Shaun Mannagh has worked as hard as anyone to get to the position he is now.

Drafted as a 26-year-old, working his way up from the Ovens and Murray league to the VFL to the big time.

But the Geelong sensation from Lavington on the New South Wales border credits other people for his success.

“Me and my wife have been together for the past 10 years in Melbourne, so I think I’ve had good stability off the field and it has allowed me to do my thing on-field wherever that be, whether it is at Richmond or Werribee or Lavington Panthers back home in the Ovens and Murray,” Mannagh said.

“I’ve had really great support around me and I think that’s been able for me to think my mind pretty steadfast on becoming an AFL player and trying to achieve my dream.

“Everyone around me has played a big part in that, so getting inside the mind and just doing whatever it took to get here, off-season sessions, sessions throughout the year, making sure I’m doing more than the guy next to me or being better than I was the day before.”

Speaking to those who know him best, that is not even the half of it.

Mannagh’s insatiable work ethic, modest and caring nature, and never-say-die attitude has made him the number one fan of anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting him.

Everyone from players he has met on the football field to vulnerable children he dedicated his time to while working as a teacher’s aide.

WHERE IT BEGAN

James Saker has known Mannagh since he was a teenager, first coming into contact with the keen footballer while he was playing coach of Lavington back in 2012.

Saker has been a sounding board for Mannagh over the years, but it was almost like they were avoiding each other in the early days.

Mannagh, who had played his junior footy at Lavington and Walla Walla, made the decision as a 17-year-old to follow his father and Brisbane and Western Bulldogs great Jason Akermanis to Ovens and Murray rival, North Albury.

“He was very honest and I still think I remember him giving me a call to say he was going to play for North Albury and not choose Lavington and he was worried about letting me down, as the coach who he said no to,” Saker said.

“And just the way he conducted himself through that process, he has got a pretty good head on his shoulders.

“So the weird thing is I’ve had this really great relationship but I never actually coached him.

“But we developed a really strong bond and he was one of those guys that every now and again you’d reach out or you’d cross paths and chat footy and see how each other are going. He is just that sort of kid.”

That was until Saker, a former Werribee player, joined Mannagh at Werribee in 2022. We’ll get to that later.

Mannagh split his time between the North Albury Hoppers and the Murray Bushrangers in 2014-15 before missing out in his initial draft year in 2015.

But he made things difficult for opposition coaches like Saker, going on to bag 36 goals in 18 senior games in 2016 and earning selection for the Vic Country under-19s side and the Ovens and Murray rep team.

“He was a 17-18-19 year-old kid and he was someone whose magnet was definitely on the board. He just had that offensive ability to hit the scoreboard,” Saker said.

Mannagh joined Richmond’s VFL side ahead of the 2017 season and featured in 20 state league games from Tigers colours 2017-18 while impressing for North Albury.

In another twist of fate, Mannagh returned to Lavington for the 2019 season the year Saker left to join Torquay.

BREAKOUT SEASON

Before Mannagh’s produced his VFL grand final display for the ages in 2023, he stunned the Ovens and Murray with a similar performance on the big stage.

The damaging midfielder-forward capped his stunning 2019 season at local level with a bag of five goals in Lavington’s premiership victory.

But this was nothing new for Mannagh across the year. Largely overlooked by Richmond VFL that season, Mannagh booted 54 goals in 16 games while collecting around 25-30 disposals a week.

“He had done that during the year several times. That was almost somewhat of a standard game for Shaun, he managed so many score involvements,” then Lavington playing coach Simon Curtis said.

“He was just such a highly damaging scoring player. It is not unusual for him to have five, six or seven shots at goal, as a forward or as a midfielder.

“It was more just whether he kicked them or not. On grand final day, he missed a shot at goal from about five metres straight in front and then he still ended up kicking five.

“We would use him kind of like in that Dustin Martin role. He’d be on-ball and then I’d have him isolated and deep forward.”

Incredibly, he did all this while commuting up from Melbourne for games and training. Not just attending senior training, but also junior training and Auskick.

Curtis was arguably more impressed by what he saw from Mannagh off the field.

He can’t recall ever seeing Mannagh with a beer in his hand, and his work ethic and compassion was there for all to see.

“He would come up (from Melbourne) on a Thursday night, he would go to the junior training on a Friday,” Curtis said.

“I think that being his junior club, he just would have understood what it meant to have senior players. He was always really banging the drum for the senior players to come for the junior trainings, to come to the Auskick stuff.

“That was just part of his character, he was really good with kids and he put a lot into it.

“He just put everything into it like that, all the extra miles, all the extra sessions, and I think everyone just doubted him, even though he just kept doing these big performances.”

The pandemic interrupted his progress somewhat, but Mannagh only played another two games for the Panthers after this barnstorming season – and 12 matches for Wanderers up in the Northern Territory league.

But even while he was chasing his dream in the big smoke, he never lost his connection with Lavington.

“I remember him still coming back and running water when he was playing at the VFL, things like that,” Curtis said.

“Again, it is like a leopard with spots. He never really changed, even though he’d gone up a level he was still connected to the club and the players and he was still making that effort while he was aligned to the club.”

BEE-LIEF

Mannagh moved to VFL club Werribee for the 2021 season and had his Tigers jumper presented to him by a familiar face in Saker — who also presented him with his Cats guernsey.

He racked up 25 disposals and six tackles in his Werribee debut and booted five goals to go with 21 touches and 14 score involvements in his fourth game for the Bees.

The signs were there, but there was still more work to be done.

Werribee coach Michael Barlow and assistants Nick Daffy and Saker, who joined in 2022, were determined to help Mannagh get to the bigtime.

A former Richmond best-and-fairest, Daffy was instantly drawn to Mannagh.

“It is easy when you find someone who probably plays similar to you. I was a mid-forward, so I guess seeing how he plays you can sort of relate to what he was trying to do and hearing the stories about missing how many drafts, like seven or eight drafts, it is pretty easy to want to help him,” Daffy said.

“Just the sort of person he was, and that’s the first thing that sort of gets you to someone. He is always bubbly, he is always shaking your hand and, ‘How was your day?’ And then, ‘What’s your plan, what do you want to do?’”

Saker recalls similar advances and his relentless intent as he edged towards his AFL goal.

“It might be physio, it might be gym, it might be coming up to an assistant coach, ‘what can I work on this week? What’d you think about my game, do you want to watch some vision?’ It was all that stuff,” Saker said.

“It is easy to talk about, but it is hard to do, but Shaun was always willing to do it.

“He was always first to training, always last on the track. Just a drive to get better and a belief ultimately, deep down a belief that he was good enough to be an AFL footballer.”

Asked about Saker’s impact on him, Mannagh instantly had a smile on his face. And despite having little connection to the Geelong local league where Saker coaches Bell Park, he brought them up with no hesitation — again showing his care for others.

“His Bell Park boys unfortunately went out the other week in their finals, but he had kind of the same footy story coming in as me,” Mannagh said.

“Being able to look up to him and being that Werribee product as well, we got on pretty well and I think to have someone like that in my corner as well has been really nice to always lean on.”

SESSIONS WITH SHAUN

As Mannagh transformed his game at Werribee as a high-impact forward rolling up at stoppages — a role in vogue in the AFL — he was also helping change the lives of vulnerable children at Altona College.

Beginning in a student support role at the school, the caring, fun-loving and passionate Mannagh become a teacher’s aide, youth worker, and sports co-ordinator rolled into one.

Whether it was children who were struggling in the classroom, suffering from physical disabilities or just kids needing to let off some steam, Mannagh went the extra mile with them — just as he did with his footy.

It would surprise noone that Mannagh was regularly spotted doing running sessions before and after school as well.

Altona College principal Nathan Guthridge said the much-loved Mannagh has been irreplaceable for the schools since he joined the Cats.

“He is the sort of guy that came into our school and just gave undivided attention and enthusiasm to some our most vulnerable kids. He is just an absolute ripper of a human being.” Guthridge said.

“For those kids that needed that connection, kids came to school for their sessions with Shaun, they loved him.

“But also not just those vulnerable kids, because he ran things like lunchtime activities, he would be out there on the oval at lunchtime having a kick with a group of lads that would otherwise get distracted and up to mischief. So he was a real calming influence on the whole school environment.

“We had a few students who needed help with mobility so he worked with their physiotherapist to work on little training plans for them and then some of our really vulnerable kids, he was able to take them up to our school gym and basically do physiotherapy with them.”

Staff and students alike would head down to watch Mannagh tear it up for Werribee, and now there are lots of kids with Cats jumpers around the campus.

Guthridge feels there are profound similarities between his work with the children and his journey up the ranks.

“I don’t think I would have heard him say something disrespectful about anyone at our school, and when you’re working with the most difficult kids in the school it is easy to see their flaws, Guthridge said.

“I think it is reflective of his journey. He sees the good and he believes in himself and made it happen, so we are all super proud of him.”

MAKING PEOPLE SMILE

The rest of Mannagh’s feel-good story — the breakout VFL season, the grand final domination, being taken at the age of 26, and his late-season resurgence at the Cats — has been well told.

But it never fails to make faces light up like a Colgate ad.

“It brings a smile to the face and I’ve got a nearly five-year-old son now who knows who Shaun Mannagh is and wears his Cats jumper and that sort of stuff is pretty cool,” Saker said.

“It has been a great journey for him and it is just going to keep going for him.”

Fellow ex-Lavington coach Curtis feels the same way — and it wouldn’t surprise him if Mannagh repeats his local and VFL feats in the AFL.

“He is one of those guys that just makes you smile when the guy does all the work finally gets the reward,” Curtis said.

“I think everyone who has played with him or against him would also smile, just because of how humble he is.”

Daffy believes there are more mature-age gems running out for Werribee in its grand final clash with Southport this weekend — Riley Bice, Jack Henderson and Hudson Garoni just to name a few.

But he has seen many with Mannagh’s talent fall by the wayside.

“There are kids that I know that are playing local footy now who missed out on a draft and if they can bottle up what Shauny Mannagh’s got, if they did they would get where they want to get,” Daffy said.

“Sometimes they lose that dream and lose that focus but Shauny had the ability of not doing that, and he has been able to get his dream a few years later.”

Mannagh’s story will serve as inspiration for other hopefuls for years to come, and everyone will be rooting for him.