My Story: Essendon’s Dylan Shiel on Trent Cotchin bump, move to Essendon and early days at the Giants
Dylan Shiel is in a long-term relationship with one of his former coach’s daughters and while he admits it could be awkward, the reality is much different. And he reveals they could move back to Sydney.
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
To be honest, I was pretty emotional and upset we lost the 2017 preliminary final.
Naturally a bit of you thinks Trent (Cotchin) could miss the Grand Final and part of me would be, well, that’s probably “fair”.
But, looking back at it, I’m not disappointed he was able to play.
He got me nicely and then everything was a bit of a blur. I started losing a bit of my vision.
I remember going for a mark against Bachar Houli and should’ve taken a very easy mark in the hands but I couldn’t see the ball properly.
I knew then I was in a bit of trouble and once the doctors checked me out I was ruled out of the game.
In a way, I do regret mentioning (blurred vision) to the doctors because I felt fine to play, but you’re not in the headspace to be making that decision yourself.
Get your footy fix on KAYO ahead of live matches returning soon. Watch classic battles from the 60s to today, docos, news and more. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
It was scary but concussions happen all the time, there’s been worse than what I had.
I think what affected me was the moment, the game, and the fact it was the Richmond captain who was then going to be under scrutiny and potentially miss the Grand Final.
The entire week going into the preliminary final and right up to the bump was a crazy experience.
From the trip down to Melbourne and playing in front of 90,000-plus Richmond fans, compared to minority of Giants supporters, the noise certainly was deafening.
A hell of an experience, unfortunately I was on the wrong side of it.
THE DECISION
I probably put a lot of stress and importance of the decision to move clubs, in some ways you need to because it was the biggest career decision I had to make.
Now, I wish I just enjoyed it a little bit more and maybe said to myself, ‘this decision is not the be all and end all, you don’t need to worry about trying to please the outside world’.
Ultimately, you need to be happy with the decision and please yourself and those close to you.
It was highly stressful and emotional to leave a place I called home for eight years, but it was super exciting to return to the city I grew up and go to a club I could see myself at for the rest of my career.
I’m thoroughly happy with my decision.
Dyson Heppell played a significant role in me wanting to be a Bomber.
He’s a person that connects really well with people and just such a genuine person.
He has become a really close mate and someone I seek to spend time with away from the club.
Essendon chief executive Xavier Campbell played a significant role also, just the passion he showed for the future of the club and the importance he put on not making football the be all and end all.
It is something that really clicked with me.
Obviously, football is what I do but it’s not who I am, there’s other interest in life I want to pursue and Xavier was a walking example of that, the way he’s been going about his career.
HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH HEPPELL
You might ask Dyson Heppell how the result went that day, but it was enjoyable for me.
I was 11 (in 2004) and he had just made the Under-12 Victorian team.
My best mate growing up had family ties to the Heppells, so I remember knowing who he was and looking at him thinking he was already an AFL player.
We went head-to-head at Tooradin football ground and I always like to bring it up with him every now and then.
It’s funny how you still remember football games or moments when you’re that young so clearly.
My school (St Louis de Monteforts Aspendale) went on to win the state championship, so we had a pretty good team.
THE CORPORATE WORLD
My post-football future is in the corporate world.
Footy is what I’m passionate about, but the move to Essendon has allowed me to sharpen a focus on my career outside footy.
It has made me a better player, striking a balance between football, studying finance and working in the sector at Casey Capital in Southbank, one day a week.
It’s a huge world when it comes to capitalism and it’s something I’ll enjoy after footy.
I’m really lucky to be able to shadow Mark Casey (a long-time Essendon coterie member). It’s his private company and his niche is property development.
He’s been really successful in that asset class over the years and also doing a bit in the tech industry.
It’s a great opportunity for me to swan in and out of the office and just learn from a guy willing to share his knowledge.
It’s been awesome just to sit and observe how people at that level operate, certainly a different lifestyle, a different career to what I’m used to, and I really like it.
I didn’t come from parents who had careers in the corporate world, I guess it’s just something that manifested itself during my career.
My mum Karen is in hospitality and my old man Tony runs a garbage truck company.
I enjoy understanding how things get done in building and construction, transactions, the ins and outs of how public listed companies operate.
Not playing the past couple months was actually not a bad time to knuckle down on my studies, a bachelor of commerce with a major in finance, and I thoroughly enjoyed it to be honest.
If anything, I’m just learning to understand and make good financial decisions.
LOVE MATCH
It could have been perceived as a tricky situation, meeting Georgie and her dad (Mark Williams) having a significant role (senior assistant coach) at the Giants.
In the end, it was not really an issue at all how we went about our professional careers.
We’re not robots, naturally Mark and I spoke about footy and things happening at the club, but we also had some great moments where footy was the last thing we were thinking about.
We had a really good time up in Sydney and I’m lucky to have her in my life the past nine years or so.
We are enjoying our time here in Melbourne but it doesn’t mean we’ll be here forever, Georgie and I really, really enjoyed Sydney and could end up moving up there one day after footy is done.
OUR GIANT LEGACY
It was an incredible opportunity to be part of a start-up club and to see where the club is today.
I’m very proud of it, some of my best memories at the Giants are actually the early years where success wasn’t coming in terms of the results.
Nobody would say they liked the week-to-week thrashings, but it was such an interesting time.
This can sound contradictory, because I know footy is measured on wins and losses and results, but we got to understand and appreciate footy on a whole different level when we were up there.
We trained hard, we had fun, we got smashed every week but the way Kevin Sheedy and Mark Williams were able to motivate that first year, the results in some ways were irrelevant.
We had an objective to grow the game in the western suburbs of Sydney, where people were really unfamiliar of the game, but we were able to establish a club in a tough environment.
There was a lot of competition from the rival codes in Sydney and we happened to come into the league the year the team on the other side of the city won the premiership.
I’m very incredibly fortunate to be able to finish my career one day and say I was part of two footy clubs that are similar in terms of what we’re trying to achieve, but so different.
It’s been a great experience to go from a club with no history and trying to create the initial start to a club that’s been around for 150 years.
You walk in the doors at Essendon and there’s photos of past great players and coaches and premiership cups in the cabinet, it’s really nice to be able to look at and be proud of what the club has achieved.
PREMIERSHIP PROPAGANDA
There really were some irrational things being reported in the early days.
We were just kids – most of us straight out of school – living our AFL dreams.
We heard the noise but we couldn’t listen because expectations aren’t real.
Pressure isn’t actually real, it is something said off speculation.
In the end, for the media to be saying we were going to win premiership after premiership was probably, in a way, disrespectful to other clubs.
A GIANT BEATING
The AFL cooked up the fixture?
No, they cooked me up, really.
It was such a challenging week (Round 1, 2019) emotionally getting ready to play the Giants in my first game for Essendon.
Obviously they annihilated us, but I don’t look back at that game like a memory I try to avoid.
It was so interesting time, my first game in the new colours against the team I departed.
I can’t remember any animosity in any of the games against the Giants. We’re physical competitors and it’s a physical game, but in terms of words spoken to me after the game it came all from a place of care.
Regardless of the result you walk away from an experience like that with your head held high.
MORE BOMBERS NEWS:
James Hird says Essendon was right to knock back Sydney’s trade offer for Joe Daniher
Trade Secrets series: How Essendon saved their 2013 draft in the wake of supplement penalties
Trade whispers: Dons, Blues to have another crack at Wines
Crystal Ball: Bombers ready to fly up?
Originally published as My Story: Essendon’s Dylan Shiel on Trent Cotchin bump, move to Essendon and early days at the Giants