AFL Hall of Fame 2015: Jason Akermanis a brilliant matchwinner who stood out
JASON Akermanis delivers a hilarious speech and reveals the origin of his famous handstand as he’s inducted to the Hall of Fame.
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IT became his calling card.
The Jason Akermanis handstand after Brisbane Lions victories at the Gabba took on a life of its own.
And the man responsible for inspiring it was an unlikely source — Geelong goalsneak Ronnie Burns.
In 1999 a young and impressionable Akermanis saw Burns do a cartwheel after he kicked the match winning goal for the Cats.
The next week he did the same.
“It started off being a cartwheel but by the end of the second week I was too tired so I did a handstand,” Akermanis explains.
The celebration signalled the beginning of the Jason Akermanis transformation which on Thursday night reached its ultimate destination — the AFL Hall of Fame.
“By the middle of ‘99 all of a sudden I had blonde hair, they’d kept getting my name wrong as there were four redheads in the team so I changed that,” he says.
“I started doing handstands and you can say what you want about it, as silly and as individual as it can be portrayed, it meant we won.
“I sold more cokes and more hotdogs than anyone at the Gabba because they all stuck around, no-one left before the game was finished so they should thank me for that one.
“My teammates, to their credit, were really supportive and even before one game Leigh (Matthews) came up and said: ‘I want to see a handstand today’.
“That’s probably something he would never think in his life he would say but everyone knew what it was about, it meant we won.”
While there was always a sideshow to Akermanis, the facts don’t lie when revealing his brilliance and longevity in the game.
Born in Mildura, he moved to Queensland as a kid and quickly realised rugby wasn’t for him. In 1994 he was a zone selection for the then Brisbane Bears.
Akermanis announced himself in 1999 by winning the club’s best and fairest and earning the first of his four All-Australian selections.
By the age of 24 he was the best player in the country, winning the 2001 Brownlow Medal before being a key member of the Lions three-peat premiership run.
“I had a habit of kicking goals in the last quarters, the hair was blonde and I was standing out,” Akermanis says of his Brownlow year.
“We weren’t at the top of the ladder in the first half of the year but when we did win I played well and was getting the three votes all the time.
“Then in the back half of the year we won 15 straight coming into the grand final, I obviously got a few more three-pointers but it was the first half of the year (that) set up the Brownlow.”
The following year he was the Grand Final hero, kicking the matchwinning goal — a left-foot snap over his shoulder — against Collingwood in the dying minutes.
Legend has it that he was at the front of the pack where the ball spilt on the instruction of Matthews. Akermains has his own take.
“I had got a few kicks because it was sliding off the back of the pack but by late in the game you started to get a lot more balls coming to the front because the forwards were getting used to the conditions,” he said.
“By the time the runner, Craig Starcevich, was coming out to tell me to get out to the front I’d already said I’d better start getting to the front. It was a no-brainer.”
It was no surprise the matchwinner came off his non-preferred left boot as Akermanis is universally regarded as the best two-sided player in the history of the game.
“What happened was my first coach in Mildura said you should learn to kick both feet and because I never had a dad, I always thought my coaches were my dad, so I always did what they said,” he said.
He describes his messy departure from the Lions in 2006 after 248 games as a “bad divorce between me and Leigh”.
“I had to get out of Brisbane because I had done everything I wanted to achieve there. I didn’t want to get stale, that was the main thing.”
He then played 77 games with the Western Bulldogs which also ended prematurely midway through 2010 after a vote of no-confidence in him following a series of off-field controversies.
“I think I deserved a bit better for the work I had done in the game,” he said.
“To be thrown out of the game with eight rounds to go when I was mentally and physically sound because someone made a decision that I deserved to be fired, that was a joke.
“Everything else in my career I’m really happy with. You just want to end with some dignity and I was never afforded that.”
Coaching is now his calling and he is determined to turn North Albury from cellar dweller to powerhouse in the Ovens and Murray League.
A return to the AFL in the coaches’ box is part of his long-term vision.
He smiles when asked about how he thinks his career will be remembered.
“If you dislike someone because they don’t think the same as you, I think that’s pretty shallow so I don’t worry about that.
“In the end, as I say to my players and I say to anyone, people only remember what you do.
“You can say what you want but if you are doing good things and you are achieving great things then that is what you will get remembered for.
“That is what people will always remember, how you helped them and if you did help them. I think I did that.”
Jason Akermanis
Born: February 24, 1977 (38)
Brisbane Bears: 1995-2006 (248 games, 307 goals); Western Bulldogs: 2007-10 (77 games; 114 goals); Total: 325 games, 421 goals
Brisbane Lions premiership: 2001, 2002, 2003
All-Australian: 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004
Brownlow Medal: 2001
Brisbane Lions leading goalkicker: 2004
Western Bulldogs leading goalkicker: 2009
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