Geelong star Tom Hawkins opens up about isolation, working on his farm and life without football
Like all clubs, the Cats are embracing technology as they try and stick together during the coronavirus shutdown. But when it comes to the group chat, who is polling the three votes?
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Tom Hawkins had started wondering how long some of the isolation challenges which were flooding social media really took to achieve.
He’d been particularly impressed with Eddie Betts’ long-range shot to his backyard basketball ring and figured he might have a crack at one himself.
The beauty of living on a farm meant the Cats full-forward had plenty of space and tools to set one up.
A set of bowling pins which belonged to his two young children — Arabella, 3, and Primrose, 1 — quickly captured his attention.
“I put one of the kids’ pins from the tenpin bowling sets on top of the fork of the tractor,” Hawkins said. “I then got the footy and went about 25 to 30 metres away.
“I was out there for about an hour, it was a decent-sized pin but it seriously took me an hour to hit it.”
He then added: “I was wearing work boots.”
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Welcome to life in isolation for AFL footballers.
Hawkins is luckier than most given he’s stuck on a magnificent 62-hectare farm in the hills outside Geelong.
He bought the property at Barrabool with his wife Emma back in 2016 which has meant he’s worn two hats — full-time footballer and part-time farmer.
This has provided its challenges like delivering a calf on the morning of a game. And then there’s the list of farm jobs which has kept getting longer and longer.
But now as the world is changing dramatically by the day because of the coronavirus, Hawkins gets the chance to flip hats.
LIFE ON THE FARM
SPRAYING paddocks, fixing fences and dealing with cows has replaced team meetings, weight sessions and goal kicking practice.
“Being a part-time gig I have put a lot of things off,” Hawkins said.
He has lived on farms much of his life, growing up as the chief chook-feeder at the family’s farm at Finley in the NSW Riverina.
He runs Angus cows on his own property after initially also having sheep which proved too much of a handful.
Two weeks into isolation and he’s started to make a dent into his jobs list, but still has a long way to go.
“I’ve done some spraying and I need to pull some fences out, but I might wait until dad can travel from NSW to Victoria to help me put some new ones in,” he said.
“I’ve weaned the calves off the cows because the cows have started calving again. I weaned them about a month ago and I should have done it earlier, but being a part-time farmer I didn’t.
“And because my fences are pretty average I had some trouble with a few of them.”
He also has a couple of ponies under his care with Emma keen for the two girls to go down the horseriding path in the future.
There’s also chooks, guinea fowls and a pug-cross named Oscar John in the family.
“I’m not going to run out of things to do. There’s also obviously a lot of tidying up, cleaning work and gardening, once you start you never know where to stop,” Hawkins said.
FITNESS
THE natural geography around the farm is providing Hawkins with the perfect training circuit.
“I’ve been running from the letterbox down Barrabool Road and trying to get a little further each time, setting myself little challenges along the way,” he said.
“Then I do some body weight strength sets, both upper and lower body, and do four of those a week to go with four runs.”
Hawkins caught up with assistant coach Corey Enright for a kick during the week — they are only allowed to train with one other person — and is mindful of the importance of keeping up his touch.
“As long as I keep ticking over with my kicking and the other big thing is my speed,” he said. “I have a feeling the games might become reduced a bit like they were in Round 1 and we may be expected to back up and play more often.
“So if I can keep kicking the footy and keep my speed up I think naturally I will be able to keep my power and strength from the maintenance programs without having huge weights to lift.
“And if I keep fit in terms of trying to have low skinfolds, I will be in a pretty good position.”
Hawkins has found a surprising benefit of isolation in terms of his skinfolds.
“I always have something sweet when I have a coffee, so the one thing I have found about not going into town or to a cafe after training is that I’m not doing that.
“We rid the house of anything sweet and I reckon I was having some withdrawals from a few things in the initial few days.
“Certainly my downfall is always a choccy biscuit or something like that so I reckon I’ve gone the other way (with my weight). I’m certainly not fading away, but I’ve certainly reduced my sugar intake.
“The glasses of red wine hurt me a little bit in the first week and I had to rein that back in, to be honest.”
CONNECTION
LIKE every other AFL club the Geelong players have a large WhatsApp group which provides many daily highlights.
“It’s a really unique situation because as players we see each other so much and feed off each other in pre-season at times to keep fit.
“We need each other around to support, to get through and from a personal point of view I have always needed that from my teammates.
“And currently it’s not there which is strange.”
There are daily challenges sent through on the group text and videos of what some of the players are up to which has been eye-opening.
“One of the young guys Cam Taheny is certainly keeping us entertained. He’s one who I’m really concerned about if things keep going on, we might have to consider sending someone over to South Australia to check on him.”
Hawkins, 31, has tried to keep up his role as the club’s quiz masters and at midday most days he will start doing the Herald Sun quiz on WhatsApp for the boys.
“I’ve been doing the Herald Sun quiz for a long time, whether it is at training or over lunch, I always get the 10 question quiz out and whoever is around we will have a go at it.
“It sort of evolved into a video link the other day but that got a bit tough and I’m not technologically savvy so we’ll have to keep working on that.
“But I’m not in the same league as Harry Taylor, he makes his own quiz and it’s unbelievable the variety of questions he has.”
When asked to nominate who would be enjoying isolation and who may struggle, Hawkins didn’t need much think music.
“I know Mitch Duncan enjoys his time on the couch and being in the confines of his own home although having two kids now he may strongly disagree on that.
“Rhys Stanley is a man about town and I think he would struggle.”
Hawkins’ escape is listening to podcasts, particularly any to do with American sports like ‘Jalen and Jacoby’ and Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball.
“I’m not one of those people in isolation who is reading more books or doing puzzles or watching movie trilogies. I mean I’ll watch 10 minutes of Netflix at night and then fall asleep.”
He did have a catch-up with his old school friends via the ‘House Party’ app during the week.
“We actually had a beer together, it’s obviously nothing like the real thing but we still hung a bit on each other.”
However, the highlight of the past week of isolation for the Hawkins clan was Primrose taking her first steps.
“The farm is the perfect isolation place and we’ve been really fortunate just to have the space for the kids,” Hawkins says.
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“When you take a moment out of your day to reflect how lucky you are, it’s easier to deal with what is going on being out here a bit removed from society.”
The two-time premiership star knows football will be very different when it returns but there is one thing that remains the same and it’s the focus of his next job on the farm.
“I’ve been instructed by a few people to put some goalposts up, especially after kicking 2.2. in Round 1,” Hawkins says.
“I’ve got some trees and the hay shed but it’s nothing quite like kicking with goalposts so I think it will need to be fast-tracked up the list.”
