Sam Petrevski-Seton says his bull riding past helps give him a no fear attitude to footy
DUSTIN Martin or eight seconds on a bucking bull? Sam Petrevski-Seton takes the same no fear mentality he learnt in the bull ring into his football.
Carlton
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RIDING a bull or tackling a rampaging Dustin Martin? For most of us both hold extremely minimal appeal, for Sam Petrevski-Seton they hold a remarkable lack of fear.
It stems from his upbringing in the remote East Kimberley township of Halls Creek, at 1200 people the only sizeable town for 600km on Western Australia’s Great Northern Highway.
Hall’s Creek is “Sammo’s” home. And he wants you to know it, his pride obvious in his origins and his family and friends.
The bull riding comes from his father Christopher Seton who worked on cattle stations when “Sammo” was young. Petrevski represents his mother Angela, whose father came to Australia from Yugoslavia. And then there are siblings, older brother Cody, younger brother CJ and baby sister Angela.
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The clan travelled the lengthy journey, up to 20 hours on a bad day, from Halls Creek to Melbourne for his first game in Round 1 when he did face Martin at his brutal best: “Would I rather ride a bull or face Dusty? That would be about 50-50, but I don’t really feel fear that much. Maybe swimming near a shark.
“I haven’t ridden a bull since the end of the national under-16 championships in 2014 when there was a rodeo back home in Halls Creek. I nominated and got lucky by winning. I got a sash, cheque and buckle.
“I have never really been hurt riding bulls, maybe stomped on a few times. But it is the longest eight seconds in your life. Different from footy.
“I don’t really find myself getting nervous playing against bigger bodies or that. I was playing against men back home when I was 13. And I try to take the mindset of riding a bull into footy.”
His journey from bull riding to playing on the MCG is every bit as inspirational as that of Jim Stynes from Dublin to a Brownlow Medal, or Peter Bell from a South Korean orphanage to four times best-and-fairest winner.
At 14 he didn’t speak fluent English, instead conversing in Kriol which is a broken version of English. But when he went to Perth a year later to play with Claremont, he picked up the new language very quickly, just as he seems to adapt to most new challenges in his life.
Like Stynes and Bell, Petrevski-Seton, 19, was happy to come to Melbourne, even handling the cold weather OK. He remembers watching the 2015 AFL Grand Final at the MCG and wanting to be a part of the big show.
Now that he has played, surprising himself with the first nine games of this season, he wants to continue his journey for his people.
“I want to make a footy pathway for the kids back home. I want to show them that we can do it. Everyone needs role models and that. Maybe some of them can look at me and try to do the same thing. As a kid I used to look up to players like Simon Black and Cyril Rioli.
“Of course I miss my family, cousins and nieces and nephews. One day if I have kids I would like them to grow up in the same environment I did.”
His first nine games for Carlton have been extraordinary for their composure and his fearless attack in contested ball situations.
Unlike most AFL debutants, he didn’t find the increased pace of the game his biggest hurdle, citing the mental aspects the most difficult — the game plan, the zones.
Taken with pick No.6 in last year’s draft, Petrevski-Seton understands he boasts a story that has the capacity to change lives.
His desperation as a teenager to play the game he loved could see him travel four and a half hours by car on a dirt road from Halls Creek to Kununurra up north. And that was the short trip. Head east and it was eight hours to reach Broome.
Andrew Walker, 31, who played 202 games for Carlton from 2004-16 and now works as the club’s development and integration coach, says to gain some understanding you need to travel to Halls Creek as he was lucky enough to do recently with Petrevski-Seton and another indigenous Blue in Liam Jones.
“It’s unbelievable where he’s come from. I spent four days with his family and was initially blown away with the time it took to get there. For us it was 13 hours which is the same as flying into LA from Melbourne,” Walker said.
“And ours was a quick trip, from Melbourne to Perth, Perth to Broome and Broome to Hall’s Creek on chartered flights. But he has so much self-drive which I think comes from wanting to give back to his community at Halls Creek and wanting to make them proud of him.
“He has already made them proud of him and to me Sam Petrevski-Seton is the model AFL clubs can copy. They would be silly not to invest in programs and pathways to help find more such players, because what we have with Sammo is really special and I hope other clubs can experience the same.”
When Walker visited Halls Creek he saw “100 kids with skills like Sammo” at the local Clontarf School where Australian rules is the best attended subject.
Petrevski-Seton first came to national prominence when he and another hyphen from Western Australia in Sam Powell-Pepper set the 2014 Australian under-16 championships alight on the Gold Coast.
Pat Kerr, who is a friend and teammate of “Sammo” at Carlton after being taken in the same 2016 draft, went to those championships like every other teenager — wide-eyed and hopeful.
“Nobody really knew anything about anyone until the first game between us and WA when Sammo kicked four and had 25 disposals out of the midfield. Everyone knew the name Sam Petrevski-Seton after that,” Kerr said.
“Back then we just thought he was a certainty to be a top 10 draftee. He had real bushy hair, a bit of a boofhead, before he cut it and started growing his ratty (rat-tail) out.
“Andy McGrath, Ben Ainsworth, Jack Scrimshaw and Sam Powell-Pepper were other names that were spoken about a lot, but I reckon Sammo was the main one.
“I didn’t see him for a couple of years until we met him at the draft combine and then played together in the Grand Final eve game at Punt Rd last year.
“Then we met officially on the Monday after the draft at the club. He was really quiet but once he got to know you he was more than willing to ask questions to find his way.
“We have a family farm at Hoddles Creek where he had Christmas lunch with us. There are a lot of Angus bulls there so being a junior bull rider, he was happy to see them. I actually thought he was going to go and jump on one because they have told me he was pretty good at riding bulls.
“I think he was interested to see the differences in our backgrounds. He cares a lot and is always asking about my family. I would love to go to Hall’s Creek with him and there is a chance that will happen.”
Walker is asked often who does Petrevski-Seton play like, in the manner that Clayton Oliver is compared with Michael Voss. His answer is always the same, declaring he plays like Sam Petrevski-Seton because he’s really unique, so composed with the football, a serious tackler with elite skills on both sides.
“That’s him as a player which is just so exciting for Carlton supporters. But he is so much more than that because he wants to do really good things for his community and sees that as being a leader. He comes from an unbelievably strong family, just really good people,” Walker said.
“I can remember as a kid when Che Cockatoo-Collins came to my school in Echuca and he was just such a star for all of us. Then I went to Halls Creek with Sammo and Liam Jones and as we walked into Halls Creek we went to the local Clontarf school where we received the best reception I have ever experienced. The kids were just staring at us, more so Sammo and Jonesey than a has-been like me.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say there are 100 kids with skill levels similar to Sammo from ages eight to nine to 14-15.
“I just hope his success opens up the door for more of these kids and ... we venture into more of these small communities and pick up some of these natural stars.”
Kids who might give no thought at age 13 to jumping on the back of a wild bucking bull in a dusty ring and hanging on for the required eight seconds. You get the impression the football ride will be a lot longer for Sam “Sammo” Petrevski-Seton.
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