Essendon gun Heath Hocking carves out career the hard way

HEATH Hocking is exactly what you think he is.

Essendon?s answer is add Hock

HEATH Hocking is exactly what you think he is.

Watching him play, words like determined, focused, tough, unrelenting, hard and blue-collar spring to mind.

The tattoo on his chest shouldn't surprise: "Regret is Failure."

"I don't like being beaten or things like that," he said. "I'm not sure what the word for it is but certainly the passion I hold for football comes through in the way I compete. It's just how I play."

Graham Hocking is a footy nut who could talk about it all day if you wanted. He played 50 reserves games and one senior game for South Melbourne - Round 5, 1971 v Hawthorn - and has coached at various levels over the past 20 years.

What quickly becomes clear is that he's instilled in his youngest son a work ethic that he lacked at the same age.

"I probably wasted my opportunities and they don't come along that often," he said.

Heath has had to seize his opportunity the hard way, a fact his father believes has shaped him as a footballer.

After two years at the Eastern Ranges in the TAC Cup, he was overlooked in the draft but was invited down to Melbourne immediately afterwards.

Melbourne told him after a couple of weeks it would select him in the rookie draft, but when it came to its pick his name wasn't there.

"You could have picked him off the floor then," Graham said.

Luckily the team he'd supported all his life - his father was a Swan as was older brother Evan, but he'd decided on Essendon - took him at No. 20 in the 2006 rookie draft.

One minor problem was the fact he was 17 and lived in Mooroolbark, a good one-to-two-hour trip to Windy Hill in peak hour.

That meant some 6am train rides to get to training on time and, when he suffered a navicular injury in his foot during his first year, that tough trip went up another notch.

"We'd drop him at the station, he'd catch the train and then hobble to Windy Hill from the Essendon station on crutches," Graham said.

"That sort of thing makes you start to think, 'Well, hang on, that has been a real battle and it hasn't been easy'. I think that made him appreciate it more.

"He has got a really good disposition, he's always been focused and had that drive to succeed."

Heath learnt early in the backyard at home against his brother, who is six years older and played VFL with Port Melbourne, that only the tough survived.

"I remember one day we put on a boxing glove each and he got me some rippers," Hocking said.

"He was obviously bigger than me and I was the younger brother who would stir him up and then sook."

The hard-nosed approach, which is evident today in his football, has been there from day one.

"I was always just passionate about football and playing it as hard as I could," Heath said. "That was how I approached training, and back then there were times where people were saying, 'Settle down, you're running too fast or you're doing this'.

"But that's just my enthusiasm and passion to play. I built on what I'd done in my junior years and just tried to take it to a higher level. I realised that I wasn't going to get 30 touches each week as I'm not that type of player. I just like to play one role for the team and do it to the best that I can do.

"That was more likely to get me selected than having a flashy game."

He was rewarded with elevation from the rookie list in 2007 and made his debut in Round 20 against Carlton.

It was James Hird, now his coach, who threw him into the thick of the action. After starting on the bench, he came on and played half-forward until told to go into the centre bounce.

Clearly Hird knew something because six years later Hocking is the best centre-clearance player in the competition.

It's a skill he has finetuned while shadowing some of the best midfielders in the land, a job he started in 2009 when then coach Matthew Knights told him to follow then-Port Adelaide star Shaun Burgoyne.

Tonight at some stage he's likely to renew acquaintances with Carlton champion Chris Judd, a regular opponent in recent years.

One thing the 25-year-old has had to learn the hard way is to curtail his aggression after missing crucial games through suspension.

"In 2011 and 2012 I got suspended for six games and the way the game is sort of working you have to just curb the way you attack the ball a little bit, maybe not flying the flag as much," he said. "That has been a thought which has crossed my mind, to try and play with less anger, which is how it might come across on the ground."

Whatever he does do on the MCG tonight, he knows it will be reviewed under a microscope, not by Hird, but his old man with a post-match debrief, a Hocking tradition.

"I think it's important that there is not too much roses," Graham said.

Heath knows the euphoria of victory can be quickly brought down to earth by his under-10 coach.

"You think you've played well and Dad is like, 'Do you think you could have done that better?'

"He is always there for support and there are times when you listen and take it in, but other times where the coach knows better."