What’s Dusty like? I spent four years at Punt Road and this is what I know

The first question anyone asks when they learn I was lucky enough to spend a few years inside the Richmond Football Club is always the same.

What’s Dusty like?

Dustin Martin has always done things his way.Credit: AFL Photos

And much like the man himself, the answer is difficult to grasp. Because I never really met Dustin Martin, not unless you count that time in a hotel elevator in Brisbane, before the 2019 qualifying final against the Lions, when he spoke exactly five words (six without the contraction): “What’s on for today, Konrad?”

I don’t count that, by the way, because I was dumbstruck – in a way I wasn’t by any other Tiger – and managed only to mumble something unintelligible. I was clumsy and rushed – in a state of panic totally unfamiliar to him, except maybe in the face of his opponents.

What was on for Dustin that day? First a nap, before tearing the Lions apart with a symphonic six-goal performance, part Vivaldi, part Mack truck.

What can I say about him that people haven’t? Truthfully, not much. I can tell you that he isn’t just quiet in public, but also in private spaces such as line meetings or player lounges. Whether his audience is a handful or a stadium full, Dusty isn’t so much what he says as what he does.

“The eyes may be the windows to the soul,” wrote Greg Baum, “but only those in Martin’s most intimate circle get a peep inside.”

Indeed, that blank affect – the impassive face of the predator – is what made Dusty so ripe for description and hyperbole. He became a muse.

Richmond recruiter Francis Jackson saw Dustin play in 2008, when he was just a teenager, rampaging across an oval in Golden Square, Bendigo. “I remember his power, his ability to surge, and his skills on either side of the body,” Jackson once told me. “It seemed there was nothing he couldn’t do.”

The Tigers did their due diligence – interviews and psychological evaluations – and sketched down copious notes in their Dusty dossier, finding him shy but driven, strong yet pliable.

Extremely coachable. Strong desire to succeed. Scores above average for worrying. Very good mental toughness.

He honed those mental skills further at Richmond, under mindfulness coach Emma Murray. She worked with all players, helping them come up with words they could repeat in low moments on field, to anchor them. Dustin had three.

Strong. Aggressive. Unstoppable.

“That’s all he says,” Murray said. “Any time something goes wrong, he says ‘strong’. Any time he does something that’s weak, he says ‘aggressive’. Any time he tries to do something and someone blocks his way, he gets up and says ‘unstoppable’.”

That’s probably a bit easier when you have his heft, of course. When you walk into the inner sanctum of footy club, one of the things you notice up close is how tiny footballers have become. They’re aerobic beasts more than beastly – trim and tightly coiled.

Not Dusty, though. And not just in the eyes of an interloper like me, but players, too. Bob Murphy pointed it out a decade ago.

“He jogged down to full-forward, where I was going to meet him, and as he got closer, I had to blink,” Murphy wrote. “He seemed a foot taller, and two stone heavier. Angry, too. Like a rhinoceros.”

It was hard for Dustin to escape himself, and probably always will be. Damien Hardwick described him as “the lion in the zoo” – the animal everyone comes to see. Brendon Gale encountered Dustin one night at the baths in Middle Brighton, swimming in the darkness, searching for time alone and seeming like a shark.

As long as we’re anthropomorphising the Tigers’ talisman, consider how hard it would have been to stand next to him in the goal square, with his silent spectre lurking. And please enjoy this metaphor crafted by the writer Jonathan Horn, ahead of the 2019 preliminary final against Geelong.

“It will be Dusty’s own personal swamp,” Horn wrote. “His crocodilian menace will draw every eye in the arena.”

Inside Richmond, all of seven years ago now, they had a name for that role. When Dusty was isolated inside 50 metres – one out against his unfortunate prey – it was called the “Trump” role. Why? Because Dusty had permission to do as Donald Trump seems to do — whatever he wants.

What he wants now is to retire. After so much speculation and prognostication about his future – and so much mistaken certainty from so many pundits that he would soon be wearing the new colours of his former coach, now in Queensland – he’s stepping away instead.

Richmond fans adore Dustin Martin like few players before him.Credit: Eddie Jim

And that’s no surprise at all, if you look back at that dossier, and check what teenage Dusty said about himself. He said he wanted to “win a premiership and be a one-club player”, and he named three personality traits that he hoped would define him: commitment, strong character, and loyalty.

Dustin was committed, and loyal, and strong to the end. Peter Burge, the former Tigers fitness boss, once pointed out that Dusty would flog himself in training sessions, and needed to be held back from doing too many extras, to protect him from himself.

“He won’t come to you if he’s tired – he’ll want to please everyone,” Burge said. “We have to say, ‘You’re due, mate. Take a rest’.”

Dusty’s finally made that call alone, and good on him. Because every Richmond supporter this week would echo the same sentiment as Burge, and they would do so with nothing but gratitude and love.

You’re due, Dusty. Take your rest.

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