SACKED podcast: Damian Drum reveals Matthew Pavlich pleaded with Fremantle not to draft him

Matthew Pavlich is revered as one of the greatest players in Fremantle history. But, his career might have unfolded very differently had the Dockers listened to his pleas not to draft him.

Matthew Pavlich did not want to join Fremantle before being drafted by the Dockers.

Former Fremantle coach Damian Drum has confirmed club great Matthew Pavlich and his mother pleaded with the club not to draft him, with the future Hall of Famer saying it would be his “worst nightmare come true”.

But from his first days with the club Pavlich proved so devoted to proving he was an emerging AFL talent he put himself in intensive care running himself to exhaustion at training.

Pavlich became one of the most loyal Dockers in history as he repeatedly rebuffed massive offers to return home and became a six-time All Australian and long-time Fremantle captain.

But leading into the 1999 national draft in which the Dockers drafted homegrown Paul Hasleby and South Australian Pavlich in the top four picks, he was far from convincing about whether he would stay put.

Drum told the Sacked podcast the decision highlighted the continuing challenges of securing players with a real go-home factor.

“His mum (Jan) was the most lovely lady of all time. She said, “I can’t understand why you would want to do this. He has this posse of 30 friends and family that go and sit together to watch him play at Norwood. Why would you want to take him to Perth?” Drum recalls.

“I said, ‘Because he’s possibly the best kid in Australia’.

“Matthew was very, very strong. He said, ‘It will be my worst nightmare’. He said, ‘Don’t take me”. He was just a stunningly mature young man and he was letting us know exactly how he felt.”

Matthew Pavlich pleaded with the Dockers not to draft him.

Pavlich went on to become one of the greatest players in Fremantle’s history.

The Dockers eventually lost their final match of the 1999 season _— conceding 11 straight goals to Geelong — in a game where the club was so concerned about perceptions of tanking the Dockers president made clear leading into the match the club would go all-out to win.

It meant the Dockers had a priority pick and could take Hasleby and Pavlich.

Adelaide and Port Adelaide had both had the chance to secure him with their one selection for a 17-year-old the previous year but overlooked him in a decision that put him into the 1999 national draft.

His parents even went as far as submitting to Dockers recruiters a list of alternate players in that year’s draft pool including Darren Glass and Aaron Sandilands they believed Fremantle should pick instead of Pavlich.

Drum did not last past his third season but did draft some of the nucleus of the side that eventually had finals success in future years.

“In about his third training session at the club we were doing a series of 1km sprints around the ground,” Drum recalled.

Matthew Pavlich was unstoppable in round 5, 2006!

Watch the #FixtureThrowback now: https://t.co/pJ6FhpMZGSpic.twitter.com/Wk47mhWfjq

— AFL (@AFL) May 24, 2020

“It’s two and a half laps flat out. He had done four of them and Terry Bright, my assistant coach, walked up to me and said ‘I think young Pavlich has had enough’.

“I said, ‘He just won the last one, he’s got to learn, give him one more’.

“Halfway through the next 1km time trial he collapses. We pick him up, take him straight to hospital, intensive care, just overnight under watch

“I should have displayed greater awareness, however he was determined he wasn’t going to pull over and say,’ I‘m a bit buggered, I have had enough’ There is a little indication as to how driven this guy is. He was there early, he turned up in great nick. This was our first week of training and he’s gone bang.”