Once he believed there was no stopping SA’s Will Hayward assault on the AFL
WILL Hayward went from playing football to be with his mates and the love of the game — to the game’s most exciting teenager and an important part of the Sydney Swans in the AFL finals.
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FEW players have timed their run like Will Hayward, a football-mad teenager who had to be convinced he had the tools to play at the highest level.
In his two years with Sydney, he has done more than just play: Hayward is about to rack up his 40th game in just his second season, has kicked 50 goals and become a crucial part of the Swans forward line alongside superstar Lance “Buddy” Franklin.
As he bagged his 50th in the Swans’ Round 22 win against GWS at Spotless Stadium he became only the 11th player to reach the milestone as a teenager, joining goal kicking royalty such as Franklin, Matthew Richardson and Matthew Lloyd.
Of the current players, he reached the 50-goal mark quicker than Jack Riewoldt, Josh Kennedy, Tom Hawkins and Jack Gunston.
But just three and a bit years ago, as he was a bottom-age player for Adelaide’s St Peter’s College first XVIII, he hadn’t really thought about a career as a footballer.
He was happy to play school football and continue the journey he and older brother Harry had started as young lads, trying to fit in training and games with St Peter’s, Walkerville and North Adelaide in a busy weekly schedule.
Former South Adelaide player and Port Adelaide and Brisbane assistant coach Darren Trevena was one of the first to sense he had a future in the big time.
Hayward had an enormous vertical leap, great pace and good agility.
Trevena was his coach at St Peter’s.
But it was still left to Trevena and other coaches to tell Hayward: “You can do this. This is an opportunity (to get drafted).”
Trevena remembers receiving a phone call from one of Sydney’s recruiters and recounts the conversation.
“We had played our first game against Immanuel (College) the year before he got drafted and I spoke to a Sydney a recruiting guy,” Trevena said. “He asked who I had that year and I said, ‘Listen, mate I’ve got this kid. He’s not draftable this year but you’ll be right for the next. He’s got AFL traits.
“When he got drafted I got a lovely letter from the recruiting guy saying, ‘Who would have thought?
“It was really rewarding. He always had the traits.
“It was just about convincing him that he did. He was going through the motions and playing with his mates but it was about making sure he made the most of them.
“And he did. He had to train a lot harder and he did.”
To Hayward’s parents, Richard and Kate, it has been a wild ride.
The prospect of being drafted had barely been raised in the family home in the lead-up to the draft: it was only after some sparkling form in the finals for North Adelaide’s under-18s in 2016 that player managers started knocking on the door.
Once the family had been to the draft at the old Fox Studios in Sydney — walking distance to the SCG — everything happened at lightning pace.
“It’s actually been overwhelming, really,” Richard said. “Because it happened so quickly, so early, last year.
“He’d never left home before.
“He went to draft night, came back on the Saturday, then flew out on the Sunday, was met some of the players and then started training on Monday.
“He’s taken it from there.
“But it was always football, from a young age.
“And loved it, absolutely loved it.
“He could never sit still, always kicking the ball to himself in the back garden, trying to take screamers, always a footy in his hand.
“But we never ever spoke about it (making it to the AFL), until one day I remember him ringing me after a reserves game and said there was a (player) manager who wanted to speak to him.
“He couldn’t believe it; it just happened in a week, all of a sudden.”
But like Trevena, there were those who could sense Hayward could make it before the Swans called out his name at No. 21 in the 2016 AFL national draft.
Then state under-18 coach Brenton Phillips, a Magarey Medallist and former AFL player with Essendon and Brisbane, sensed recruiters would take notice when he had an outstanding carnival for South Australia in his final year in junior ranks.
“I’m never surprised,” Phillips said. “They’re all very talented kids.
“It’s whether they get a break, if things fall their way.
“Once the opportunity presents they have to grab it and that’s what Will did.
“I remember watching him in an early trial game and there was something about him.
“He then got some confidence about him and finished off really late (before he was drafted).”
It goes back further.
Inaugural Crows captain Chris McDermott was Hayward’s coach in the under-14s at Walkerville and noted quickly that there was something about young Will that set him aside from his peers.
“Will Hayward was clearly a very talented, gifted young man,” McDermott recalled. “He stood out not just among his teammates but among opposition teams as well.
“The game moved slowly when he had the ball.
“He had grace and a quality beyond his years but he was no certainty to reach the level he has.
“The young Will Hayward was spirited, confident and had a great belief in what he had to offer — but he was not the easiest young man to coach. “But under the right people and with some maturity he could have the football world at his feet. Under John Longmire, he does.”
Hayward has loved his time in Sydney.
Not just for the sake of playing in the big league, but for being allowed to have players such as Luke Parker and Franklin as mates and fitting in so quickly.
Forwards coach Steve Johnson, a Norm Smith Medallist and triple Geelong premiership player, could not speak more highly of Hayward.
He had watched him as a rival as he wound up his career with GWS and was not surprised at Hayward’s bubbly nature and confident manner when he arrived as a forwards coach at the Swans this season.
“For a bloke who’s only played two years he’s certainly come a long way,” Johnson said. “His work rate, his speed and being able to take marks over head means he’s really been able to play his role.
“I’m really looking forward what he can do in this finals series.”
But for all of the early success, Johnson said there was one thing that would always keep Hayward grounded.
For all of the locker banter — and Hayward is said to be more than adept at it — there is no harsher critic of Hayward than Hayward himself.
Johnson reckons even after good games he can be too critical of himself and need an older head to put things into perspective.
“He’s a bit of a lad, quite popular around the change rooms but he’s also his own harshest critic,” Johnson said. “At times, as his coach, I need to be there to be pepping him up because he’s so critical of his game, post-game, even when he’s been playing well.
“He has a personality that’s up all the time but when it comes to his football he’s hard on himself and I have to remind him that he is just a second-year player, still developing and has a lot to learn.
“But we’re really happy with where he’s at.”