Geelong's Mathew Stokes enjoys shift into the midfield

MATHEW Stokes is 28, a free agent, and arguably the most improved player in the competition.

Cats

MATHEW Stokes is 28, a free agent, and arguably the most improved player in the competition.

He is an elite Geelong midfielder who just can't help finding the footy, leads his club in score assists, and has spent eight years kicking goals for a living.

Now would be the time to cash in on the twilight of his career, so he can go home to Darwin and buy a McMansion or 9m fishing boat.

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Yet consider his public sales pitch to football manager Neil Balme ahead of the talks that will unfold this year.

Consider what Geelong does to young, impressionable kids - even those with well-documented discretions - and listen to what kind of people it turns them into.

Not for Stokes the quick fix, or the dash for cash.

Forget the Geelong Falcons as the AFL's best footy factory: Simonds Stadium accepts kids of all ages and types, and spits out men of rare character.

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"I love this club, I love this town, and I couldn't picture myself playing anywhere else," said Stokes in a rare interview this week.

"I feel like this club has given me everything I could have dreamed of, and a career I am so happy to be able to have at a club like this.

"I am happy for the club to figure out what they want to do with me and then get to me when they can. Free agency is nothing that has ever come into my mind.

"I still feel indebted to this club for standing by me at a time when it might have been easier to cut me. I still feel like they have given me everything and I haven't given much back."

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There you have the Stokes package, accurate in everything but the last few words.

If his 2010 club-based suspension for buying a gram of cocaine for friends will be a constant reference point, it is beyond doubt he has returned plenty since being plucked by recruiter Stephen Wells with pick 61 in the 2005 national draft.

This year he has turned into an elite midfielder, one good enough to lead a rival newspaper's Player of the Year Award.

We shouldn't be surprised; the Darwin-born player just doesn't do ordinary.

Consider his career in a snapshot - it has either towering highs or shocking lows but no middle ground.

He wins a premiership in 2007, his second season, after a miraculous mid-game recovery from a twisted knee, then in the 2008 Grand Final plays half-fit in a loss that still haunts him.

The following year he wins untold respect by pulling out of the 2009 premiership win with a bad groin, respect he erodes with the cocaine drama of 2010.

The second flag - and the redemption story - follows in 2011, before last year's ankle issues in a season he recently labelled as "disgusting".

So when his midfield coaches approached him at the start of the most recent pre-season with plans to elevate him into the engine room, he should have predicted something amazing.

"Every year, as a small forward, the coaches come up and say we want you to play in the midfield next year," Stokes said.

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"I thought, 'Yeah, I have heard it all before', but I didn't say anything.

"They told me I had to be prepared to do the work. So I watched lots of tapes and edits and learnt more and more every week.

"I have surprised myself in a sense with the consistency. I thought maybe I could do it for a game or two, but it is the confidence instilled in my teammates that has helped me most. There used to be a time where I would get kicked out of the middle if I went in there. Now they let me stay in there. It's good!"

Midfield coach Blake Caracella said the coaching department always knew Stokes had the "skill set" to play midfield, but with such an array of stars there just wasn't room.

"With the evolution of the team we thought potentially James Bartel and Joel Corey might be spending time at half-back, and there was suddenly an opportunity for Stokesy. He is a tough little bugger, he reads the game well, he uses the ball and he trained there through the pre-season and just got better and better."

Stokes needed the opportunity, but he also needed the motivation.

The parallel storyline to the midfield unleashing is the anger he still feels about last season.

The club's dismal finals loss to Fremantle combined with his own poor form spurred him all pre-season.

"I said I was disgusted and I was personally, but more so because the team was struggling and I raced back from a couple of injuries and couldn't have the output I wanted.

"Maybe it was playing eight years of small forward. It reckon it's the hardest position on the ground by far. I shouldn't be complaining as a Geelong player, but playing small forward is hard.

"I think motivating myself was easy because I didn't want to let myself down again. I got into trouble a few years ago and I thought, 'I want to get back for everyone who stood by me at the club - the coaches, my family and friends'.

"At the start of this pre-season I just thought, stuff it, I just want to do something for myself. I am better than I showed last year, and I just wanted to prove myself right.

"It was just about that satisfaction in myself that I am producing regularly and being consistent. All I wanted to do was be satisfied with myself, and it's going OK."

Matthew Stokes

Pulling together the threads to show what it was that changed to make Stokes a better person is complicated.

Yet clearly he has come a long way since the darkest days, which saw him arrested for drug possession after buying for mates, then eventually suspended by the club for seven rounds in early 2010.

But it is simplistic to think that one instance changed his life, even if he believes "as much as I didn't want to go through the troubles with the police, it is something that defined me and helped make me accountable to myself".

Close mates such as James Kelly and Cameron Mooney have provided support. "You surround yourself with good people and they have a way of influencing you without even trying," he said.

Leaders like Tom Harley and Cameron Ling made him expect more without even realising it.

And then there is former coach Mark Thompson, who taught him about professionalism.

"One thing Mark Thompson really instilled in me, and I owe a lot to him, is that he taught me there is a lot more than what you do on a Saturday. It was about the person you are, and being respected off-field.

"He really taught me a lot. He summoned me to his room every Monday after a game and would query me about what I did on the weekend, and if I had any drinks, and he taught me the fundamentals of being a good person."

He wishes the penny had dropped earlier; wishes he had realised the immense power of being an AFL football in his early years.

He says it is an absolute obligation of being a veteran Geelong footballer to pass down the culture to young players and teach them what is expected on and off the field.

Eighteen months ago he set up Closing the Gap, which helps promote healthy messages for Aboriginal children, with the help of Geelong's welfare officer Ron Watt and charity co-ordinator Taryn Marks.

Stokes hopes to return to Darwin one day - perhaps as assistant coach to new Palmerston Magpies senior boss Dean Rioli -but also to help the indigenous community.

Cats

"When you are a young player you forget you are a role model, but when you are in indigenous player it's so much more. The impact you can have on communities out there is amazing.

"It's been a passion of mine for three or four years, so we have got the Closing the Gap program ... and it is something once I have finished footy I can hopefully do full-time."

Despite the 2010 controversies, he says he has few regrets except playing hurt in the 2008 Grand Final.

"I get asked about it a bit, the highs and lows. There are things you wish you could take back, but you can't. Missing the (2009) Grand Final, I just wasn't right. '09 was never a regret. '08 is something that has haunted me from that day, playing in the Grand Final underdone and not being able to contribute.

"I knew my groin was shabby in 2009 and it was going to be a wet day against St Kilda, and I wasn't going to be able to contribute. I felt like I played anyway after the game. I felt so a part of it.

"People said I must have been dirty, but I never got grumpy. Obviously I didn't get a medal, but in the scheme of things it is the little things you do.

"I play my footy like that - I put the team first and that is probably the positive that comes out of the situation."