One of the key roles Lewis Melican played at the Geelong Falcons was as a decoy for the team’s superstar full-forward Paddy McCartin.

“I started as a defender and then they threw me down forward to play a bit of a run-with role on some of the dangerous halfbacks,” Melican explains.

“That transitioned into playing at centre half-forward with my job to lead out of Paddy’s way and give him some space inside the 50.”

He then adds with a smile: “It was a nice little role but I think Paddy benefited from it more than me.”

Ten years on, Melican’s job is now to actually get in the way to help another McCartin, Paddy’s younger brother Tom, with the pair Sydney’s defensive pillars in its 2024 premiership quest.

A DESTINY WRITTEN OUT WEST

Melican and McCartin’s careers, and lives, have been intertwined for years with their families’ roots in town’s 10 minutes apart in western Victoria, the Melicans in Birregurra and the McCartins just down the road in Colac.

Both of their fathers were gun country footballers who came close to living out their own AFL dreams although they never played with, or against, each other in the bush.

Damian Melican grew up in the Wimmera, went to school in Donald and played with local side Watchem Corack. He did Year 12 at Monivae College in Hamilton before being recruited to Richmond with the region part of the Tigers zone.

He made the list as a marking half-forward in 1977 alongside some of the club’s all-time greats including Kevin Bartlett, Francis Bourke, Kevin Sheedy, Michael Roach, Geoff Raines, Neil Balme and David Cloke.

“I was a 19-year-old kid wondering what the hell I was doing,” he recalls.

He only lasted a year at Punt Rd before moving to Prahran in the VFL where he played with Wayne ‘The Dominator’ Johnston and Sam Kekovich although his season was cut short after he was king-hit and had his jaw broken.

From there Melican’s football journey took him to Tooborac in the Heathcote League near Bendigo, Darwin and then back to Watchem Corack where he coached for three years.

At 28 he started training to be a nurse and when his wife, Sue, who was a teacher, was transferred to Colac he followed with the couple settling in Birregurra, a small town of a few hundred people with not much more than a pub and a local store, in 1989.

He had an immediate impact, leading the Birregurra Saints to the premiership in 1990 before his knees gave away and he finished up a few years later.

Matt McCartin actually played one season of U/16s at Birregurra when his local team Forrest in the Colac and District Football League went into recession for a year.

He then played with Colac in the Hampden League, starting at the U/18s before becoming a star ruckman in the seniors through the early 1990s.

In 1993 he made Geelong’s list – the year after they’d lost the Grand Final to West Coast under Malcolm Blight – and shared the locker room alongside legends like Gary Ablett, Garry Hocking, Paul Couch and Mark Bairstow.

“I was named emergency a few times but didn’t crack a game unfortunately,” McCartin said.

The next year he moved to Tasmania, playing for New Norfolk before eventually ending up back in Geelong a few years later with his wife Jo – a state-level netballer – where they raised their three boys Paddy, Charlie and Tom.

MAKING IT TO THE BIG SMOKE

While the McCartins found themselves in the spotlight with Paddy being drafted at No. 1 to St Kilda in the 2014 national draft, the Melicans weren’t expecting to be following suit.

Lewis, the youngest of the three siblings behind Tess and Jack, hadn’t been invited to any of the draft combines but received a letter from Sydney about coming up to Melbourne for a tryout.

There were a handful of other hopefuls there at Maribyrnong College but when his shins blew up during the beep-test he figured that was the end of that.

“I really didn’t think I did all that well,” he recalls. “My plan was to go back and do the over-age year at the Falcons.”

He was away celebrating schoolies on the Gold Coast when he got a call from Swans recruiting boss Kinnear Beatson saying they were going to take him in the rookie draft with selection No. 52.

It took Melican until Round 5 2017 to crack it for his senior debut with the 194cm defender going on to play 17 games that season – a number he would never pass again until this year.

McCartin arrived in November that year, a second-round selection by the Swans at No. 33 in the 2017 national draft, and the former Falcons were soon matched up against each other at training.

“I actually had never met him (Melican) until I got to Sydney, he’d obviously played Falcons with Paddy but I was younger,” McCartin recalls. “Funnily enough I was a forward when I first arrived so I was playing on him in match sim.”

DOING IT THE HARD WAY... AGAIN

Unfortunately this is where the story takes a major diversion.

While McCartin quickly found his feet in the big time, Melican disappeared from sight as a horror injury run, which would send him around the world looking for answers, struck.

His hamstrings kept pinging and the same story was on repeat every season.

In 2018 he played just three games, managed to hold it together in 2019 with 17 games before hitting a big hole, playing just 15 games in three years including no senior appearance in 2022, the year Sydney made the Grand Final against Geelong.

The fact the Swans persevered says a lot about the standing in which coach John Longmire holds Melican.

“Looking back there was only one year where I finished the year without a contract,” Melican says.

He travelled to Germany twice to see Dr Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt, the world famous healer renowned for his inventive treatments including injecting calves blood.

On his first visit he ran into Usain Bolt in the waiting room. The pair had a photo taken and spoke about Sydney FC with the world’s fastest man good friends with the club’s former marquee signing Dwight Yorke.

It was the mental stress more than anything which nearly broke him. Despite all the work, for a long time Melican couldn’t play without fearing he was going to break down again.

“The mental battle eventually leads to a physical battle and it’s a bit of a spiral at times,” he says.

Eventually it was determined the soft-tissue problems stemmed from an issue with his hips with a modified training load, the key to getting the 27-year-old back on the park and playing 22 games this season.

“I feel like I have got to a good place this year. Touch wood we have sort of figured out what works for me and how to keep me out on the track is one of those things.

“I’ve seen a heap of different specialists over the time but now I have modified my training load. The best pre-season for me doesn’t mean I’m doing every single minute of every training session.

“It’s making sure I get the fitness and base that I need while still keeping me feeling fresh that I’m still right to back up. Eighty per cent of training each week will end up giving me a better result than trying to push for 100 and breaking down.

CHASING A PREMIERSHIP

There is no-one happier for the man they call “Pel” (as in Pelican from Melican) than McCartin, 24, who has marvelled at his teammate’s determination and refusal to never give in.

“I am just so pumped for him because this is the first proper year where he has played pretty much week in week out,” McCartin said. “He has never lacked confidence in his ability which is obviously why he is still playing and why he’s still here.

“Finally he has got his opportunity and his body is holding up and he would almost be one of our most important players this year I’d say.”

Ironically two years ago it was Paddy McCartin who was playing the second key defender role in the Grand Final side alongside Tom. Unfortunately he has since been forced to retire because of concussion issues but remains working at the club.

“When Paddy retired I felt we have kind of missed that genuine key defender,” McCartin said. “Now Pel and I have done so much work together, I feel we are starting to gel a lot better.

“We chop and change who we are on and he’s such a good teammate because he just gets on with it, he’s selfless, he does all the team things.

“There are a lot of things that people wouldn’t see on TV that he does which makes a huge difference.”

Friday night’s clash with Port Adelaide will be Melican’s fourth final and his 83rd game in the Harbour City.

As he reflected on the past decade at home in the ritzy harbourside suburb of Double Bay this week – McCartin lives close-by near Bondi – Melican feels like “it’s gone quick” but appreciates how different his life could have been.

“This is a long way from Birregurra.”