AFL grand final 2024: How Swans half-back Matt Roberts juggles cricket, footy on his way from Langhorne Creek and Strathalbyn
Matt Roberts, the ‘freak who was good at everything’, steps onto the MCG today for the AFL grand final. Those who know him best reflect on the country kid’s journey to the big time.
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Matt Roberts is preparing to play in his first AFL grand final, but he has experience trying to help a team win a title at the MCG.
In 2015, while in year 6, he took part in a national eight-a-side cricket tournament on the famous ground.
His school, Eastern Fleurieu R-12, earnt the opportunity after winning their zone and then the state titles, before they fell short in the final in Melbourne.
People around him had a feeling his MCG experience would not be a one-off.
“We said to him ‘you might be here one day, mate’,” Eastern Fleurieu physical education teacher Jerry Blair recalls.
“But it wasn’t going to be in cricket.”
Roberts was shining as a footballer then, although his parents, Brenton and Sally, “tried to keep a lid on it”.
“People saying ‘you’re going to be out here one day, Matty, this could be the first one many’ – we laughed about it, but they knew more than we did,” Brenton tells this masthead.
Roberts, now 21, will return to the MCG on Saturday as part of Sydney’s tilt at a first flag in 12 seasons.
The grand final against Brisbane will be the third-year Swan’s 30th game and his 23rd this campaign.
Forging an AFL career in the Harbour City has not stopped him from wielding the willow back home.
In the two off-seasons since being drafted, Roberts has lined up for Strathalbyn Cricket Club, playing five games in each of the past two campaigns.
“After his first season with the Swans, he turned up at a game and I jokingly said to him ‘I’ll see you out at training next week’ as a throwaway line,” Strathalbyn president Michael Cutting says.
“He said ‘no worries, I’ll see you there’.
“I made the assumption it was the end of his cricket days, but he was there training the next Thursday night and playing that week.
“I always laugh because we put an availability poll up every week and post-Christmas he always votes that he’s unavailable, which we know there’s a fair chance he would be given he’s in Sydney.
“I think he loves getting back, turning his brain off from footy and rolling his arm over.
The past two seasons, Roberts played cricket for Strathalbyn until mid-November, a little more than a week before Sydney returned to training.
“I find it quite ironic that you see these young 13 or 14-year-olds running around kicking a footy still in October, November on the oval and here’s an AFL-listed player having a bowl,” Cutting says.
Roberts is described as a genuine all-rounder who bats left-handed, bowls right-arm medium pace and is a great fielder.
“He’s one of the first picked – and I think any A-grade side in the competition would say the same thing,” Cutting says.
Roberts has always been a sporting natural.
He represented his district at primary school level in footy, softball and golf, and was part of Eastern Fleurieu R-12’s volleyball team at an Australian schools championship.
“And he probably would’ve made the (district) tennis team if he tried out for that,” Blair says.
“He was a freak who was good at everything.”
It started at the age of two when Roberts was kicking a footy in the passage of their home on a sheep and cropping farm in Nurragi, south of Strathalbyn, an hour’s drive from Adelaide.
Within a year, he was imitating golf pros in a sandpit Brenton built.
“I don’t think he ever put a truck or bucket in there, it became a sand bunker and he just hit golf balls out of it,” he says.
Roberts took up Auskick at five, then started playing for Great Southern Football League club Langhorne Creek that year.
“I coached junior colts at Strathalbyn when Matty was coming through at Langhorne Creek and as an opposition coach trying to shut him out of the game was an impossible task,” Cutting says.
“Just his workrate, no one could actually go with him.
“It was fairly obvious at that time he was going somewhere.”
Roberts won a junior colts premiership in 2016, getting named best-on-ground after kicking five goals.
“We flew to New Zealand the day after for a holiday and he didn’t take off his Langhorne Creek guernsey for about a week and a half,” Brenton says with a laugh.
A month after turning 15, Roberts snared an A-grade flag,
“That was one of the most special games I’ve been involved in,” Brenton says.
“When he got asked, it was always ‘should he be playing? He’s playing against men’.
“But he was 100 per cent ready.”
Ready to stand tall in the grand final, but not for the celebrations that followed.
“He didn’t know what the taste of alcohol was and he really struggled through that,” Brenton says of his son watching his teammates’ post-match drinks.
Two Langhorne Creek players who had tasted footy at higher levels – Norwood premiership forward and coach Ben Warren, and ex-Crows and Melbourne big man James Sellar – comforted Roberts.
They said something along the lines of: “These boys have got a lot to celebrate but you’ve got bigger things going on and this is nothing compared to what you’ve got coming up and will get to experience”.
“That’s stayed with us as parents,” says an emotional Brenton.
Roberts represented SA at consecutive national under-16 titles, as well as in the under-18 championships and featured for South Adelaide in the SANFL finals in his draft year in 2021.
Sydney selected him at pick 34.
“We weren’t sure what to feel draft night, we just waited for his name,” Brenton says.
“It was a pretty special feeling when it was announced.”
Roberts played one match in his first season, debuting in a six-point win over Richmond in round 11, 2022.
The Swans ended that year with an 81-point grand final loss to Geelong at the MCG.
“We were all there,” Brenton says.
“I remember seeing photos of him on the ground after the presentations and he had this steely look about him that look like he played.
“He was feeling the pain, even though he wasn’t out there with them.”
Adding another six matches last year fuelled Roberts’ hunger last summer going into 2024.
“He did a massive pre-season,” Brenton says.
“We live an hour from Adelaide and he trained with a guy three days a week in the off-season, sometimes leaving home at 4am to start training at 6am.
“He knew what he had to do to go to another level.”
Shifted to half-back this year, Roberts has played 22 of the Swans’ 25 games, including both finals.
This week started with Sydney’s win over Port Adelaide.
Then came three Brownlow Medal votes on Monday night and getting his selection confirmed for Saturday’s match.
“I feel like it’s a dream, please don’t wake me up just yet,” Brenton says.
“It’s something he’s wanted to do all his life.
“Not everyone gets the opportunity, but I remember saying to him the day he left for Sydney ‘you’ve got the opportunity, the rest is up to you, go and make the best of it’.
“And he’s certainly done that.”
Cutting will be in two minds watching Roberts on Saturday.
“I’m a Brisbane supporter so while I’d love nothing more than to see Matty win, I’ll be torn,” he says.
Brenton, Sally, their other son Tyson and his girlfriend are driving over from SA for the grand final.
Roberts’ long-term girlfriend Erin, who he has been in a long-distance relationship with while she has finished her studies in SA, will also be there.
“The whole journey has been wonderful so far, but win, lose or draw, we’re just super proud of him,” Brenton says.
“It’s really humbling to us that he’s not just an ambassador for Langhorne Creek or Strath, but the whole community.
“He feels it and knows it.
“People who have probably hated watching him on the footy field because he’s helped beat their own teams have all got on board.
“Everyone’s interested and that’s country spirit for you, I think.”
Roberts has carried that with him to Sydney.
Whenever he comes back to play cricket for Strathalbyn with his mates, he is “still
same Matt Roberts we all knew 10 years ago”, according to Cutting.
“He’s got no airs and graces about him,” he says.
“He’s had cases where kids come along and ask for his autograph when he’s around.
“He’s pretty well known through these parts, but will never turn anyone away.”
The only downside for the local community of a Roberts premiership is his potential unavailability to don the whites for Strathalbyn.
“He hasn’t said he won’t, but we’ve made an assumption with the Swans going so late in the season that potentially he might not,” Cutting says.
“He’s got 99 wickets for Strath, so he might need to come back and get his 100th.”
Brenton reckons his son, who plays at the club with Tyson, will find it too difficult to stay away.
“He’s got a couple of trips away but I’m pretty sure he’ll get at least a couple or three games in,” he says.
“If he’s not playing, he’ll be there watching.”
Originally published as AFL grand final 2024: How Swans half-back Matt Roberts juggles cricket, footy on his way from Langhorne Creek and Strathalbyn
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