From smoking on the way to training to overhauling his diet, Max Gawn completely changed his outlook to become one of the AFL's most dominant players
ACCORDING to AFL coaches, Max Gawn is the best player in the game. It's a big shift from the days he used to 'light up a dart' on the way to training. In his first column, the Demons ruckman revealed all about 'the weirdest kid ever to walk through the doors' at Melbourne.
Expert Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Expert Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
ACCORDING to AFL coaches, Max Gawn is the best player in the game. It's a big shift from the days he used to drink heavily and "light up a dart" on the way to training. In his first column for the Herald Sun in March, the Demons ruckman revealed all about "the weirdest kid ever to walk through the doors" at Melbourne.
As Melbourne prepares for its first finals series in 12 years with Gawn carrying the hopes of long-suffering Demon fans, this is a great time to look back on those early years and see just how far he's come. Over to you, Max ...
IT IS November 23, 2009. Draft night.
The last of my small group of close friends and family members have arrived. High school principals and junior footy coaches are among a group of 30 huddled around the TV as the numbers start getting called.
I’m quietly confident. I’ve been given guarantees from recruiters at a few clubs and after a couple of nervous beers, bang, my name is read out at pick 34.
I WAS EATING A PIZZA A SHIFT: GAWN THOUGHT AFL CAREER WAS OVER BEFORE IT STARTED
SUPERCOACH: GAWN IS THIS YEAR’S MUST-HAVE SUPERCOACH RUCKMAN
My first thought? Beauty, I’m staying in Melbourne. My second? I’m having a party.
The draft hasn’t even ended and 30 people have become 100 and those couple of nervous beers have become a bender.
Because I’m a local boy living in McKinnon, Demons development coach Kelly O’Donnell and new teammate Rohan Bail have come around to welcome me to the club.
They might have regretted the club’s choice right there and then because I answer the door wearing a 1990s Melbourne jumper while holding a vodka cruiser in one hand and a ciggy in the other. A casual “social puff” was common practise for my group of friends.
I’m told training is at 8am out at Casey Fields. “See ya bright and early,” they say.
So I finished up early that night — I’m asleep just before the sun comes up. Freshly showered and working through a pack of chewing gum, I make it to training.
Four months into a knee reconstruction and hungover, I wasn’t exactly presenting on day one as a ready-made athlete. Nor was I a ready-made professional. In fact, I wasn’t even an adult.
By the third week I’d arrived late for the fourth time. It wasn’t my fault, my mum forgot to wake me up.
But that was seen as a minor offence when I decided to light up a dart on the Monash Freeway on the way to training in week four.
SUPERCOACH: BEST AND WORST PICKS OF 2018
FINALS PREVIEW: YOUR CLUB'S BURNING QUESTIONS
Round 1 hadn’t even arrived yet and I had an intervention involving my manager, my old man, two or three coaches, senior coach Dean Bailey and some guys that look after the contracts. It was pretty clear from then on that I couldn’t smoke on the way to training, couldn’t drink in rehab, had to rock up on time and if I hadn’t even run at the club yet I couldn’t be playing tennis.
The 2010 season went down as a major fail. I played one VFL reserves game in Round 22, in which I dislocated my patella. I had 70 minutes of football to show for my first year. At this point, apart from a couple of boys my age, I wasn’t everyone’s favourite person at the club.
In fact, I had been labelled by many as the weirdest kid to ever walk through the doors.
The start of 2011 wasn’t much better. I had a couple of drinking offences around the festive season of 2010, which led to my skinfolds being almost triple figures after returning from a trip that’s almost become a taboo topic — China.
At least my knobbly knees were holding up. I made my debut in 2011 and played four games when Mark Jamar was out injured.
The festive season got me again though — I broke team rules, this time during an important Casey Scorpions finals campaign.
Stand-in coach Todd Viney had some strong words for me that week and if it wasn’t for a contract I’d signed just two weeks earlier, I’d be back at Domino’s Pizza.
Although 2011 had its highs, it finished on a low. Another knee reconstruction; this time two days before Christmas. So 2012 was a write off and while fellow 2009 draftee Jack Trengove had played 59 games by the end of the 2012 season, I’d managed just four.
While the club had given “Trenners” the captaincy, I was barefoot and drunk on a Mad Monday at the Inkerman Hotel with a fresh tattoo on my foot, celebrating what? Being nearly 21?
I’d started to become liked around the club, but not respected. In fact, I was a long way from respected. But in 2013, ‘14 and ‘15 I’d at least started to get on the ground.
I played 35 AFL games and 30 VFL matches in that period before finally playing every game in 2016.
But years of sitting on the sidelines and watching the Demons lose week after week gave me a different perspective to most players. I became a supporter.
I developed a deep-seated love for the club. I was never in contention for a spot and unlike some of my more competitive VFL teammates, I wasn’t watching the game hoping Jamar or Jake Spencer had a howler.
To this point, I’ve played 74 AFL games — less than half as many as the leaders of my draft year, Dustin Martin (178 games) and Ben Cunnington (165). I won’t even get mentioned in the same sentence as 200 games, let aone 300.
I was made to work hard for my spot on the list as an immature and arrogant kid. Then when I thought I was working hard, I was made to work harder again to earn my position and beat two older and well-recognised rucks.
I’ve been dropped eight times in my career.
Years have gone by and the lack of success is the glaring hole. The club I love has been suffering for years on end. Yes, the wooden spoons hurt. Yes, they were embarrassing. But at least you know you haven’t been good enough.
But last year, to be knocked out of our first September campaign before it even started, was gutting. To let Round 23 slip away from us hurt more than the last eight years combined.
Some see it as unlucky — the closest ever margin to miss the final eight in the history of the game and it happens in the last match of the year and is out of our control.
I didn’t see it like that.
All I saw was myself and the team I represent crumble at the final hurdle. To be honest, I crumbled throughout the whole second half of the year.
Bang! I’m on Mad Monday again. It’s when I’ve done my best work. How disappointing is that sentence. I’m not going to lie, I had a beer or two. I was out until all hours and I had a bad meal.
But the next day, something significant changed in me. I trained early in the morning and then went sugar and carb free for the whole off-season. I did some form of training every day, either running or personal training. I shredded 8kg in two months and that was with trips to the US and Bali.
On holidays I turned down mac ‘n’ cheese for chicken salads, asked for tacos in a lettuce cup rather than a shell and ordered a hot dog at an NFL game and discarded the bun before taking a bite.
All of it was to return to training ahead of the game, put an injury-plagued season behind me, get as fit as I possibly can to carry the No. 1 ruck role for the whole season and to help my team thrive in moments like Round 23 last year.
I’m not saying that I wasn’t in good shape in previous years or not trying to perform to my best. But perhaps it takes a loss like that to realise there is more to give.
In the two hours on game day I only have one gear, that is to go and keep going. That can’t change, but what can change around it?
I have to really take flight this year. In 2016 I’d like to think I was on top of my game, but in 2017 I was caught and overtaken by virtually every ruckman in the competition.
In 2018 I’m determined to get back to my best and not let my teammates down again.
Robbo: The evolving aura of coaching master Chris Scott
Chris Scott has astonished even his closest admirers with another top-four finish. Insiders and opponents tell MARK ROBINSON what makes the Cats coach a modern great.
Grow up, Ginnivan and Co can have a life outside footy
Get used to AFL stars attending the Grand Prix or red carpet events in a world where social media is a huge second income. So, what did Jack Ginnivan do wrong, asks JON RALPH.