Tigers back Marlion Pickett to continue his stunning rise up the AFL ranks

Marlion Pickett ran out for his first AFL game in front of more than 100,000 fans. When he runs out for his second, there will be zero people in the stands. But if anyone can handle the drastic change, it is the remarkable Tiger.

Marlion Pickett celebrates after kicking a goal in the Grand Final. Picture: Getty Images

When Marlion Pickett ran out for his first AFL game, 100,014 fans were in the stands.

On Thursday night, in his second game, there will be none.

Only a few club, broadcast and league staff will be on hand at the MCG to facilitate Richmond’s clash with Carlton.

The difference is stark.

Not only in the occasion, the climate and the lead-up, but also in Pickett, too.

The world has changed in those 172 days. So has he.

“It’s amazing,” Tigers coach Damien Hardwick said.

“He was comfortable in the (football) environment last year, but it’s amazing to see him grow in the period of three to four months.

“Having a pre-season, getting to know his teammates better. Getting to know our system better. He’s going to be a good player for us.

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Marlion Pickett was one of the best stories from last year’s Grand Final. Picture: Getty Images

“We know he’s going to play an important role for us.

“It’s just great to have a player like him around the footy club, and to see how much he’s grown as a person, I think, is really important.”

As the world has been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks, Richmond was one of the first AFL clubs to close its doors to visitors, sending staff to work from home with only the football department at Punt Rd Oval.

Less than six months ago, about 10,000 Tigers fans packed that oval to see the team present the premiership cup and cheer a stunned Pickett after his triumph.

He was the only player without his premiership medal after leaving it with his ill father for safekeeping.

The week leading up to that moment was chaos.

Nothing can compare to the global pandemic in which we find ourselves today.

But according to Richmond senior adviser Neil Balme, Pickett was well equipped for the anxieties that came with the selection waiting game.

“He’s just grateful of the fact that he’s playing footy and enjoying it,” Balme said of the 28-year-old.

“Even back to the Grand Final decision, I know Damien went to quite a few of his teammates and said, ‘How would he cope with playing his first game in a Grand Final?’, and they all said that they didn’t think it would be an issue at all, which it wasn’t.

“He’s pretty calm, pretty realistic about things. Just gets on with it.”

Balme acknowledged the preparations for Pickett’s first two games at the top level had been very different.

“It is, but he won’t be thinking too much about that,” he said.

“He’ll be thinking about when the ball’s at his feet and picking it up, I guess. It’s a test of a good player, and I think he’ll be doing that.”

It’s been a turbulent 12 months for Pickett.

Marlion Pickett on Grand Final day. Picture: Getty Images

A recent documentary released by the AFL tracked his arrival at the club, after teenage years punctuated by time in custody for a range of criminal offences, including burglary.

“Growing up, it was all about fun,” Pickett said in The Hardest Road To Grand Final Glory. “I think I tried to grow up a bit quicker than I should have.”

On the ABC’s Australian Story, which aired last month, Pickett said he had turned to crime to support his young family.

He was sentenced to 2½ years in jail in 2010, but was moved to a minimum security facility at Wooroloo Prison Farm, an hour northeast of Perth, where he played footy.

But the additional freedom didn’t suit him, and he got his hands on illicit drugs on purpose in an effort to be sent back to the far stricter Acacia Prison.

It is a time in his life that Pickett — who joined South Fremantle Football Club just days after his 2013 release — believes stayed with him as he met AFL clubs after stellar seasons in the WAFL.

“I felt like quitting after I missed out on the last two years of the draft,” he said in the AFL documentary.

“I was thinking, ‘I’m getting too old. Is it going to happen? Are they really judging me on my past, and not really on my talent?’”

Richmond famously took the punt.

Hardwick said it might have been the past on which he feared he was judged that made him as a player.

“Sometimes when you think you’ve been buried, you’ve actually been planted,” he told filmmakers. “As funny as it is, jail might have been the best thing that actually happened to Marlion — it might have saved him going down an even worse road.”

Just weeks after Pickett moved to Melbourne after being selected in last year’s inaugural mid-season draft, tragedy struck, Hardwick revealed.

His best mate’s brother died. And when Pickett was back in Perth for the funeral, his partner Jess’s brother Sam did, too.

“One of the hardest moments that I had was watching your partner go through so much pain and you can’t really do anything,” Pickett said. “I know how hard she was hurting.”

Marlion Pickett on Grand Final day. Picture: AAP Images

For Hardwick, there were moments of wondering whether the electric forward would return.

“I thought it might be the last time I’ve heard of Marlion Pickett … he might be staying in Perth,” he said.

“For them to come back after the significance of a loss of a member of the family, it was incredible, really. And a testament to not only the character of them overall, but the belief they had in Marlion as a player.”

It sounds cliched, but the rest literally is history.

History for the club, ­history for Pickett, who ­became the first player to win an AFL/VFL premiership on debut since 1926.

History for Hardwick, too, who said he was unlikely to see a response to a Grand Final selection like Pickett’s again.

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“I was expecting him to break down in tears, or do a cartwheel … he just gave us a simple, ‘That’s great, thanks very much’, and walked back into his meditation meeting,” the coach said with a laugh.

Now settled in Thornbury with Jess and four kids, Pickett had grown, Hardwick said yesterday, and would continue to, with a gag or two along the way.

“Last year it was off a limited base for his teammates and he’s relatively shy,’’ he said.

“This year he’s come out of his shell, and he’s starting to tell a few jokes and all that around the footy club. He’s a very popular member of our side. He’s a fantastic role model, not only for our indigenous boys, but our boys in general.”

Originally published as Tigers back Marlion Pickett to continue his stunning rise up the AFL ranks