left-footer Ladhams, whose tap work is elite.
“He’s been very laconic, not always self-driven, but after being overlooked for the AFL draft combine he clearly thought ‘now’s the time to do something about it’.
“To his credit he presented really well at the (SA) screening day.’’
Ladhams, who wants to be a goalkicking ruckman-forward in the mould of Sydney’s Kurt Tippett and GWS’s Rory Lobb, in May took the first step towards repairing his seemingly tarnished image by chopping off the dreadlocks that he had grown for two years.
“Why I grew them, I’m not too sure?,’’ Ladhams said. “I just thought I’d try something a bit different and kept it going for a while.
“My coaches, in particular Ben Warren (at Norwood) and Brenton Sanderson (AFL Academy), kept telling me to cut the dreadlocks off because they were untidy and getting in my eyes.
“Eventually I came to the realisation that perhaps I wasn’t sending out the right persona and that I needed to change and become more presentable to AFL clubs and I reckon I’ve played better since they’ve come off.
“Looking back I think I made the mistake of just thinking things would happen for me this year and didn’t put in as much effort as I should have.
“I found out very quickly that’s not how AFL footy works and hopefully I’ve been able to prove that to a few clubs.’’
andrew.capel@news.com.au