Nat Fyfe reveals pressure of Brownlow Medal talk in 2015
AT ONE stage in 2015 Brownlow talk became so intense for Nat Fyfe that the Freo star thought about deliberately getting suspended so it would all go away.
NAT Fyfe thought about deliberately getting suspended.
The spotlight on his Brownlow win became so fierce, and so distracting, the Fremantle superstar considered overstepping the line, on purpose. He just wanted the chatter to stop.
“There was lots of times where I felt like just getting myself rubbed out, giving it away, taking all the pressure off,” Fyfe said.
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“It was just a bit chaotic and everyone was asking every player when they did media about me and the Brownlow: ‘Would I be disappointed (if I didn’t win)?’ as opposed to how we were going as a team which was top of the ladder and fighting for a (home) preliminary final.
“It became a bit of a distraction … plus I had to deal with all the controversy around getting suspended — I had three cracks at getting myself suspended and managed to avoid all three.”
Fyfe was fined twice during the season, for tripping and a clumsy spoil.
Of course, Fyfe is glad he wasn’t rubbed out, and instead, was able to shift focus on the rehabilitation of a severe corked thigh, sustained in Round 17, which plagued his run to the finals.
Fyfe has nothing but praise for the 2016 medal favourite, Patrick Dangerfield, who’s ride of the wave of expectation would make Kelly Slater blush.
“Danger is larger than life (in Melbourne) at the moment,” Fyfe said.
“He’s really dominating it all (work-life balance) and doing it really well, presenting himself really well and I guess I can see some similarities to a point where I was last year.”
Fyfe was on top of the world 12 months ago as the game’s best player in a team many thought could capture an elusive premiership.
His first nine rounds were nothing short of extraordinary.
“I got pretty comfortable with that (Brownlow buzz) but I knew that some point that narrative would shift potentially, and not long after that I got a bad cork and my leg flared up.”
As chatter reached a crescendo, Fyfe turned to proven techniques — including a media ban — to focus on footy.
This also meant having to sneak out of airports “a couple of times”.
“It all revolves around getting centred. Taking your mind away from the things that you can’t control, which is what the media are going to say, what’s about to happen, and what could potentially go wrong or go right.
“Focusing on what I could control, which at the back end of the year, was really my rehab and trying to get myself up to play every match, it became a real challenge in itself.”
With Freo’s season run and done, Fyfe remembers hobbling on to the red carpet on Brownlow night with a cane — later auctioned for charity — as the end of “a turbulent couple of days”.
It was at the post-season drinks where Fyfe learned he had fractured his leg in the preliminary final loss to Hawthorn.
“I had to get a suit and a partner together, Micky Barlow, and get on a plane and get over so it was all really happening really quickly,” Fyfe said.
“I was struggling to walk ... so that was the decision to get this cane instead of wearing crutches so I could actually hobble along the red carpet.”
The nerves mounted quickly as Fyfe started slowly in the count, polling just once in the first three rounds.
“I had 30-odd (possessions) and goals in both those games and I thought I was going to poll and I didn’t,” Fyfe said.
“After Round 3, when I was nowhere (I said to the guys) ‘Might be letting you all down here’ and (Matthew Pavlich) just looked at me and said: ‘Don’t worry, buckle up, it’s a long way to go’ — just that wise old head that he’s always been for our footy club, that was a really timely word.”
As if on cue, the votes piled up.
Fyfe “stacked three after three” to build a nice lead before punching out another nine votes in four rounds after the bye to be in a winning position.
The avalanche stirred teammates Chris Mayne and Barlow, who began to pour over stats to see if their man could be caught.
He wasn’t and the rest was a bit of a blur.
Fyfe’s victory speech evoked “best ever” discussions; the after-party went long into the night and next morning; and, that topless photo of him staring at his Brownlow bling talking on the phone “didn’t do the publicity any harm”.
“I hadn’t slept yet because we had a big night, obviously, and I had back-to-back-to-back media interviews on the phone,” Fyfe said.
“Everyone kept asking me to describe the medal, and, what the medal was like, so I just put it around my neck so that way I could easily access it, look at it.”
It took five weeks, on holiday in Norway, for Fyfe to come to grips with winning the medal.
“I was sitting up there in front of a fire just having a beer or a cup of team and I was just with one other mate at that point I thought: ‘This is real, that actually happened’.
“I was able to enjoy a nice quiet moment of reflection then and appreciate it, because it’s such a whirlwind.”
Originally published as Nat Fyfe reveals pressure of Brownlow Medal talk in 2015
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