My story: Hawthorn star Jaeger O’Meara on reaching 100 games, his move to the Hawks and adjusting to Melbourne life
Jaeger O’Meara was a big signing for Hawthorn in 2017 – but after reaching AFL game No. 100 last week, the former Gold Coast gun reveals he would still be at the Suns if not for one career-altering moment.
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Last week was my 100th AFL game.
It took me eight years to get there, which is probably why my mum carried on like it was my 300th.
It might not seem like that many to some given I made my debut in 2013, but to notch up 100 games after what my body’s been through is something I’m pretty proud of.
So many have helped me along the journey, which is why I made a point to send a message to those people and thank them before I ran out against Carlton last Friday night.
And obviously it was great to celebrate a win rather than just the milestone.
Hopefully there is a fair few games still to come in the brown and gold.
TWO YEARS ON THE SIDELINES
I’d never really heard of anyone rupturing their patella tendon.
Even the medical team I was working with at the Suns, who I’m still really good friends with today, hadn’t worked with a player who had ruptured it before.
It happened at the start of my third year in 2015, when I was playing in a NEAFL game in Brisbane.
I remember the day quite vividly, but it’s not something I reflect on often, unless asked.
The hardest part of the whole thing and the aftermath was the unknown.
It’s a rare injury so there wasn’t really a blueprint of what my rehabilitation looked like.
There were also a lot of questions swirling around in my head.
Would I be able to get back to my best?
Was it going to limit the heights I could reach?
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There wasn’t a set time frame either, and I was told it could be 12 months out, or it could be 14 or even 18 months out.
In the end, it was roughly 20 months until I played again.
And even then I played three reserves games with limited game time before I had to go back in for minor surgery again.
I did my own research and went looking for other athletes who have had the same injury.
I found New York Giants captain and wide receiver Victor Cruz from the NFL had also ruptured his patella tendon.
He did it about three months before I did, so I followed his recovery through his social media channels.
It was nice to sort of feel like I wasn’t alone and visualise myself doing exercises in the gym I saw Cruz doing.
Five years on from the initial injury and I’m glad to say the knee’s in really good shape at the moment.
I still have to manage it and be cautious with it.
I used to love to squat, for example, and I can’t do that anymore because it puts too much stress through my knee.
When training, I have to manage my loads in terms of the amount of change of direction and decelerations I do during the week.
This can be tracked via GPS and we’re given live feedback on this.
It’s not like I have to ice my knee every day or anything like that.
It’s more so monitoring what I’m doing in the gym and in training, but that’s become almost second nature now.
EARLY DAYS IN WA
I grew up with the No. 9 on my back.
Born into a passionate West Coast family in Perth, I loved Benny Cousins when I was a kid.
Later on I also rocked the No. 3 in honour of Chris Judd.
We later moved to Dongara on the West Australian coast, where my grandparents had bought a hotel.
I played for the mighty Dongara Eagles, and later I laced up the boots for the Railways Football Club.
It led to one of the best days of my footy career, when I played in the Great Northern Football League grand final as a 16-year-old.
Railways hadn’t won a premiership in 20 years so there was a little bit of a drought, and we were also the underdog that day.
We ended up having a good win and I got the medal for being best on ground, so it was a memorable day.
My future Suns teammate Jack Martin was on the opposition team that day, and we were both a fair bit younger than everyone else.
He pulled a couple of speccys down, and the following year he played in another grand final in the same league and dominated.
BECOMING A SUN
I was hoping to stay in WA.
But I quickly realised Gold Coast was keen to bring me over to the other side of the country courtesy of the mini-draft.
In hindsight, I’m really glad I went there.
I had a great time in Queensland, and getting out of WA was probably the best thing for me to gain my independence.
I spent six months with a host family before moving in with a couple of players and Sam Coen, the team’s welfare manager at the time.
In my years there, I just remember Gary Ablett Jnr being on a different level.
I followed him closely before going there just because of the player he was, and then all of a sudden I was training and playing alongside him.
There’s no doubt I was just in awe of him.
Any time you saw him come past you, you just had that instinct to give him the ball regardless of whether he had someone right on his hammer or not.
You just had to give it to him, and he’d always use it well.
We had a good year in 2014 and looked like we might play finals when Gaz did his shoulder.
It was deflating, but there was still belief in the group we could get the job done.
It was almost like we were limping to the finish line though, and we were buggered by the end of it with our younger bodies.
It’s a shame we couldn’t overcome that loss of Gaz, but when you take the best player of the competition out of your team it’s always going to hurt.
BECOMING A HAWK
To be honest, I probably would have never left the Suns had I not had the knee injury.
A fresh start is what I felt I needed, and to get into a different environment to try and reignite my football career.
Hawthorn felt like the best place for me, particularly seeing the success they had with the likes of Shaun Burgoyne with his knee issues.
They were coming off a fair period of sustained success when I met Alastair Clarkson for the first time.
I just remember sitting there and being captivated by the way Clarko spoke.
Given my knee issues, I spoke in depth to the club’s then high performance director Andrew ‘Jack’ Russell, who’s now at Carlton, head physio Andrew Lambart, and head doctor Michael Makdissi.
They gave me some assurances that I’d be able to get my body right in time.
Once I started at the Hawks, they were super patient with me.
I had some off-season surgery before I even got to the footy club, so I had to rehab that all over again.
That off season gave me the chance to rebuild my body from scratch, in a sense.
LIVING IN THE MELBOURNE BUBBLE
I probably underestimated how big the club was and how big AFL football is in Melbourne.
I put a fair amount of pressure on myself in terms of getting the best out of myself and performing well.
When I first got to the club I wasn’t playing that well and then I got injured again, so it was a frustrating start to my Hawthorn career.
My trade to get there also didn’t go through that smoothly, which added another layer to it and meant there was quite a bit of media commentary.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get to me.
There was a lot of attention I wasn’t really used to.
I grew up in a small country town of about 5500 people, before moving to Perth which is like a big country town.
Then I moved to the Gold Coast, so when I then moved to Melbourne it was like ‘wow.’
I’m still a country boy at heart, but these days if you asked my teammates they’d say I’m definitely a city boy now.
More than anything though, I miss living on the coastline.
My first game for the Hawks was against Essendon at the MCG, which was a huge occasion as it was the first game back for all their players following their bans.
It was also a big occasion for us at the Hawks as it was Jarryd Roughead’s first game back from his melanoma battle.
I can remember the first goal he kicked that day like it was yesterday.
There was about 92,000 there and I remember being just mesmerised by the crowd.
It felt like it was on top of me.
The most I’d ever played in front of before that was a game at the Adelaide Oval, so to play my first game in front of a crowd like that was something I won’t forget.
I knew I’d arrived in the heartland.
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Originally published as My story: Hawthorn star Jaeger O’Meara on reaching 100 games, his move to the Hawks and adjusting to Melbourne life