Jordan Lewis will retire in the coming days, but don’t expect a farewell extravaganza

Jarryd Roughead got all the bells and whistles on Sunday, but Jordan Lewis’s farewell will be much more low key. Still, he walks away with four flags and the knowledge he gave everything, good and bad.

Jordan Lewis (left) and Jarryd Roughead.

It was Jarryd Roughead’s day and a gathering of five Hawthorn premiership legends was one of the many brilliant photographs to commemorate it.
Jordan Lewis’s day will come Tuesday or Wednesday when he officially announces his retirement from the AFL.
Lewis will not be given the celebratory send-off his great mate savoured on Sunday, simply because Lewis is out of Hawthorn and his last game of football will be played in Tasmania for Melbourne.
He’ll be chaired from the ground, and North Melbourne and Melbourne players will clap him off, but this won’t be a Roughy extravaganza.
And it won’t disturb Lewis one iota.

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He’s not a man brimming with emotion.
Even when Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson tiptoed him at the end of 2016, after a dozen years of playing unsociable football for the coach, Lewis compartmentalised the disappointment within 24 hours.
“In my head, and this has been throughout my life, I’ve always tried to focus on the positives,” he said.

“(Negativity) is a waste of time, it sucks energy out of you.
“My dad has got the ability to say, ‘Oh well, s--- happens. Move on’. I’ve got that from him.”

Current and former Hawthorn premiership stars (from left) Luke Hodge, Grant Birchall, Lance Franklin and Jordan Lewis join Jarryd Roughead for his home farewell game. Supplied: Hawthorn FC

The future Hall of Famer will leave the AFL with 319 games, four premierships, an All-Australian gong and a best-and-fairest in a premiership year (2014).
Don’t brush over that last achievement. The best player in a premiership year is the best you can achieve at a footy club.
Certainly, it’s a career worthy of tremendous acclaim.

Recruited as a stumpy onballer from Warrnambool, he played midfield, wing and halfback and up until about halfway through his career, probably was known for his brawn and not his brain.
There were others who tripped over the competitive edge at Hawthorn, but Lewis and Luke Hodge were the poster boys.
It seem to easily fit Lewis’s cold-hearted attitude when playing.
Football was a two-hour weekly assignment which had to be attacked form all kinds of directions — win the ball, use the ball, hunt the opposition, hurt the opposition.
He was loud and demonstrative, and thought every umpire had got it wrong.
It created a unkind perception with opposition fans, but, again, Lewis couldn’t give a hoot.

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Angry Hawk Jordan Lewis takes on Kangaroo Lindsay Thomas. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

Hawks great Jason Dunstall argues Lewis was an angry player and not a dirty player.
Premiership teammate Josh Gibson, who couldn’t make Roughy's day on Sunday because of a prior engagement, said: “Jordan doesn’t deliberately go out to snipe people, but he was reckless in letting his aggression get the better of him at times which cost him suspensions.”
Gibson laughed when he said that, possibly realising he didn’t even believe what he was saying.

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Gibson arrived at Hawthorn from North Melbourne for the 2010 season.
Pre-Hawks, he said of Lewis: '”He was a hard-arse. He was always cocky, but backed up his cockiness on the field. I just thought he was hard-arse who was pretty confident.”
After he arrived at Hawthorn?

“He is hard-arse, which is a great thing, because it makes him so resilient,” he said.

“And you see his hard-arse in a different way if that makes sense.

“He does have a softer side, being the family man, but he's the perfect way to be an AFL player.”

Jordan Lewis took on a new challenge at Melbourne. Picture: Michael Klein

Clarkson used to tell his players — and still would — that it was important, after having crossed the white line and into whatever competitive character you needed to be to flourish, that you returned to normality when you crossed back.
“I think Jordan typified that,” Gibson said.
“It was something I was a little jealous of. I wore my heart on my sleeve a little bit too much, whereas Jordan doesn’t let anything phase him.
“If Clarko sprayed me, I’d have it in my head, but if that happened to Jordan he was happy to go out there and prove him wrong.”

Jordan Lewis interviews best mate Jarryd Roughead after his six-goal farewell.

The sentiment is the same after Clarkson’s conversation with Lewis at the end of ’16.
Gibson: “No doubt he would’ve like to have been a one-club player, but it's also work and Jordan would’ve seen it as a fresh start.
“He doesn’t let anything stress him. He was like, ‘OK, there’s no deal for me, this is Melbourne and look at the positives’ and off he goes’.”
Gibson and others rib Lewis for being the only Warrnambool boy who now holidays in Portsea, but there’s no mistake they admire his aggression, durability and smarts.
“You only have to listen to him now,” Gibson said.

“His knowledge of the game is why he was such a good leader and that’s why he's so good in the media. He sees it from all aspects and not lot of people are able to see that way.”

Originally published as Jordan Lewis will retire in the coming days, but don’t expect a farewell extravaganza