Kamdyn McIntosh opens up on his unique request for the Richmond hub and missing two Grand Finals in two weeks
When Richmond officials received a rather interesting hub request from unique Tiger Kamdyn McIntosh, they thought he was taking the Mickey out of them. Turns out he plans to put it to good use.
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Some Richmond players requested to take PlayStations and NutriBullets to their Gold Coast hub.
Kamdyn McIntosh went to club staff before the Tigers left Melbourne and asked if he could take a welder.
They thought the serial prankster was joking, but he was deadly serious.
“They kind of laughed and walked off, and thought it was one of the practical jokes that I’m running,” McIntosh said.
“But then I came back a second time and they said, ‘We’ll see what we can do’.”
McIntosh doesn’t have his welder yet, but there are plans afoot to fly it north.
What could a footballer possibly want a welder for while staying in a luxury Queensland resort?
Well, McIntosh has been looking to buy a van and convert it into a campervan.
Many of the 26-year-old’s nights in the Gold Coast hub have been spent on YouTube working out just how to go about converting a van to live out of on a road trip.
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“I’ve got a mate who’s an auto sparky so he can help with the electric side of things,” McIntosh said.
“I don’t mind giving something I know nothing about a red-hot crack.”
The van idea came about after McIntosh’s plans for a lengthy post-season holiday to Egypt and Bali were squashed by international travel restrictions.
His partner Katherine — a doctor at Footscray Hospital — can’t join the Tigers on the Gold Coast, but hopes to be able to reunite with McIntosh for a road trip back home.
“We just thought, ‘Why don’t we use that holiday money to get a van?’ ” McIntosh said.
“I’ll work on it for the 2½ months that I’m up here for and then, maybe at the end of football season, we can do a trip back down the coast.”
A holiday isn’t the only reason McIntosh wants the van.
Unlike some teammates such as Jack Ross — unbeaten in the club’s PlayStation FIFA competition — McIntosh is more of the outdoors and hands-on type.
Having completed his Certificates 3 and 4 in carpentry, he has spent the past two years renovating what was once an “ugly duckling” house in Melbourne’s northern suburbs — with a little help from teammates Jayden Short and Toby Nankervis and former teammate Jacob Townsend.
“I put a bit of time into it and brought it to life,” McIntosh said.
“I’ve had a builder be a mentor to me as well, and help me through the process.
“Life after footy, I wouldn’t mind going down the road of property development or home renovation.”
For now, though, the van project will be something to keep McIntosh’s mind off football — a hard thing to do when surrounded by teammates and coaches every day.
“Footy is everything here at the moment,” McIntosh said.
“That’s kind of why I want to pick up the van and do something, because everyone needs an escape from whatever it is that they’re doing.”
BOUNCING BACK FROM ‘TOUGHEST YEAR’
A 2017 premiership player, McIntosh had missed only three AFL games since the flag before Round 18 last year.
He had felt his early-season form in 2019 was the best of his career but, come Round 18, he found himself dropped.
“Last year was probably the toughest year I’ve ever had,” McIntosh said.
“I felt the front-half of the season was the best footy I’ve ever played, and then to get taken out the back end of the season, and not really have a whole lot of clarity as to why, was tough.
“A couple of weeks after getting dropped, the coaches started to work with me a bit more in what areas of the game I needed to get better at.
“Contested marking and contested possession were probably the main things.”
McIntosh did not play another AFL game and was a held-over emergency for the Grand Final, meaning he also missed out on playing in the Tigers’ VFL premiership.
“The night before that I got called to be carry-over for the AFL Grand Final. So that was hard to miss the VFL one as well,” McIntosh said.
“To not play the AFL Grand Final was pretty tough because it left me going into the pre-season with an unknown of where I sat at the club.”
McIntosh credits a post-season trip to Utah in the US — where he trained with former teammate Ben Lennon — with helping turn around his fortunes.
“I went over there, did a fair bit of training and got my body right,” McIntosh said.
“It was the best pre-season I’d ever had.
“If I didn’t go away with that mindset of wanting to come back and show the coaches that I’ve got more to offer, and I’m not done, then I probably wouldn’t have played the last few games.”
After an ankle injury in January caused a setback, McIntosh missed Round 1 but returned to the side in Round 4 and impressed with 24 disposals against Sydney last week.
“I’m very excited to be back in the side,” McIntosh said.
“When you’re getting games and then it gets taken away from you, you have to work hard to get your spot back in the side because there’s always someone else there to take your spot in the side.
“I think that became evident, and it made me more grateful to play AFL.”
TIGERS RIGHT BEHIND BACHAR
– Lauren Wood
Bachar Houli’s mother has taken a positive step in her fight against COVID-19, Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has revealed.
Premiership defender Houli delivered a call to arms on Monday when he opened up about his mother Yamama’s battle in intensive care against the devastating virus.
But Hardwick said that there had been progress in her condition.
“It’s obviously tough,” Hardwick said.
“Bachar and his family are incredibly important to him, but they’re incredibly important to us as well. He’s such a prolific member of our club.
“I think his mum is doing better, from the news that we got (on Thursday), which is incredible.
“We just hope she continues to be on the mend, because Bachar and his family are hurting, but we’re hurting as well. We wish them all the best and everyone our there is wishing a speedy recovery also.”
The news comes as the AFL prepares to jet players who did not initially join their club’s interstate hubs to the Gold Coast on Friday.
The league has chartered a flight from Melbourne to the sunshine state with players and officials from all Melbourne clubs offered an opportunity to fly north.
When they land, they will begin a mandatory 14 days of hotel quarantine as required by the Queensland government, separately to where their clubs may currently be housed.
Richmond players Dion Prestia and Toby Nankervis had planned to be on that flight, Hardwick said, but the Tigers will leave seven players — including Houli, as he continues to support both his mother and his young family — in Melbourne.
“We want to get some further training into those guys with a possibility of coming up at a later date, and once again we’ll get some terrific training and coaching into those younger players that we’ve left behind,” the premiership coach said.
“We’re going to stick with that strategy.
“That will change as the circumstances do change that we’re in at the moment. But at the moment, we’ve got 35 players up here and we’ll continue to do that while still having that hub back in Melbourne that’ll invest in those seven players we’ve left behind.”
Players in Melbourne can train in pairs under Stage 3 restrictions, but Hardwick conceded that the model might have to be adapted should Victoria raise its restrictions further.
There are plans to stage another flight at the end of the month, and then potentially another after that should clubs require.
Players would require an exemption in order to train while in quarantine, given rules dictate that visitors to the state must be bound to their hotel room.
It further adds to the burden of bringing players into the hub, or if players elect to return to Melbourne at any stage — as Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury flagged this week — to then return to the hub again, with two weeks having to be added for quarantine on arrival back in Queensland.
Geelong star Gary Ablett has also been given the support of the Cats should he elect to return home at any stage after revealing that his son Levi is suffering from a rare degenerative condition and his wife Jordan’s mother is battling terminal cancer.
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