‘I never thought I was good enough’: Geelong champion Gary Ablett Jnr speaks about his football journey ahead of game 350
He is one of the greatest to play the game, but Gary Ablett Jnr doubted as a 17-year-old whether he would make the grade. He spoke about his early years, relationship with Mark Thompson, move to the Suns and more ahead of his 350th game.
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He may be the finest exponent of Australian rules in the 21st century, but there were many times in his teenage years when Gary Ablett Jr wondered if he would ever be good enough.
This is the same 36-year-old who on Saturday becomes just the 17th man to play 350 VFL/AFL games.
Wind the clock back 18 years to Saturday, March 30, 2002 when 17-year-old Ablett ran out in No. 29 to play his first game for Geelong – a club that just five years earlier had bade farewell to his father, Gary Sr.
“I can clearly remember getting a ride up to the game with teammate David Johnson thinking, ‘it’s about to happen, I’m about to play my first game of AFL football’,” Ablett said this week.
“Coming through the junior ranks I never really thought I was good enough to play at the top level.
“Yes, I played some good junior football and played with the Geelong Falcons but I wasn’t sure.
“Even after I was drafted, I thought, ‘is this going to be one of those things where I’m going to be playing in the reserves for a couple of years and then I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do with my life?’
“So driving up I thought at least I can say that I’ve played one senior game.
“To fast forward 19 seasons and think I’m going into my 350th game is pretty special.”
The stats box next day in the Sunday papers showed Ablett had four kicks, four marks and four handballs against Essendon at the MCG, his first touch coming when opposed to David Johnson’s brother, Mark.
He handled the lift in speed, but struggled against men who had been pumping weights for six or seven pre-seasons.
Ablett ran on to the ground and was mesmerised by the crowd, despite having spent plenty of time kicking balls with his brother, Nathan, at the MCG during the 1990s when his father ruled the game.
Ablett’s teammate Ben Graham quickly reminded him to regain his focus.
He played 11 more matches that season in which he showed promise rather than an ability to become the best.
BELONGING AT THE CATTERY
Being comfortable in his ability and surroundings was two-fold for Ablett.
The first ingredient arrived in the unlikely locality of Shepparton during a 2003 pre-season game against Essendon.
Abletts’s coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson, who he was building a very solid relationship with, decided to play him up the ground.
The results were immediate.
“After that game I knew I was good enough to play at the top level but didn’t know if I could do it consistently. ‘Bomber’ during that week told me if I worked hard then I could have a long career with Geelong,” Ablett said.
How about the hair on Gary Ablett Jnr... ðŸ¤
— AFL (@AFL) April 14, 2020
Take a look back at the superstar's first ever AFL goal from 2002. pic.twitter.com/SgudbX5LcO
“I spoke with Bomber in that pre-season and said I would prefer to play a whole game in the reserves than a quarter and a half in the seniors because it didn’t give me enough time to get into the game.
“Bomber gave me that chance. For me it became about quality of possession. Also, my footy IQ had improved.”
REACHING 50 GAMES
The Fremantle players made a comical sight, some wearing beanies and gloves as they tried to hide from an arctic-like August day in 2004.
For a couple of kids in Ablett and his Geelong Falcons teammate James Bartel, it was a typical Saturday afternoon at Kardinia Park as they went about collecting 27 disposals each.
It was Ablett’s 50th match.
“Some of our players jumped in the spa at halftime in shorts and jumpers to get warm,” Ablett said.
“That was a game where I started to get more of the ball (then a career-high number).
“It was around that time that I started to speak with Bomber about playing more time in the midfield and his words were: ‘Prove to me over pre-season that you are fit enough.’
“That really started to happen over the 2006-07 pre-season.
“I was able to get to the stoppages and throw-ins.
“I knew my footy IQ was good enough to play through the midfield. It was all about my fitness.”
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RELATIONSHIP WITH ‘BOMBER’
A backdrop of conflict between Ablett and his coach hung over 2010.
Ablett wrestled throughout the year with a life-changing offer from the soon to be Gold Coast Suns, but the 25-year-old produced what he still believes is his best season (average of 31.5 disposals per game and 44 goals).
“Part of that year was the coaching of Mark Thompson, who I have a huge amount of respect for,” Ablett said.
“He was an incredible coach and a father figure, to be honest.
“I always had my dad who I could bounce things off, but with Bomber I had him for the first nine years of my career.
“Coming in as a 17-year-old I turned to Bomber for a lot, not just football but advice about life.
“He was great at building a footy player’s confidence.
“He believed in getting the work done during the week, saying, ‘this is our game plan and this is who we play this week which we will work on at training’.
“But once we got into the game he wanted us to play instinctive footy, telling us we had to learn to coach ourselves out on the ground.
“I loved that about him because I felt the freedom when I ran out, to trust my footy IQ.
“Bomber had an understanding that to be a good side, not every player is going to be the same.
“You might have a ruthless competitor like Matthew Scarlett, and another player who has that X-factor about him who may do things at times that frustrate the team.
“But Bomber was really great at getting the balance right.”
MOVE TO GOLD COAST
By accepting a financial offer never seen before or since in the game, Ablett cost himself the chance to play in Geelong’s 2011 premiership.
After the Cats beat Collingwood in an epic Grand Final, he was busy texting his old mates with congratulations, but underneath it hurt.
“I’m not a person who regrets any decision I’ve made, but that was one of the hardest decisions in my life, to leave the club I had supported my whole life,” he said.
“To watch the 2011 Grand Final, as much I was happy for all the guys, it was really hard to watch, no doubt about it.
“As for footy on the Gold Coast, I think it can work.
“The supporters are so loyal and they do genuinely care about the club. I’m glad they are playing good footy.
“Maybe we thought it was just going to happen a bit up there early on.
“But looking back I’m so proud of the people at that club because I don’t think they got enough credit.
“Now, they have a very good coach from all reports and clearly a good list.”
TOUGHEST OPPONENTS
Ablett was taken as a father/son selection in the same 2001 national draft that contained a young man from Sandringham named Chris Judd.
For the next 14 seasons the pair admired each other’s work, occasionally from head-to-head match-ups.
“You see a lot of guys these days running around getting a lot of the ball, and people saying how good a season they are having, but in his time ‘Juddy’ was tagged every week and was still able to perform to a very high level,” Ablett said.
“That is the sign of a champion, someone who can perform consistently over a long period of time.
“I also have huge respect for my teammate Joel Selwood.
“The way he goes about his life. Such a great player, great leader, but even better person.
“When I realised that my 350th was going to fall on the same day as his 300th, it was just so special.
“When I won the 2013 Brownlow Medal I was hoping Joel would get one more vote and we could get up there together.
“He deserves a Brownlow.”
LIFE AFTER FOOTY
Ablett has spent the past two or three years readying himself for the transition from football superstar to a family man with business interests.
“I’m looking forward to the next chapter, I really am. This is my last year. I know there has been a lot of talk around about could I potentially go again, but at this stage no,” he said. “Footy can be a very selfish game at times because to get the best out of yourself, you need to put a lot of time into it and make sacrifices.
“I’m very much a family man (with wife Jordan, son Levi) and I haven’t been able to spend as much time with my family as I would have liked.
“I have a couple of businesses up and running which will hopefully make the transition a bit smoother.
“And a couple of charities, one in particular called the Gateway Children’s Fund that is based out of Papua New Guinea.
“I have been over there a couple of times and it opens your eyes.”
CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS SELWOOD DREAMT BIG
The cliche which has been trotted out by rookie players over the years didn’t sit well with Joel Selwood.
“I know when kids walk in they go, ‘I’d like to just play one game’. Mine was bigger than that, I dreamt big,” he explains.
“I had myself playing more than one game. I wanted to get going. I didn’t want to waste time.”
That’s an understatement.
Selwood made his debut in Round 1, 2007 and it took him all of a month to show the football world he was a superstar in the making.
Ask any of this teammates from that era and they point to the infamous Round 5 game against North Melbourne as the day they knew the kid from Bendigo was something special.
The Cats lost that afternoon at Kardinia Park and afterwards a crisis meeting was called where a lot of home truths were spoken between the players and coach Mark Thompson.
Selwood had been easily Geelong’s best, single-handedly dragging the Cats back into the contest in the second half as he collected 25 disposals in just his fourth game.
It turned out to be a pivotal moment for the club and the 18-year-old.
Geelong went on to win 19 of its next 20 games including the 2007 Grand Final by a record margin.
And Selwood went on to become one of the game’s greats, a six-time All-Australian, three-time best and fairest winner, Brownlow Medal runner-up, three-time premiership star and captain of Geelong for the most games in its history.
“I look back at it now and I’m just so glad that I treated it the way that I did,” he said in the lead-up to his 300th game against the Gold Coast on Saturday.
“Because I played in an era where it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get that band together that we had and to be able to play the footy that we did.
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“I was so lucky to be a part of that and when the boys got their act together, to dance with them for a little while was incredible.
“I won 85 out of my first 100 games, it was awesome and when I look back at it I was so happy that I was ready to go, that was the thing more than anything, I was ready to play.”
His memories of the North game?
“It was the first time it felt like I can take it up to these boys now. I can feel comfortable in this environment,” Selwood recalled.
He’d been prepared for that day for years. Chasing around his twin brothers, Adam and Troy, who had both been drafted, gave him an insight into what it took.
“I’d always try to be as strong as Troy and Adam. I’d fight them and get beaten, then get up and have another go,” Selwood said.
“And when I used to go for runs I would try to run faster every time.”
A chronic knee injury which forced him to miss his last year in the under-18s gave him some valuable perspective.
“I had four surgeries on one knee by the time I was 17 so I just had to look after myself a little bit more,” he said.
“It wasn’t a bad lesson to learn at an early age.”
One doctor even suggested to his father, Bryce, that Joel wouldn’t be able to fulfil his dreams, but the knee has never been an issue since.
Instead, it’s his incredible courage that has given his parents nightmares.
“I’m certainly a bit smarter than when I first started,” Selwood said.
With such a decorated CV there have understandably been many highlights, but Selwood pointed to the 2011 premiership campaign as his favourite.
“The outside world probably didn’t think we were good enough, but we just had an inner-belief that we were going to get it right,” he said.
“Right up to the end it was still Collingwood’s to lose.
“But we just kept eating away, bashing away and getting better each week.
“We just had guys play good footy at the right time of the year too.
“And also had a key forward (Tom Hawkins) who decided to flick the switch on the last day.”
Selwood has a similar vibe about this year despite the Cats’ inconsistency.
“I still think we have put a list together that when we all want to dance together we can beat anyone,” he said.
He is contracted for next year and is open to playing on depending on his body with a career in coaching a possibility in retirement.
Football has been his life. And it’s something he has never shied away from which was made clear to his brothers during a trip to New Zealand in 2008.
“It was a brothers’ trip and the boys decided they were going to go skydiving. They asked me the question but they knew the answer straight away,” he said.
“I was happy to hold the jumpers down below. I wasn’t going to risk it because they had all completed a commerce degree and were well educated boys whereas I had nothing else.
“I’m a footballer.”