Dale Thomas opens up about pressure of his contract, family life and looking forward to 2018
DALE Thomas’s life as a Blue has been far from easy. From injuries to form problems and the constant pressure over his contract, it has taken its toll. He opens up about footy, life and the future.
Carlton
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DALE Thomas couldn’t help but chuckle.
Saddling up for a VFL match in April, the predictable sledging came hurtling from over the fence.
“They were talking about prices of contracts and asking if you’re going to buy half the streets in Coburg,” Thomas told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“Which was pretty good banter from the locals down there.”
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But the scrutiny Thomas has faced throughout his Carlton journey is no laughing matter.
Thomas used to call himself “The Difference”. Why?
“Because I got to Collingwood when they didn’t make finals and then I left and they haven’t made them since,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t have the same effect on the Blues.”
“The Difference” described the pressure during his first two years as a Blue as “unrelenting”.
The free agent arrived on a four-year $3.5 million contract, which eliminated pick No.14 as Eddie Betts compensation that the Blues would have used on Cameron McCarthy.
Injuries never allowed Thomas to try to justify his deal, and so what he was confronted with was searing stuff.
“You can put on a brave front and do your best to act like it’s not going to affect you, but at the end of the day we’re all human,” Thomas said. “It takes a toll eventually.”
There was only one solution.
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“Play really, really good footy so that everyone loves you and you don’t get written about negatively,” he said.
“But there are times when you’re out of form and there are just so many journos that it just becomes part and parcel of it all.
“For some reason it always seemed to be my name. I don’t know what the figures are, and if it actually sells papers, but they seemed to put it in there often.”
Thomas, 30, has always had a strong circle of support inside and outside Carlton.
Captain Marc Murphy, David Ellard, Bryce Gibbs, Andrew Walker and Kade Simpson were peers and confidants and there was his partner, Hayley, and then daughter Tilly at home.
“(Hayley) still thinks I’ve never played a bad game, so she’s obviously a very astute judge of football,” Thomas said.
Still, there was no escaping the armchair critics.
“At the end of the day you want to sit down at a cafe and read the paper and have a coffee, flick on your phone and scroll through social media,” Thomas said.
“It’s the world we live in, you can put your head in the sand and end up running away and hiding from it, or you can deal with it as best you can.”
So when the vultures circled again in 2017, as it surfaced Thomas was likely to trigger a contract for 2018, his VFL venture to Coburg became a flashpoint.
Thomas noted the Coburg sheds contained no fancy MCG-like showers as his struggles became tangible.
“I had a really good chat to (VFL coach) Josh Fraser on the Thursday and he said, ‘Well, you’re probably the most disappointed bloke in Victoria and I’d be the most excited’,” Thomas said.
“But it really was the turning point. It’s still footy, it’s still a great leveller and a great competition.”
You see, Thomas is an old-school football tragic. He loves playing and talking about the game.
The one-time Collingwood superstar’s on-field electricity may have dimmed, but his passion still flares brightly.
“In the middle of the year when you’re getting all this heat and you get dropped to the twos, you sit down and have a long, hard think about why you do it,” Thomas said.
“I play footy because I love playing footy. You think about being a young kid back in Drouin, kicking the footy around on a dewy Saturday morning in a paddock by yourself, dreaming one day of being on the MCG.
“You’ve got to strip it back and remember why you love the game.”
The story goes that Thomas played himself back into form this year, selflessly removed that trigger clause and then won a 2018 contract on merit.
But he said he did not remove the trigger as a means of releasing the pressure.
“It was obviously something that was heavily spoken about,” Thomas said.
“But I didn’t do it to make the scrutiny go away. I did it because it was the right thing to do.
“I had to be realistic. You’re coming up to the end of a contract, so unless you perform you’re not going to get another one.
“If you do perform there’s a high chance you’ll get another one. That’s the stark reality of football.
“I wasn’t daunted by that. If you don’t know whether it’s going to be your last game you find a way to really try to put your best foot forward.
“But you probably go out there with something a little bit extra driving you, whether that’s sitting in ice baths at 10 o’clock on a Wednesday night or something along those lines.
“It was an enjoyable year and the uncertainty didn’t flapper me at all.”
Thomas was told after Round 23 he had done enough to go again. Suddenly, Blues fans should be cautiously bullish about the life left in him.
Thomas told coach Brendon Bolton and list boss Stephen Silvagni in his exit meeting that this was the first time in two years he had felt fresh and required no end-of-season surgery.
“The continuity of games, especially in this day and age with the rigours of AFL footy — if you miss a chunk it’s so hard to catch that up,” Thomas said.
“Blokes that have good years back-to-back of consistent footy, it just keeps rolling one after the other and when you break that cycle it’s hard to find it again.”
Thomas believes he proved to Bolton he could play on the ball after Patrick Cripps broke his leg this year and knows what role he can play in 2018.
“The beauty of how I can play my footy is that I can go back and forward,” he said.
“I still think as a pinch-hitting player, like you see with (Hawthorn’s) Shauny Burgoyne, who plays different roles. That’s what I’d like to think I can still bring to the team and have impact in lots of different positions.”
Who knows — if the Blues rise, 2018 is no certainty to be Thomas’s swan song.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I’ll play until I’m 45 … but as the side improves and the younger guys improve, it probably does make it easier for the older blokes to play better footy as well,” he said.
“The load is shared a bit more. Hopefully I can have a really good pre-season, the body gets through and then I can rip into a big year and it’s all happy days.”
What about when it does come to an end? Coaching?
“It does appeal. But that’s probably a few too many hours,” Thomas said, laughing again.
“But the media interests me. I think I see the game pretty well. I do love talking about the game and I’m passionate about it.
“There’s certainly a place for someone to have a different voice, rather than just being a sheep and agreeing with everyone and just whacking blokes.
“Maybe I could articulate it in a different fashion.”
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