Jarryd Roughead, Jordan Lewis and Jarrad McVeigh look back on famous careers
Premierships won and lost, tragedy, illness, family and teammates — retiring champions Jarryd Roughead, Jordan Lewis and Jarrad McVeigh have seen it all. They look back on famous careers with Hamish McLachlan.
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As an AFL season ends, so too do the careers of many. This season the retiring class includes three champions of our game: Jordan Lewis, Jarryd Roughead and Jarrad McVeigh. Almost 1000 games and nine premierships between them. Three childhood dreams fulfilled. At an MLC Life Insurance Class of 2019 event, we spoke about a love for the game, the daunting first day at a new club, lasting memories, regrets, advice to those coming into the game and what’s next.
HM: Three fabulous careers — when did you all fall in love with footy?
JR: For me, as a young kid. My first memory of footy is kicking goals in the backyard, pleading for free kicks and kicking goals after the siren. Before you knew it you’d been kicking in the backyard for two or three hours.
JM: My dad played for Williamstown, so that’s how I got into footy. He turned up our trampoline at one end and we just used to kick footies into that, my brother and I, just in the back yard. My love grew from there.
JL: For me, the match itself was secondary — footy was just a chance for me to catch up with mates on the weekend. My earliest memory was watching Dad play football for a club called Dennington. Once the game finished and the players left the ground, I was out there until the lights were turned off. When Mum and Dad had finished drinking in the club rooms, we’d all go home.
HM: Roughie, footy wasn’t always going to be the path?
JR: Not until 16, 17 for me. I was a basketballer growing up, so footy was always the second or third sport for me. When Andrew Dunkley and Paul Hudson were playing at Leongatha, and coached, they said, “You’re going to be too good for the fourths, do you want to try and play for the seniors?” In 12 months’ time I played in a losing grand final, and was drafted. Footy as a life and a job happened pretty quickly for me.
HM: From Pennant Hills Demons to a premiership captain. You dream about it, but it coming to reality is so rare. There’s been around 12,800 VFL/AFL players, not too many premiership captains.
JM: The captaincy was nice — but to be able to stand on the dais at the end of the grand final having achieved the ultimate goal with your teammates is what it’s all about. I’m just so thankful for the quality and character of players I got to play with, the friendships I formed, and the group I was able to lead throughout that period. They are my best memories.
HM: Following draft day — and turning up to the club for day one — how intimidating was it?
JR: Hugely. I remember the day after the draft, Clarko drove down and gave Mum a bunch of flowers, and Dad a bottle of wine. It was like, “Righto, I’m taking your son now — see you whenever”. I stayed at Clarko’s house that night, and his son, Matt, was just born — he might have been 10 days old. Then you wake up, and you’re going to your first training session, with all these blokes that you’ve watched throughout your whole childhood. You try doing 150s next to Crawf on a Monday morning first up — it’s pretty intimidating.
JL: The first week was a bit blurry, but then we were thrust into a situation where everyone was equal: Kokoda. If we hadn’t have done that, and we were only in a football environment for the first month, it would have been quite intimidating. It went from the first week being blurry, to a situation no one had been in, and it broke down a lot of barriers for us. Once we came back from that, it wasn’t intimidating at all. It was really comfortable to come into the club.
HM: I assume, at the start, you’re trying to fit in and at some point become respected. When did you feel like you belonged?
JR: I reckon it took two or three years, because you’re in and out of the side. I still got dropped in my third year. The back half of 2007 is when I actually felt like an AFL player, and felt like I belonged in that side.
JM: I didn’t play in my first year. You come out of junior footy where you just attack, and Roosy was really big on defence. He sent me to the twos to learn how to defend, and it’s hard at the time because you come from the top of the pile and then you’re down the bottom again. I knew I had to earn that respect, and I didn’t like it at the time, but I think that made me into the player I was. I had to earn the respect of your Barry Halls and stuff like that. They threw our bags in the middle of the locker room and said, “You don’t sit in front of your locker”. You spoke when you were spoken too, and you just learnt that way, to train hard, and eventually you earn your stripes and you become more of yourself.
HM: Was there a moment, Lewy, where you felt: “I’m a big part of this club”?
JL: There’s probably only been two or three years in my career where I’ve actually felt really comfortable. I think that was one of Clarko’s greatest strengths — getting players, especially like me, on edge. In the first part of my career, as Roughy said, we were given games and you’re just happy to be out there. Then you go through a phase where it feels quite easy, and you’re playing regular season football and playing well. Then, the latter part of your career, you don’t feel like you’re ever safe, and you still need to perform.
HM: Seems an anxious way to live your life?
JL: Absolutely, and you see really good players now still feeling anxious about their position. We might look from the outside and think, “How could they possibly think like that?” But, as a professional athlete, when you’ve to perform, there’s always that little bit of anxiety.
JM: That resonates with me. To be a good player you need to be on the edge all the time, and you go through that period where sometimes you’re hoping that they lose so you get a game when you’re a kid. Then it starts to change, and you’re thinking about winning, then finals, then winning grand finals. The group were all a similar age group, about 23-28, so you had a good mix. All you think about is winning a premiership, and then all the other stuff doesn’t matter. The anxiety of wanting to play well is always there, and towards the back end of your career your playing future is on the line most weeks, so that’s a bit scary.
HM: How did you sleep the night before your debut?
JR: I was actually an all-right sleeper before games, but before the first game you are tossing and turning, and you’d probably played it four or five times in your head by the time you got there.
HM: You debuted against the reigning champs, Jarrad.
JM: That group of players at Brisbane was quite intimidating back then in ‘04! Voss, Black, Lappin, Scott brothers, Mal Michael — just big men. I remember waking up in the morning, going for a walk at about 3am, and Paul Bevan was playing his first game and he was doing the same thing in the hallways. We just looked at each other and were like, “Where are we at?” He was doing the same thing, and we just laughed at each other and both went back to bed. We lost by a point that night, but to realise your dream and play a game of AFL, and against that team that who were they are, were great.
HM: How were you the night before?
JL: I was fine. I’m a pretty good sleeper pre-game. We played Essendon. It was around that period where Dean Solomon, the Johnson brothers, were quite intimidating. To play your first game at the MCG capped it off. It was a surreal experience playing against a big side at the MCG for your first game.
HM: From your first game, to premierships. Four from five grand finals for the Hawks, and 2012 as captain. Is there one of those grand finals, premierships, Rough, that you treasure more than the others for any reason?
JR: Easy for me — the one when we got revenge on the Swans. You don’t get a chance to do that, really. 2012 was probably our best year of playing football, and we lost — but you’ve got to be the best team in September. Clearly, the Swans were the best in the right month. Two years later, we had a chance to reverse the result. The storyline were perfect. Bud had gone there, we were going for back to back, and we had a chance to try and beat them again. For me, it was that one.
JM: And that was our best year of footy, I thought, rather than ’12. You did to us what we did to you.
HM: John Kennedy said the loneliest place in the world is on the MCG after a losing grand final. Does that resonate?
JL: Absolutely — two hours earlier you are hopeful of climbing the football mountain, and two hours later, the dreams are shattered and are laying bare in front of everyone watching on. The season just ends — and you don’t really know what to do. The hardest part is sitting there watching another side receive their medal and understanding that you were so close. The period after that was a dark place.
HM: What happens after the loss?
JL: Clarko gave us great perspective when we lost. We went into the rooms, and clearly everyone is distraught and feeling down in the dumps. 2012 was the time where Jill Meagher had been murdered. We were in the rooms, and Clarko said, “If you’re feeling bad now, just think of what her family and friends are going through”. That put it into perspective in the sense that, “Yeah, we’re hurting, but no one lost their life”. Then we go to a function after that, and everyone was proud of what you were able to do for the year, but we just fell short.
JM: Because of the way we lost in ‘14, we took it pretty hard. Having such a great year, and basically not turning up on the game’s most important day, was hard to stomach. You’re never sure if you’re ever going to get back, I think that’s one of the things I learnt. I played in ’06, we lost by a point to the Eagles, and then I didn’t get another chance until 2012. You think it’s going to happen, but it’s so hard to get to, and even harder to win. You’re just so unsure if you’re ever going to get another chance.
HM: I’ve cried on TV, Jarrad, when I was watching you with your second daughter in your arms, and your wife, Clementine, post-match in 2012 following the terrible loss of your first daughter, Luella, a year earlier.
JM: From the tragedy of Luella, to standing on the MCG with those two … I’ve got a great photo of the three of us that sits at home, pride of place. That was a special moment for our family and one that I’ll cherish forever.
HM: Your battle with cancer, Rough — did it help you enjoy the people and things in footy more?
JR: It definitely made me enjoy it all more. I understand now that footy’s not everything. You don’t want to have to go through something like I did to understand that, but you just realise it’s not everything. I’ve got a beautiful wife, a beautiful daughter, I can just focus on life.
HM: You were so close to Rough anyway, Lewy, but did you get closer again? You were the first call post-diagnosis.
JL: I was. I find it really hard to talk about, to be honest. You feel helpless, and he probably felt hopeless until he started his treatment, but it was a rough journey and it does put everything in perspective. To be there when he was going through his treatment, and when he would come to Perth and be awake at night, have his feet on the walls, football does become secondary. It’s not until you have kids that it puts a whole different perspective on football as well. I find it really hard to talk about Rough’s illness.
HM: If you’re writing a letter to your young self pre-draft, what are the key messages you’d want young Jarryd to know?
JR: Don’t be intimidated by the five girls’ schools in Hawthorn.
HM: Were you?
JR: Obviously!
JL: (laughs)
HM: What intimidated you?
JR: I wasn’t good with them. Lucky Sarah came along, because I don’t know where I’d be.
HM: She was from the country.
JR: Yep. Secondly, just enjoy it. When you first come in to a footy club there are blokes there that are retiring, and they say, “It goes so quickly”. You’re sitting there as a first, second year player, thinking that you’re hopefully going to play for 10, 15 years, and I reckon that’s a long time, but when you get to the end of 15 years you do realise how quickly it goes. We get to catch up now every five years for the rest of our lives, because we’ve got reunions. Enjoy it for what it is, because post this, when we’re done, that’s it. Who knows if we’re ever going to play another game of footy again?
HM: What would you say to yourself, Jarrad?
JM: Learn quickly. I watched my brother a lot because he was four years ahead of me, so I kind of had an understanding of what to do, but I just watched the best trainers and that’s when it starts, your Goodesys and those sorts of guys. Learn quickly off the best. Give whatever you can. I was fortunate enough to play a number of years, but some guys get only two or three. You may get injured, anything can happen — so really enjoy it and get everything out of it that you want.
JL: Mine would be, firstly, prepare yourself for how hard it will be and secondly, shorten the group of people you’ll receive feedback from. I’ve seen over the years since social media has come into it that players do get bogged down in criticism that may come from people that they don’t know. We’re in a different time to when we first got drafted, there were mobile phones, but certainly no social media. We enjoyed that first period of our careers, but now it’s a different ball game. When we first started playing there was no behind the goal vision.
HM: Is it a less fun environment, now, for the No. 1 draft pick than it was when you guys rolled in?
JL: I don’t know. Football clubs are now aware that it’s a totally different environment. It’s about creating a safe place, because what people experience online or away from the football club can be completely opposite to that. Players feel safe inside of a football club, and there’s certainly different challenges that come with that. I suppose for the first draft pick, or a draftee coming in now, I’d say it’s more professional, and it’s more critiqued from different avenues, but I suppose a football club has become a lot more level. You don’t feel like there’s a hierarchy in a football club any more.
JM: I’ve never had social media, and I still don’t.
JL: You’ve done well there.
JM: The boys have made three accounts of me and just put up random photos of me. People actually think it’s me. The whole team follows it, and people are like, “Jeez, you’re putting up some weird photos”. It’s actually not me. I’ve stayed away from it, and with the mental health stuff now being so prevalent, I’m not sure if we just turned a blind eye to it initially, or it was “just be harder mate.”
HM: Toughen up.
JM: Toughen up. You’ll be right. Now, and rightly so, it’s completely changed. You see the guys at training and you do whatever you can, but you don’t know what happens when you’re at home on your own, your family’s interstate, and guys will be trawling through looking at the comments after a bad loss, and it’s just not good for you.
HM: You’re on social, Rough. Do you get affected by the trolls?
JR: No way.
HM: Can you understand why people do?
JR: Yeah, for sure. People create accounts, write six things to you and then they never write a thing on that account again. Sometimes you feel like you want to reach out and meet these people just to see who they are or what they are, and then you realise that they could be an 18-year-old kid. You understand that it’s all keyboard warriors. They mean nothing really when you’ve got your friends and family giving you honest feedback. That’s what means more, and what hits home, rather than someone telling you that you look good with freckles and red hair on Friday Night Footy.
HM: Footy has got an amazing ability to change the way people think and do things in society, and I reckon the Adam Goodes saga was one of the great failures of us all in the football world. What should we have done better?
JM: I’ve thought about this heaps, especially over the last few weeks after watching his documentaries and knowing him so well. At first, I felt anger. Did I do enough as a friend? When I was speaking to him at the time he would say, “No, just let it be and eventually it will go away”. But it never did. Did I stand up enough? That was the first question I asked myself. We tried to do what we could, but I think we needed to make a bigger stand at that point. All of us.
HM: What moment would you like again in your career, to fix, to change, to say or do something differently, on field or off field?
JL: There’s been a few reports that you’d like to get back. Roughy and I had a 2007 game when we both missed really easy shots to put ourselves in a position to win that final, but then it was saved by a good mate of ours, Bud, that kicked that goal against Adelaide. I’ve always been the person that moves on really quickly, and my wife hates that, but I’ve had the ability to shut the door on one thing and then go straight to the next thing really quickly. There’s no moments I’d take back in my career — I think they were all there for a reason.
HM: Who’s the best you’ve seen play in your careers?
JR: I’d say Buddy. When you reel stats off, and you realise he’s going to kick 1000 goals, and he’s probably going to kick the most points in history too, which I find amazing, and he’s given away the most free kicks in the history of the AFL. He’s done it all off limited pre-seasons, and he’s still kicking 50 goals a year at 32. Not only what he does on field, but bringing people through the door, putting the AFL on the map whether it be Sydney, or across Australia as a whole, he will be an AFL legend and one of the best five players to ever play the game.
JL: I think the most influential player I’ve played with is Hodgey, just for what he’s been able to do, the leadership he’s shown, the humility he’s done it with. The most freakish stuff I’ve seen was with Cyril — just unbelievable stuff that people can’t do, and then Bud. When you’re playing with Bud it doesn’t stick out, but when you watch the game back and watch his highlights and you realise the size of the man, and the freakish nature in which he does stuff, I’ve just never seen a player of that size have the ability to do what he’s done over a long period of time. Even when we were drafted, we thought he would have broken down along the way, but he’s become more professional as he’s gotten older.
JM: For mine, it’s Bud as well. He plays with injuries like no one else. I remember a game we were sitting in the coaches room, and Horse said, “You’re out, mate”. He actually couldn’t train, he hobbled in and he says, “Play me”. He actually couldn’t train, but he hobbled in and said that. Horse said, “Mate, I’m not playing you”. Bud said, “Horse, you’ve got to play me”. He did. We played Freo, and he had one touch on McPharlin in the first half and Horse was like, “Geez, he got me — I shouldn’t have played him”. Bud came out, kicked four and won the game for us in the second half. His mental resilience is extraordinary.
HM: Rough, who kicks six and gets dropped?
JR: I was trying to think. I didn’t get dropped, it said “rested”.
HM: “Rested forever.”
JR: It was an amazing week. We initially planned that we were going to announce it on the Friday, and keep it as quiet as possible, but with everyone asking whether I was going to play or not, I think the club did really well in just saying, “Righto, you’re going to play — let’s announce it on the Monday and get into it”.
HM: Are you ready for life post-footy?
JM: I’m moving into the coaching side of things, so I feel pretty comfortable in that area, but it’s still a little scary.
HM: What worries you most?
JM: I’m just hoping I’ll find a new passion, a new thing that gets you out of bed every day. For me, I love footy so much, so to be around the footy club I think will help that. Then it’s shifting my focus from me to and putting the ego to one side, to then help the next Lewis, or Roughead, come through.
HM: You were always comfy, Roughy; you just loved list management?
JR: The scary part is going to a foreign environment, and starting at a new club — you feel like you’re cheating on your wife in a sense because I’ve had meetings at night in St Kilda, and it didn’t feel quite right. At the same time it’s pretty exciting because I get to expand my network with a new footy club, and experience something new. The good thing is there’s going to be some faces that I know, which will make life a little bit easier when I go there.
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HM: Media or winemaker, Lewy?
JL: A bit of both, which will be good. It’s a daunting period of your life, and I think finance is what players worry about, and the connection that gets shut off from football. We’ve all managed to stay in football, which I think is a good thing. I understand that some people want to get completely out of it, but I think you still need that attachment to football. I’m fortunate that I’ve got another little business that helps, in terms of the wine business. That’s a passion that I can seriously pursue now. I’ll aim to maintain that connection to football through media.
HM: When did you know it was the end?
JL: For me, it started at my exit interview at the end of 2018 with Goody. Next year it was the last year on my contract, and we didn’t know how it was going to unfold. We were having conversations quite regularly about how we wanted to structure the year. There was a period where I went out and played VFL, came back into the side and played well. A lot of people thought I could have gone on, and a lot of people thought I couldn’t have as well, but I thought it was probably going to wind up at the end of the year. I needed to really start to think about what I was going to do the following year.
JM: I was almost done a few years ago. I sat down with Horse, and I hadn’t played the first half of the year, and he said, “It’s over, mate”. I knew I wasn’t ready because I thought I had a bit more to give, and fortunately I played really well in the back half of the year. I played the next year, played well and got another deal, but this year I was playing twos out at Blacktown on a Saturday night in front of four people, and I did my calf. I knew I was done.
JR: I had chats with Clarko towards the back end of ’18, and he asked me initially if I wanted to go somewhere else, similar to Mitch and Lewy. From then on you know that he’s thinking post you. I had one year on a deal and I said, “Look, I’d love to stay”, but it only took six or seven rounds and I found myself in the VFL. As Macca said, when you’re playing in Blacktown in front of four, or you’re at Vic Park and there’s dry dog poo on the oval, it’s time. This is not what I signed up for.
HM: What are you going to miss most?
JL: It’s a hard question. I always hate this time of year when you’re not playing. Finals for me were everything. The home and away season you can deal with, but now, when you see the vibe in the town, players are really enjoying the best times of their life. I’ll definitely miss playing finals.
JM: Two things for me. My favourite part was driving to the games, especially in Melbourne, just seeing the fans coming to watch you play. You see the trams full, and you think, they’re coming to watch us tonight at the ’G. That was one of my most favourite things. When you’re walking out, and you see the crowd. I’ll miss that.
JR: I think the day-to-day locker room stuff, with 50 blokes hanging sh.t on each other, and that half an hour after a game as soon as the siren goes when you know you’ve won. The enjoyment and the smiles that you see on everyone’s faces post a win; it’s pretty cool.
HM: And when you look back at all the years, the one thing you’re the proudest of?
JL: I think being able to stay humble is quite hard in this environment. Especially when you have success from a team point of view, to stay true to yourself and true to who you are. I’ve been really proud in that aspect, and then to bring up a beautiful little family has also been a really great achievement.
JM: I’m very proud to be able to lead a group and achieve something with them. To captain a team through a finals series to win a grand final. That’s something I feel really great about, and also having a family and bringing them along for the ride. Now, I’ll be putting a lot more time into them.
JR: I think the fact that we’ve grown up into good people, because at the end of the day, when your parents are bringing you up, that’s all they want their kids to become. To say that we’re all good people is what matters most. And I think we can.
HM: You three have finished a group of extraordinary careers, best and fairests, All-Australians. You’ve given so many fans of your clubs and others such a great ride. Congratulations, and good luck with whatever comes next, particularly the family.
JL: Thanks, Hame.
JM: Thank you, mate.
JR: Thank you.
Originally published as Jarryd Roughead, Jordan Lewis and Jarrad McVeigh look back on famous careers
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