How Tom McDonald used an oven timer to run time trials at his family farm
VERSATILE Demon Tom McDonald has made a stunning transition from rugged backman to star forward, but it may not have happened without his tireless work ethic and an oven timer at the family farm in country Victoria.
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LIFE as a defender has taught Tom McDonald how to crack it as a forward.
McDonald, 25, admitted it would have seemed “unlikely” to consider himself a key forward target in a finals campaign, but the switch has worked.
After spending his first six seasons in the backline, McDonald swung into attack last year and hasn’t looked back, kicking 49 goals this season.
He credits his toiling down back for giving him a little bit extra when taking on some of the game’s best defenders.
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“I wasn’t good enough to be a forward early on. Being a defender suited me more at that stage of my career,” McDonald said.
“The last year or two … having been a defender, I’ve actually learned a lot about how to be a key forward.
“It doesn’t make me a perfect player, but you realise as a defender what situations you really don’t want to be in. That’s helped a little bit.”
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing in the Demons’ attack.
Jesse Hogan was felled by a season-ending stress fracture in his foot injury last month.
It meant McDonald and others had to bear more of the load, with the 25-year-old lauding the rise of young tall Sam Weideman, who kicked three goals in Melbourne’s elimination final win over Geelong last week.
“He’d played a role, but hadn’t really taken a game that he had in the VFL,” McDonald said.
“I had confidence that Sam could do the job, probably hadn’t envisaged him being best on ground in a final so early in his career, but what he’s done is fill the hole left by Jesse for the last few weeks.
“Sam’s done such a good job in being called up on such short notice, and in three big games he has stood up.”
McDonald’s athleticism is one of his greatest strengths, honed on the family farm at Edenhope.
Using the oven timer, McDonald would run around the town several times a week.
He was slower in his younger years, but the training paid off.
“I got drafted on being a good athlete rather than actually dominating at under-18 level,” he said.
“If guys are going to get drafted, they throw you around in all different spots. I probably didn’t make any of them my own, so I don’t know why anyone drafted me, to be honest.
“I’d set the oven timer and I’d get mum (Cath) to press start when I got to the front door.
“From the front door, down the driveway and up the bitumen to our local tennis courts and then back down to the farm was 3km total exactly.
“It’d be a 3km time trial. I’d do that three times a week, when I was 17, and I knew our driveway was 500m, so I could do 3km runs, 1km runs and I could have it timed perfectly with the oven timer.
“I don’t know why I didn’t have a stopwatch.”
The McDonalds still live on that farm, but Tom thinks there might be a new oven by now.
He and his brother, fellow Demon Oscar, have lived together in Melbourne for the past four years, but that chapter’s about to end.
They’ll likely stay in the same place until the finals series ends — both for convenience and a bit of superstition — with McDonald looking forward to having “a fridge that’s clear and clean” without having to share with his bulk-buying brother who often lets things expire.
Playing at the same club as Oscar is “sort of all I know”, McDonald said.
He’ll miss his little brother around the house, but it’s time.
“If he’d gone to another team, then I don’t know what it’d be like,” he said. “We haven’t got long until we move out and go our separate ways. That’ll be sad to see the end of that.
“But it’s time to go our own ways.”
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