Lachie Schultz remembers the controversial aftermath of his round nine concussion for entirely different reasons than the majority of the football public.
Soon after the Collingwood small forward was knocked out while laying a tackle on former Fremantle teammate Jordan Clark, the football world spiralled into a mini-meltdown as commentators debated whether the officiating umpires should have stopped play.
Collingwood’s Lachie Schultz has overcome a tough first year with the Magpies.Credit: Simon Schluter
The blame-slinging fallout reverberated for weeks and played a large part in AFL boss Andrew Dillon reordering his leadership team.
But for Schultz, who is lining up against Fremantle again this Sunday, there was a reassuring calm after his fateful May night in Perth.
What transpired behind the scenes reaffirmed his love of the game.
“It was just bad luck,” he says of the incident. “There was nothing nasty in it, it was no one’s fault. Sometimes that stuff just happens on a footy field.
“The best thing was, after the game I walked out of the change rooms and half a dozen to 10 of the Freo boys were standing there waiting to see if I was all right.
“These guys that you played with for years still have respect for you, and you’ve got a lot of respect for them, and at the end of the day, they’re still great mates.
“So I think that just shows how great footy can really be.”
Schultz says he does not remember leaving the field, but has a clear recollection from the time he reached the interchange bench.
The fallout from Schultz’s concussion against his former side was significant.Credit: Getty Images
“I think it looked a lot worse than what it was. Obviously, I was out pretty quickly, but once I got back into the rooms and I sat down, I was able to recompose a little bit and I felt way better.
“It was just like a normal concussion. You are a bit groggy for a few days after it, but you come back to terms pretty quickly.”
Schultz did not delve into the public spat that followed, largely involving the umpire fraternity and then head of football Laura Kane, because he prefers to stay disconnected from outside noise.
“I was the person that was involved in it, but I had nothing to do with it,” he says of the debate that followed.
“Everyone’s just trying to do their job and do it to the best of their ability and that goes for umpires as well.”
As Schultz, 27, continues to make his mark at Collingwood this year, after a tough opening season in the black and white, he has also found reason to celebrate off the field.
Schultz and partner Maddie Oberin.Credit: Instagram
He and childhood sweetheart Maddie Oberin, who he first met at Moama Grammar, became engaged during Collingwood’s June bye weekend on a trip to Hamilton Island.
After sneaking the ring onto their Queensland flight in his carry-on luggage, Schultz then hired a boat at the island and set sail for a deserted beach with a picnic basket and a bottle of champagne before popping the question.
“I sort of just winged it,” he said. “I reckon she had an inkling. She would never say that she knew it was coming, but I reckon she knew. She was very happy, thank God, but the pressure was on [to propose].”
Schultz and Oberin rekindled their high school romance about the time he joined Fremantle at the end of 2018. She was also central to his decision five years later to request a move home so they could be closer to their families in Echuca and Moama.
News of his trade to Collingwood in exchange for pick 34 and a future first-rounder did not filter through straight away. The pair were on safari in Tanzania.
“It was pretty weird actually because over there you’ve got no service when you’re out on safari,” he says.
Schultz offloads a kick against Carlton in April this year.Credit: Getty Images
“You’ve got no idea what’s going on in the world, and then you get back to the safari lodges and hit Wi-Fi and your phone blows up. That’s pretty much how I found out.”
It was a familiar off-the-grid theme when Schultz was taken at pick 57 by the Dockers as a 20-year-old in the 2018 national draft.
He had played TAC Cup for Bendigo Pioneers, was named best-on-ground as a 17-year-old for Moama in a losing Murray League grand final before joining Williamstown for three years in the VFL.
“I was a plumber for five years before I got drafted. I left school at 15,” he says.
“I knew the draft was on, and I was hopeful that I was going to get picked up, but I still had to get to work. I was working in the basement of a house in Camberwell and I had no reception, so I’m going in and out of the basement to let my phone catch up to what was going on.
“I walked out of the basement and my phone just started ringing, and it was [then Dockers coach] Ross Lyon and my boss calling me and saying, ‘Mate, you’ve just been picked up, get off the job site’.”
Lachie Schultz.Credit: Getty Images
Schultz’s return to Melbourne did not go as smoothly as he had hoped. Collingwood suffered a premiership hangover and the small forward suffered a dip in form. The criticism followed.
“I copped it from all angles,” Schultz says as he reveals he switched off public comments on his social media channels to hold out the negativity.
“I was a little bit naive coming into the club. I just thought, coming out of Freo where I had put together a couple of decent seasons and going into a club that’s just won a flag, I probably assumed a little bit too much.”
The frustration reached boiling point last year during Collingwood’s round eight clash against Carlton when their new recruit lashed out at “one of my best mates” Blake Acres and copped a one-match ban.
It led him to coach Craig McRae’s door for a heart-to-heart about the destructive nature of his expectations.
“I was too caught up in looking at the bigger picture,” he says. “I was worried about having a good season rather than having a good moment in a game, or I was worried about trying to put together a good month rather than just trying to focus on the next game.”
Schultz said McRae helped him to put a stake in the ground, and he finished the season as Collingwood’s defensive player of the year.
“I feel like this year I have really found my straps and obviously, it’s been frustrating with being injured for the majority of it, but I’m still just loving being there,” he says.
“I love the club, I love the culture, and it’s just a great place to go to every day. You wake up pretty happy that’s for sure.”
Collingwood are bringing 500 people to the MCG on Sunday for a warm meal and a game of football as part of their Magpies Nest Cafe – a program that served more than 104,000 free meals last year to people experiencing homelessness. To donate $5 to provide a meal, visit community.collingwoodfc.com.au
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