Box Hill Hawks to name its All-Star team
As Box Hill gets set to name the best of the best from its 20-year alignment with Hawthorn, one name deserves to be close to the top of the list. We look back at the VFL career of Sam Mitchell
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Nearly two decades ago, Box Hill coach Donald McDonald asked me to have chat with a young-up-an-comer the Hawks had running around at Box Hill City Oval.
He was pretty handy by all accounts but had received a couple of knockbacks and his ability deserved some spruiking.
That year, the 18-year-old ball magnet would play an integral role in Box Hill’s inaugural VFL premiership win and the year after he’d win the Liston medal in a canter.
And before he’d hang up his boots for good, he’d be one of the very best players in one of the very best teams in the history of the game.
Sam Mitchell’s time at City Oval is being recalled as the Box Hill Hawks prepare to name an All Stars team marking 20 years of the Box Hill and Hawthorn VFL alignment.
Eighty-seven players have qualified for selection and it will be VFL-style All Stars team, with five players on the bench, including a 23rd man.
Footy fans are invited to have a crack at selecting the All-Star Team.
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HAVE YOU GOT WHAT TAKES TO BE A SELECTOR?
From his earliest games, it was clear Mitchell was a no-nonsense footballer.
Get the ball and give it off, nothing too complicated there.
And one thing Mitchell could do was get the ball and get it a lot.
One of the most prolific ball winners in the TAC Cup in 1999 and 2000 and a two-time best and fairest winner at the Eastern Ranges he was, however, shackled with one major shortcoming.
He wasn’t 6’2’’ with the ability to contest the decathlon at the Olympics and in an era when AFL clubs seemed to be looking exclusively for athletes, and then turning them into footballers, Mitchell’s 177cm frame saw him snubbed at the 2000 draft.
As we sat in the old wooden office at City Oval, Mitchell’s determination and focus floored me.
While other kids would have taken the draft knockback as ‘game over’, for Mitchell it was a red rag to a bull.
He reminded me that similar thinking had delayed the start of another great career, that of Brownlow medallist Greg Williams.
But, like Williams, Mitchell said his AFL dream would not be over until he decided it was.
``I’ve met Greg Williams and it was his philosophy that `they can’t ignore me forever’,’’ he said.
So he continued to chip away and, eventually, he could be ignored no longer.
Box Hill’s AFL affiliate Hawthorn nabbed him with pick No. 36 in the 2001 draft and he went on to play 307 games with the Hawks before rounding out his career with another 22 at the West Coast Eagles.
Along the way he’d be a four-time AFL premiership player, he’d captain the Hawks to the 2008 flag, he’d be named the AFL rising star in 2003 and claim the Peter Crimmins medal as Hawthorn’s best no fewer than five times.
Throw in the 2012 Brownlow, and Mitchell is entitled to nod and smile at the doubters that dogged his early career.
His ability to get in an under and win the ball was second to none.
His resolve to make the big league matched that.
Mitchell was quick to shelve the disappointment of missing the draft in 2000.
``There’s nothing you can do about it,’’ he said that day. ``Maybe I’ll look back when I’m 40 and say, `why wasn’t I drafted’?
``I had no expectations (of the draft). No club had spoken to me. So I just sat back on draft day and was ecstatic for my teammates (who did get drafted).
``But I was disappointed not to get a pre-season.’’
McDonald was quick to see the potential possessed by the teenager and was excited by the progress he made with Box Hill.
``Sam’s come along really well this year,’’ the Hawks boss said at the time. ``They (opposition coaches) are starting to tag him now. That’s a real compliment but now he has to work out what he has to do to escape the tags and keep helping his teammates.’’
Mitchell said he learned plenty in what was his first VFL season.
The chance to rub shoulders with, train alongside and just listen to established AFL stars was worth its weight in gold.
``The first time I trained with Nick Holland I remember thinking `this guy’s a star of the AFL and I’m just some 18-year-old Box Hill player’ but we’re training together,’’ he said.
``Jade Rawlings comes to the games and at quarter-time pulls you aside and gives you advice. You can’t buy advice like that.’’
Soaking up experience like the sponge in the trainer’s bucket, he refused to dwell on whether he was tall enough or athletic enough, those things were beyond his control.
``There was a sign at the Eastern Ranges that said `if you’re good enough, you’re quick enough. If you’re good enough, you’re big enough’,’’he said.
``I won’t give up. The worst thing would be to look back and say I could have done better.’’
In the end, they couldn’t ignore him for ever.
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