How Carlton’s skinny super man Kade Simpson fought his way to 300 games
HE DIDN’T touch the ball in his first three games and Denis Pagan left him on the bench because he was ‘too skinny’. But recruiters knew that inside Kade Simpson’s 68kg frame was a Carlton champion.
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WELL before his skill and courage ensured legendary AFL status, Kade Simpson was an unwitting pawn in the darkest chapter of Carlton’s history.
It was his draft year of 2002 when the Blues were stripped of their first four picks (1, 2, 31 and 34) and fined $930,000 after being found guilty of “deliberate, elaborate and sophisticated” salary cap breaches during 2000-01.
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As a result a fanatical Carlton supporter named Brendon Goddard and silky-skilled Perth boy in Daniel Wells escaped the Blues’ clutches, making draft pick 45 more pivotal than its number would suggest.
The club had appointed a new coach in Denis Pagan, a man who was becoming more horrified by the day at the mess he had walked into. And success was seen as the birthright of Navy Blues supporters, meaning just two premierships in the past 20 years wasn’t good enough (they had won six in the previous two decades).
So the then recruiting manager Shane O’Sullivan entered the draft with a fair degree of pressure on his shoulders, and with no predetermined game plan given it was out of his control who would be chosen in the previous 44 selections.
“We rated Kade in the top 25 pre-draft so when it came to our pick at 45, and he was still sitting there, we couldn’t say his name quickly enough,” O’Sullivan recalls.
“Despite his size he was always such a competitor with good skills and the necessary work ethic. I saw him as a wingman/half-forward.”
The problem was selling a 68kg “pull-through” to a new coach desperate for ready-made talent, and a match committee that wanted the next Anthony Koutoufides.
Coach Pagan recalls the first time he laid eyes on Simpson, a quietly-spoken boy from Emerald: “I knew he came from a really good home and was of good character but he was built like (jockey) Kerrin McEvoy. There was nothing of him but his character always shone through,” Pagan says.
“In 2003 his first few games produced statistics of nought, nought and nought. The guys were calling him ‘doughnuts’ so I said to him take the kick-in and kick it to himself, handball over the top and then get the receive to get his stats rolling.”
Things didn’t get much better in 2004, when Simpson played just three games for a total of seven kicks, four marks and five handballs. A 20-year-old averaging two possessions in his first six games is hardly an indicator of a further 293 matches over the next 14 years.
Simpson’s close friend and former Under-18 Eastern Rangers and Carlton teammate Brad Fisher (99 games) tells a story concerning the second game they played together for the Blues which resulted in a win over Richmond at the MCG in 2003, but only two minutes of game time for Simpson.
“He actually doesn’t like me bringing this up, but Denis (Pagan) said to him after the game, ‘Gee son, I looked down on the boundary and thought about putting you on but you were just too skinny. I was worried you were going to blow away so maybe wear six jumpers next week’,” said Fisher, who works with the AFLPA.
“I think his schoolmate Michael Firrito, who was our captain at Eastern Rangers, might have got him down to the Under-18s for a try. He didn’t make a great impression early on in 2001 but by 2002 I knew he was going to be a star.
“We were playing a practice game at Healesville when he picked up the ball at half-forward near the boundary, sold a couple of blokes and slotted it from 50m.
“You just knew he had AFL class written all over him via that one bit of play. Six weeks later he was in the state squad and then All-Australian. He hasn’t looked back since.”
Not surprisingly, Simpson has never forgotten his Emerald roots and returns each year to award the Kade Simpson medal at a home game for best afield when it fits in with his Carlton commitments.
“He has remained a very humble and down to earth guy, but the whole family is like that, community-minded people like his father Terry who was the local principal, plus his mother Gaile worked as a teacher as well,” says Emerald Football Club president Dean Stuhldreler.
Away from football, Simpson is unlikely to be found tearing it up at the hottest nightspot in town. In fact, his passion is the garden of the Northcote home he shares with long-time partner Diana Steiner.
“I reckon he and Diana have been together for about 12 years. Every time I ask him about the wedding date, there has been a change,” Fisher laughs.
“We will have a few beers tonight at the Great Northern with 15-20 of his old and current teammates, blokes like Michael Jamison, Andrew Carazzo and Bret Thornton.”
Fisher has no doubt his mate has the football intelligence to make an off-field future in coaching should he choose, but wouldn’t be surprised if he just walks away from the bright lights to run a nursery.
Simpson the nursery owner rather than Simpson the AFL star would probably sit more comfortably with the man himself, given his repeated reluctance to go down the media path during his 18 years in the AFL.
That always sat well with Pagan, who preferred his players to concentrate on the job at hand rather than seeking headlines. And, like every other coach, Pagan loved a player who always put his head over the ball.
“It makes you wonder how someone built like that keeps going given he is still a frail build yet he gets 30 possessions every week. I really admire Kade for sticking through all the negativity in his first few years at the club, because very few really know what it was like after those draconian penalties applied by Andrew Demetriou and whoever else,” Pagan says.
“He and Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs (Simpson is in his wedding party later this year), were entitled to go off to another club and play in a premiership. But he has some very special qualities and to join four legends in Craig Bradley, Bruce Doull, John Nicholls and Stephen Silvagni as a 300-game player with just one club is testament to him.”
Matthew Lappin, who played with Simpson at Carlton between 2003-07 (196 games plus 55 with St Kilda) can relate better to his old teammate than most given he also overcame a slight build, prompting his nickname of “Skinny”.
“I was drafted at 60kg and never got over 73kg. When Kade got to Carlton he was smaller than me but totally dedicated and really popular in the group,” says Lappin, who is now involved with coaching at Queensland club Southport.
“When you are that size it sometimes doesn’t pay to put yourself in the way because you will miss a few weeks of football which doesn’t help your side, but he doesn’t think that way.
“When you grow up small you learn the craft pretty quickly, how to protect yourself perhaps better than some bigger guys.”
Simpson remains one of the most professional players at the club, highlighted by meticulous preparation and thorough post-match recovery. Part of that no doubt came from where he was positioned in the changeroom after being the No. 6 jumper made famous at Carlton by Bob Chitty, Gary Crane and Ern Henfrey.
“I’ve been happy with the No. 6 but I was daunted when I got it. I was in between ‘Ratts’ (Brett Ratten) and Andy McKay and they were two guys who pretty much did everything right. They were ultimate professionals, so I was pretty lucky to sit in between them and get a first-hand view of the way they went about it,” Simpson said this week.
That professionalism has always ensured good relationships with coaches, Mick Malthouse having coached him in the Australian rules series of 2008 and 2010 before they met again at Carlton in 2013.
When coaching Collingwood in the mid-2000s, Malthouse hadn’t particularly noticed Simpson but all that changed when he became his mentor in two matches against Ireland at Subiaco and the MCG in October, 2008.
“He’s a beauty. It was in those Irish games that I learnt what a competitor he was. In those International Rules games it was the same as for Carlton, you knew what you were going to get. And as a coach, having predictability in your players is half the battle,” says Malthouse.
“He was one of our better players in two close games and he was very passionate. Blokes like him, who hadn’t had success in finals, could find solace in playing with really good players.
“And then, and now, I’ve never heard a knock on him. Some of his games this year have been as good as he was producing 10 years ago. He still puts himself in real physical danger time and time again. I don’t mean by just going and getting the ball, but I mean going back against flow and cutting in front of packs to take marks.
“I can remember him at Etihad launching himself at someone to punch a ball away from a player who was about to make and goal. But that was the norm for him. He was so consistently brave.
“All those blokes with skinny bodies had so much courage, not the body for it but the mind for it. Garry Wilson, brave as you can get, Robbie Flower, brave as you can get.
“What has kept Kade going? He will probably come through his career without playing in a premiership and that takes courage in itself, to stay in the game.”
SKINNY ON THE SLIM GUYS
Garry “Flea” Wilson (Fitzroy) 178cm 70kg
John “Rat” Platten (Hawthorn) 170cm 70kg
Matthew “Skinny” Lappin (St K, Carl) 182cm 72kg
Rob “Tulip” Flower (Melbourne) 183cm 74kg
Dean “Tunnel” Laidley (Eagles, North) 184cm 74kg
Michael Tuck (Hawthorn) 188cm 76kg
Dean “Tommy” Kemp (West Coast) 181cm 78kg
Ian “Humpa” Cooper (St Kilda) 183cm 80kg
Ross “Twiggy” Dunne (Collingwood) 193cm 81kg
Barry “Bones” Richardson (Richmond) 194cm 83kg
Originally published as How Carlton’s skinny super man Kade Simpson fought his way to 300 games
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