Why no one can wipe the smile of Tiger Jack Higgins’ face
With his unbridled enthusiasm, Jack Higgins has footy fans hanging on his every word, even if they do come at a ‘thousand minutes a second’. The Richmond star reveals his plans for 2019, and why he won’t change for anyone.
The first thing you notice when chatting to Richmond young gun Jack Higgins is the wide smile that breaks so naturally across his face.
Higgins is having fun on and off the field, and isn’t afraid to show it, or to say so.
That smile has been such a fixture around Punt Rd since he was drafted in late 2017 that it seems fitting it now features on the front of the club’s 2019 Gold Members card, accompanying stars Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt, Shane Edwards and Daniel Rioli.
The other five are all premiership players; Higgins is not. Yet.
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But after one season and 20 AFL games — complete with a few jaw-dropping on-field moments — he has made such an impression on Tigers’ fans the club has had no hesitation in marketing him as one of its faces of the future.
Importantly, Richmond also realised it was in no one’s interest to try to change him, or reel in his excitable nature and infectious personality.
Aside from the trademark Higgins smile, another thing that sets him apart is his rapid-fire speech, to the point where he likens it to a racecaller — except if he was, he would keep on talking long beyond the end of any race.
He likes to talk, and he has fast become good listening material.
“I speak really quickly, but that’s OK,” Higgins says. “It’s what I’ve always done.”
The combination of quick speech and beaming smile gave rise to one of the post-game interviews of the season last year after he kicked two goals on debut against Hawthorn in Round 3.
As he came from the field that day, he breathlessly told Fox Footy that he was “over the moon just to get the win and to kick two snags”, instantly endearing himself to footy fans of all persuasions, who swiftly dubbed him “Snags”.
His teammates, too, couldn’t help but be swept up in his exuberance, most notably when he gave them a humorous rev-up soon after halftime when the Tigers took to the field against Sydney in Round 15.
Their response was priceless.
“They got a bit of a laugh out of it,” says Higgins, who will turn 20 two days before Richmond takes on Carlton in the Round 1 season opener.
“I’m not sure what I said was funny, but I said it pretty quickly.
“I just try to lighten the mood a bit sometimes.
“Everyone is so serious when they come back on the ground. I couldn’t really care until the siren sounds, but as soon as it goes, I am switched on again.”
In many ways, Higgins has provided a refreshing antidote to the homogenised production line of teenagers being churned out each and every AFL draft — most of them media-trained to within an inch of their lives.
Higgins stresses that he does not feel the need to be something he is not.
It’s partly because he’s the same excitable kid who has always dreamt of playing football at the elite level, acknowledging what others wouldn’t — that school was simply a means to his seemingly inevitable pathway into the AFL.
His energy and enthusiasm — highlighted by his freakish goal against the Magpies in Round 19 when he improvised on the goal-line to flip the ball in the air and around the goalpost before getting his foot to it at the last second — made him compelling viewing in 2018.
So did his refreshingly honest, natural media appearances.
That carried through to his acceptance speech when he won the AFL’s Goal of the Year — and a $10,000 prize — telling the Brownlow Medal audience that “my heart’s pumping a thousand minutes per second, so if I screw it up, don’t hate on me”.
No one did. They loved him even more.
Higgins says in this interview that he wouldn’t change his personality or his approach for anything in the world.
“I’ve always dreamt of playing AFL since I was a kid and I’ve loved every minute of it,” he says. “I would never change in a million years, even if someone gave me $10 million.”
Hang on a minute, we quizzed him, you wouldn’t change for $10 million?
Really?
As soon as the question is thrown back at him, a smile appears. He admits he would think about it for a second or two, but would turn down the offer.
“If I changed the way I went about it, and changed my attitude, I wouldn’t be myself,” Higgins says with a laugh. “I couldn’t do that.
“I thought about it during the year. If I changed, it may have hindered my football. I just wouldn’t be able to do it. I play to my instincts and that won’t change.”
Richmond doesn’t want him to change, either.
While the Tigers have assisted him in almost seamlessly settling into his AFL career, and have provided him with the training on and off the field that comes with being a 21st Century footballer, thankfully they haven’t wanted to stifle his raw enthusiasm or his natural streak.
That’s because they know he leaves nothing to chance in his preparation.
For as fun, engaging and at times lighthearted Higgins can be when the situations allows, he works as hard as anyone else in yellow and black.
The young forward who aims to turn himself into a midfielder this year and beyond worked even harder this pre-season, mindful that his strong debut season can only be looked at as an entree to what promises to be a long and sustainable AFL career.
“I train hard because it makes me feel good,” he says. “You train how you play. If I just went through the motions (at training), I wouldn’t feel good when I am out on the MCG.”
Higgins relied on teammates, coaches and some long-time mentors to help him through his first season of league football, which ended with the club’s shock preliminary final loss to Collingwood.
“If I didn’t have those mentors, I wouldn’t say I would have gone off the rails, but I don’t really know where I might have ended up,” he says.
One of those mentors has been Anthony Phillips — the father of Magpie Tom and Saint Ed — with whom he still has a few private training sessions.
“I caught up with him in December, and we did some skills work,” Higgins says. “We had a few coffees afterwards.
“I was speaking to him about last season and he said no one could ever have dreamt of the year that I had, but then he said: ‘But I’m not surprised you did’.”
Higgins was about eight when his dad, Greg, enrolled him in one of Kevin Sheedy’s footy camps in the mid-2000s. He didn’t enjoy it at first, but performed well enough to not only win an autographed footy but a free ticket to the following year’s camp.
“I shook (Sheedy’s) hand, but I didn’t really know him,” he says. “I do remember he had a pretty cool signature with a smiley face on it.”
The autographed footy still exists, though the family dog has sunk its teeth into it a bit over the years.
Now, Higgins is keen to establish his own specialist coaching clinics for kids of the future, while also considering taking on a trade — potentially carpentry — to sit alongside his football career.
“I am thinking of running an outside business, which does footy skills for kids,” he says. “I love working with kids.
“I know I’m not going to be a teacher or anything like that, but if I can help kids do sessions of footy one-on-one, then I could maybe be a bit of a mentor to them.”
For the moment, though, his attention is fixed on ensuring he does everything he can to help the Tigers progress further in the finals this year.
That includes a plan to spend more time in the midfield, as well as making sure nothing is left to chance as he aims to avoid the second-year blues.
“I have no idea what to expect from this year, but I do feel more comfortable (at Richmond and in the AFL) now,” he says.
“Sometimes your first year is a bit of a free hit, but hopefully it just means that the second year is something I can build on. That’s what I want to do.”
Whatever he achieves this year and beyond, the certainty is his trademark smile will not be far away.
JACK HIGGINS ON …
THAT GOAL, IN ROUND 19
“I still don’t know how I did it. I don’t even know how I thought of (doing) it. Then they went to the score review. I thought they would call it a throw, even though I knew under the rules it wasn’t a throw. I didn’t really care about winning Goal of the Year, or the money. I just wanted to get an invite to the Brownlow.”
DUSTIN MARTIN
“This time last year I was nervous around Dusty Martin. It wasn’t so much that he was good at football. It was his tatts. I didn’t really know anyone who had as many tatts as he has. None of my friends have got tatts. But Dusty’s a great fella. At the start, you have to earn his trust a bit, and that’s OK. He’s just a normal bloke, but outside the club, he’s like a rock star. The question everyone asks is, ‘What’s Dusty like?’.”
ON BEING AN ONLY CHILD
“I’m still living at home (with parents Greg and Lynn). I love being an only child, and getting everything to myself (laughs).”
JACK RIEWOLDT
“Jack is very tough but he helped me set up and taught me a lot of things. ‘Leppa’ (Justin Leppitsch) and the forwards group were great. Being my first year, you always make mistakes, but Jack was great for me.”
NEW TEAMMATE TOM LYNCH
“When he came into the club, I thought he would be pretty talkative because he came from the Gold Coast, but he is pretty quiet. He has settled in really well. I like the ‘T-Stick’, at least that’s what I call him.”
MIDFIELD DREAMING
“Playing forward is good for kicking goals, but I think my best position will be in the midfield. I did play bits and pieces in the midfield last year, but I want to do more of that in 2019. I remember starting in the midfield in a game against Geelong. There were four Brownlow medallists in there (Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin, Gary Ablett and Patrick Dangerfield) as well as Joel Selwood. I was like, ‘Wow’. I got the first touch of the game, too (laughs).”
• This interview is reprinted from Footy19, the Herald Sun AFL magazine. Footy19 is available from March 2 while stocks last at participating newsagents and IGA and Woolworths stores in Victoria/Riverina. Cost is $4.95 plus purchase price of that day’s Herald Sun.
Originally published as Why no one can wipe the smile of Tiger Jack Higgins’ face
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