Max Gawn book extract: Demon’s captain reveals all in new book

From Angus Brayshaw forgetting to turn up for a revered ritual, to how star Demons prepared for the grand final and what went down on Brownlow night, Max Gawn reveals all in a new book.

Melbourne Demons captain Max Gawn has revealed all in his new book. Picture: David Caird

The day after the preliminary final, I got up early, got into my car, and headed immediately to the ocean – a place called Waterman’s Bay. I just sat there with Ed Langdon and Jake Lever and Christian Petracca, having a coffee and a little breakfast.

We must have spent five hours there. I guess that’s the way you celebrate finally escaping quarantine – by sitting at a cafe for half the day.

After that, of course, we had another two weeks before the grand final; and I didn’t know exactly how to play that out. I liked how we had worked things in the lead up to the Geelong game, but this was completely different because now we were all free.

Honestly, I wanted a similar formula, but people had friends and family everywhere, we suddenly had cars, too, and now there were options beyond board games – and beyond the resort itself – for killing time.

It was actually a stressful first week for me, because I really just wanted everyone to stay at the hotel. I would have loved to have been in quarantine for the full four weeks.

But I also worked out pretty quickly that this is what everyone would do if they were in Melbourne, so it was fine. Everything’s fine. I should go and enjoy my life as well, which I did. Many of the boys played golf, particularly the boys who probably weren’t going to be playing in the grand final. I’m pretty sure Mitch Brown played a round every single day.

Then there were the surfers – James Harmes was always catching waves.

I was one of the cafe boys, keen to grab breakfast with anyone who was interested, or dinner that night, sometimes both with the same people. I like the camaraderie of shared meals.

But there were also people who seemed to know everyone in Perth. Michael Hibberd must have been out seeing a friend every night. Angus Brayshaw was the same.

Many Melbourne players are keen golfers. Picture: Instagram

By the time the Monday of grand final week rolled around, we all began to gravitate back to one another naturally. We didn’t need to make any rules about people staying at the hotel. We just found that everyone – the 23 who would be playing, in particular – gradually started eating at the hotel more, having breakfast together, having dinner together.

We had all these zoom commitments; keeping in touch with past players and sponsors and board members. It was busy, in a great way.

We had the Brownlow Medal night, too, which was unique. It was at Optus Stadium, and the Doggies were in one room and we were in another room – everyone else was in a main room. Bizarrely, we got to see Doggies’ players in the shared toilets. I remember running into Josh Dunkley there: “Hey, mate … ‘hi, mate.” I’m not big on small talk with footballers at the best of times, let alone against a member of the team you’re about to play in a grand final when in the toilet of the Brownlow ceremony.

I spoke to a few former premiership players during the week about what to expect coming into the grand final. Jordan Lewis was succinct: “Lap it all up.” James Frawley was the opposite: “You can pull back and say no to stuff, if you want.” Chris Dawes was quite funny: “During the game, surround yourself with good players, so shit players like you will get a medal.” That was a great quote, and in fairness, I have surrounded myself with the best midfield going around, with Oliver, Petracca and Viney. I took all of that advice on-board, but I was always going to do it my own way.

“I’ve done everything my own way since I started,” says Max Gawn. Picture: Michael Klein

I’ve done everything my own way since I started, and my way is that I’m happy doing media. I’m happy being out there. I’m happy being in a busy cafe, getting a muffin and a coffee and saying g’day to the barista. I’m an extrovert. I just don’t find those interactions stressful.

I wasn’t stressed, either, about being favourite, because I don’t even check that sort of thing. In my mind, we had played the Bulldogs three times in 2021. They got hold of us in the pre-season. We beat them at Marvel. They repaid us at the MCG. They had a two-one lead, but this was a different game, different circumstances, different conditions. I was pretty carefree about predictions, happy just knowing that it was going to be a good game.

There wasn’t much I needed to do as captain to settle the group in that final week, although I did keep a close eye on things. I love observing anyway. I’m a big people-watcher. I also know my 45 teammates well, and feel as though I can tell how things are going for them. I’d seen red flags in the Queensland hub in 2020, so I knew what to watch out for – how this person might be susceptible to being away from family, or that person doesn’t like being around the boys too much. Honestly, I thought everyone did it well, the way they handled themselves.

There were definitely nerves creeping in towards the end, but coaches quash that well, making jokes here and there, slipping something funny into a presentation. A guy like Christian Petracca is an unbelievable source of energy, and a great person to bring everything up or down a notch as required. Steven May was probably the one causing some concern, as he obviously had a strained hammy, and you could tell he was nervous, so you had to comfort him – but you also just always knew that he was playing. He probably didn’t play his best game, and he certainly felt his hammy at times, but he did have a six-centimetre tear in the muscle. His opponent, Aaron Naughton, ended up kicking just the one goal, and that one was almost shared with Harry Petty – it’s another good lesson in trusting a player to know his own body.

The whole week was set up well, and then we came to our final meeting.

The captain’s run is the generic term for it, but we call it Demon day.

Because it was an away game, we did it at night, 5.30pm. It’s a big meeting, everyone knows this. But someone was late. The time comes, and Angus Brayshaw is nowhere to be seen and nobody knows where he is. Then we called him and he goes: “I forgot.” He forgot about the grand final captain’s run – he forgot about Demon day, before a chance at a premiership.

He was with his brother 20 minutes down the road. Goody was cool and calm, and just goes, “we’ll wait 20 minutes”.

Now, when things like this used to happen, it would end with some form of group punishment, like, ‘we’re all jumping off the Port Melbourne pier tomorrow at 6am”.

And that used to happen a bit.

Angus Brayshaw forgot the pre-premiership ‘captain’s run’, resulting in all players having to plank. Picture: Getty Images

Ever since I’ve been captain, we’ve done a more compact punishment; a two minute plank. And nothing was going to stop us just because it was the grand final the next day. So we all did a two minute plank, all of us clothed, in the dinner room, because Angus was late. It was actually pretty funny, and set the mood up perfectly.

The meeting had a special touch. Goody had told us to bring our headphones. And then during the meeting we all got an email, with a personalised three minute video, highlighting vision of each player throughout the year. All 23 of us sat in a circle, watching ourselves, set to music, bringing the very best of what we brought all season, and what the coach wanted us to bring the next day.

Everything and everyone just felt … normal. Perhaps it was because we had been there for almost a month, or that we had been there before, but it seemed as though we had created a home away from home, a safe and relaxed environment. The only thing that unsettled me was my dinner the night before the grand final. The chef came out – and we hadn’t really spoken during the hub – and he presented me with this dish: “I made you these special

meatballs.” I started to wonder if he was a Western Bulldogs supporter, and what was in them, because he seriously came out with three gigantic meatballs and said: “These

are for you, captain!” They tasted great. I felt fine. But it certainly caught me off guard.

The hub environment does tend to knock you off your usual pre-game rituals, so I stuck as closely as possible to the new ones I had created there. I kept the nightly cup of tea thing going, visiting Adam Tomlinson’s room with Jake Lever for a cup of English breakfast tea.

I usually have a bowl of cereal before going to sleep the night before a game, so I did that, too, although I did change it up slightly, going for Crispix instead of Weet-Bix.

And the final ritual I kept going was the first thing I did when I woke up. Since the hub began, I had gone to the beach every morning at 6.30am. Usually Jake Lever came, and Christian Petracca, as well as our fitness coach Selwyn Griffiths and Tom Sparrow. I actually had a bit of hammy tightness in the two weeks before the grand final, so the salt water soaking felt therapeutic.

Jake Lever and Max Gawn enjoyed drinking English breakfast tea in the hub. Picture: Michael Klein

On the day of the grand final, it was just me and Jake Lever. We headed to our little spot at the same time as always – 6.30am – and jumped in the water. The beach was called Mullaloo, and it was bliss. The beaches in Western Australia are something else. I mean, you have to dodge sharks, but they’re beautiful. If we were in Melbourne, we would be standing there waist deep – Speedos on the bottom, hoodies up top – but here I was swimming. Actually, I was bodysurfing. The morning of the grand final, I was catching waves in the Indian Ocean. That got me in the perfect headspace.

Then came breakfast – three eggs on multigrain toast with butter every single morning, maybe with bacon on game day for extra fuel. We went for a team walk at West Perth Oval. We threw the frisbee. My hammy felt great. And I got a little nap done, too, just before noon. It’s something worth doing during the day before a night game. Just 20 minutes to recharge. Everything was kind of perfect.

I’ve used the word ‘invincible’ before, and Paul Roos rightly lit into me, but on the morning of a game – any game – that’s when I really do feel invincible, like I’m at my very best. And that’s as it should be. You do your preparation to feel as good as you can, come the weekend. You’ve done your recovery, you’ve carb-loaded, you’re hydrated, you’ve had good sleep, you’ve had some anti-inflammatories to fix any soreness. I like to call it ‘max day’. It’s my day. I get to choose what’s on TV. I get to choose what time I go for the walk, what time I have my eggs, and it’s just a great feeling. You’re set, you’re ready, and you know that today’s the day.

The cover of Max Gawn's new tell-all book.

This is an edited extract from Max Gawn Captain’s Diary published by Hardie Grant. On sale December 10 from all good book stores, and available at Melbourne’s premiership celebrations at the MCG.

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