Jason Rowan’s long goalkicking journey to become a Hampden League legend
Premierships, hundreds of goals, coaching and one major regret are part of the brilliant career of Jason Rowan, one of the Hampden league’s most decorated players. And at age 39, he’s not done yet.
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Jason Rowan traces his journey to becoming the Hampden league’s greatest goalkicker to a dirty day on the wing for Warrnambool.
He remembers that he hardly touched the ball in the first half against Cobden.
At half-time, his coach, former AFL player Nigel Kol, told him to go to full-forward.
He kicked one goal, then another, then another. He finished with six.
“Rest is history, I guess,’’ Rowan says.
He made Hampden league history two years ago when, playing for Port Fairy, he booted his 1021st goal.
It did not require anything spectacular from him. It came from a teammate’s handball over the top. “A nice little loopy one,’’ he says. Alone in the square, Rowan took two steps and thumped it through to take him past former Collingwood player Tony Russell’s record.
Teammates converged on him, as did a few small fry. He patted them on the head, sent them on their way and went back to the business of kicking goals. He got four for the match and, even better, Port Fairy marked his milestone with a win.
At 39, the Warrnambool concreter is still playing senior football in one of Victoria’s best country leagues.
Making way for one or two promising key forwards, he’s playing higher up the ground this season in what he calls a “rewarding new role’’. But, he adds with a laugh, not too far up that he can’t sneak one or two goals.
Rowan’s many hauls have brought him legendary status in the Hampden league and at Warrnambool, the club where he kicked the ton four times, played in three premierships and had a seven-season monopoly on the league goalkicking award.
He’s one of those local players whose longevity and long list of achievements bring him recognition well beyond his league.
When he made the move from Warrnambool to Port Fairy in 2023, The Weekly Times gave it big play, calling it a “stunning recruiting coup’’ for the Seagulls. In the previous season he gave them a sharp reminder of his goalkicking powers, booting 16 in one match and 15 in the other.
He saw Port Fairy was in poor shape. Yet when new coach Dustin McCorkell asked Rowan to sit down for a talk about a possible transfer, he was happy to meet.
There had been banter at a friend’s wedding and McCorkell rang the next day. “Would you mind coming over and having a proper, genuine chat?’’ he asked.
They were premiership teammates at Warrnambool and Rowan succeeded McCorkell as club captain.
McCorkell explained that the Seagulls were rebuilding and Rowan’s experience and leadership, not to mention his goals, would be invaluable.
“Without saying Port Fairy were down and out, they were coming off some pretty big losses the previous year,’’ Rowan says.
“It got to the point where they even forfeited a game.
“After he (McCorkell) made the call, my wife, Beck, and I went over a few days later. We sat down for two, three hours and went through so much stuff … where Dustie wanted to see the club go in the future and what it looked like.
“I just thought, what a finish it would be for my career to go over and have some sort of impact there and help Port Fairy get back on the map.’’
Of course, it was a wrench to leave Warrnambool a second time. He’d done so in 2017, to coach Merrivale in the Warrnambool and District league.
“I just thought I’d bite the bullet and go to Port Fairy,’’ Rowan says. “And the three years I’ve been there have been so much fun. To watch the club go from where it was to where it is now … I feel liked I’ve played a part in that little journey so far. We’re definitely on the right track.’’
This year he also started coaching the Under 18 team, which makes for a long day at the football.
It has added to his commitment – the Rowans have their arms full with children, Freddie, eight, Daisy, six, Myla, four, and Bobby, two – but also his enjoyment.
Rowan believes any good senior club must have a strong under-age base. He’s helping lay it and the side has performed well.
“I can probably say now they could be one of the hardluck stories of not sneaking in and making finals.
“But it wasn’t about that for these kids. It was about the nurture and the experience I could give to the young fellas and getting them in the right stead to prepare for the next step-up in their footy. I’ve got so much joy out of being part of that group.’’
*****
For all the good he’s doing a Port Fairy, Jason Rowan will always be associated with Warrnambool Football Club.
He made his start in senior football there when he still playing in the Under 18s, in 2003. His debut came on the same day Wayne Billings broke the club’s games record.
Rowan, a classic “Collingwood six-footer’’, was seen as a midfielder and flanker.
Then came that match when he was playing on the wing and having “one of those says when things weren’t quite going to plan’’.
The switch to the forward line was the making of him – and a stream of records.
“My magnet got glued to full-forward,’’ he says. “Everything spiralled on from there. It all fell into place. They said to me, ‘Go to the square and do your job and kick goals’.’’
Rowan won the league goal kicking from 2007-2012, in 2014 and 2016, with centuries in 2008 (109 goals), 2009 (110), 2012 (109) and 2014 (112).
An ACL injury kept him out of football in 2015. When he returned, he booted 69 goals from 20 matches.
With the league’s leading goal kicker – and a fast-leading goal kicker at that – Warrnambool had premiership success in 2010, 2012 and 2013.
Rowan has always said he was well fed by his teammates.
“I’m not saying my job is easy, but I played with some really good midfielders,’’ he says. “Look, if you could mark the ball and you had that zip off the mark for the first five or ten and you had good delivery coming and you could kick straight … my job was made easy by having such great players around me,’’ he says.
“A lot of my accolades, without the blokes I had around, I wouldn’t have been half the player I was.’’
Two years ago, former AFL player Gary Rohan told the Warrnambool Standard’s Justine McCullagh-Beasy that Rowan was among the best players he had played on at any level.
Rohan was 16 and coming through at Cobden when he was moved on to the Warrnambool champion.
“He’s smart, he’s quick and if he marks the ball anywhere inside 50 it’s going to be a goal,’’ he said.
McCorkell says Jason Rowan in his prime was a “special player’’.
“He’s not overly tall or overly big for a full-forward but he had the speed and he had the ability to jump and his hands were super-strong. They still are,’’ he says.
“So if you got it to him in the lead, he was too quick. But if it was on his head he could jump for it. He liked to use his opponent as a launching pad as well. They’re pretty good traits for a deep-forward target.’’
At the end of 2016, Rowan left Warrnambool to coach Merrivale in the Warrnambool and District league.
In a lesser league, goals came at a furious rate, highlighted by a century, his fifth, in 2019.
Merrivale finished fifth, sixth and third in his three years in charge.
Rowan enjoyed it immensely.
“It was challenging. There were always times you’d get home and sit up to the early hours of a Sunday just scratching the head, thinking, ‘What went wrong, how do you fix that, we were so far in front and then we stopped – was it my coaching or was it the players having bad lapses?’
“You really took the grunt and outcome of the day on your shoulders. On the flip side of that, when things were going well and you had a good win, it was like, ‘How good is this?’ The good times always seemed to override the times I might sit up on my own late at night wondering how things went wrong.’’
When football resumed from Covid, Rowan returned to Warrnambool and to kicking goals – 85 of them in 2022.
No wonder McCorkell put in a call to his old friend after he took the Port Fairy coaching job.
******
Jason Rowan has no regrets about his football in the Hampden league, nor the Warrnambool and District competition.
But he has one misgiving about his career – he never took up interest from state league clubs.
One year Richmond called him down to trial for a rookie position. He trained with more than 20 other players but missed out.
The Tigers asked him to play with their VFL affiliate, Coburg Tigers. Other calls came too: from Southport, from other VFL clubs, and teams in WA and Sydney. He made the trip to Melbourne to meet the Western Bulldogs too.
Ultimately, Rowan took up none of the offers.
“In a nutshell, I was happy just being me,’’ he says. “Now that I’m a lot older and a lot more mature, I really feel, geez, I wish I had that opportunity again to maybe have a crack at it.
“Back then I was young – early 20s – I was playing great Hampden league footy, I was kicking 100 goals in a season, I was enjoying life.
“I do kick myself, just purely for not knowing what role I could have played in a VFL side. Yeah, I wish I’d tried it just for one or two years, to see if I could make it or if it was a step above my ability. I suppose I’ll never know that now.’’
Rowan had been in the Geelong Falcons program.
But at the time he was built along comfortable lines. He says he was a “short, little nuggety fella, pretty solid’’ and “definitely well fed by my parents’’.
“I didn’t really fill out and get fit until I was out of the Under 18 system,’’ he says. “I only really started to find my feet when I was 20, 21.’’
In doing so, he also found status in country football. It was long-lasting.
Although Rowan’s next birthday will require him to linger over 40 candles, he plans to play on.
“It goes back to how much love I’ve got for the game,’’ he says.
“I know once my time is done, when it’s all done and dusted, you’re a long time retired. I’m trying to squeeze in as many games and as many seasons as I can.’’
Next year will bring yet another accolade: his 300th senior game. Rowan has more than winged it as a goalkicker after his move to full-forward all those years ago.
JASON ROWAN ON
Hampden league greats
“If I sat down and nutted out all the great players I’ve played with and against over the years, you’d probably fill the whole paper with it. There were so many. Like Craig Deckett, I played alongside him when he was at Warrnambool. Jason Heatley. Scotty Turner. Nicky Hider won a Maskell Medal. Jarrod McCorkell. Josh Walters. I played against Jason Mifsud and ‘Shorty’ Anderson in my early days. Big Johnny McNamara. Jase Mifsud was a dynamic bull. I felt privileged to play against someone like that.’’
His father, Phillip
“I’ve had some really good coaches along the way, but I still feel one of my biggest influences is my old man, all the hours spent with him tinkering with things and getting them right. He took up roller skating but his claim to fame is a couple of school footy games. He keeps telling me all about them.’’
Originally published as Jason Rowan’s long goalkicking journey to become a Hampden League legend
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