Sydney FC midfield general Brandon O’Neill reveals how he sidestepped the siren call of AFL in Perth

IT was the piece of teacherly advice that Brandon O’Neill has spent years being grateful he ignored - all the way to the brink of a grand final.

IT was the piece of teacherly advice that Brandon O’Neill has spent years being grateful he ignored - all the way to the brink of a grand final.

If the Sydney FC midfielder’s sports teacher had been successful, O’Neill would be pursuing a career in the AFL, rather than setting records with the Sky Blues.

Ahead of Saturday’s crunch semifinal with his previous club, Perth Glory, O’Neill revealed why he was never tempted to swap codes - and how he came to the realisation that he needed to change his lifestyle to establish himself in professional football.

At 23 O’Neill has become half of the axis of Graham Arnold’s Premiers Plate-winning side, joined at the hip with Josh Brillante in central midfield and missing only two games this season. It’s a long way from his Perth schooldays, for all that football was always his passion.

Sydney FC midfielder Brandon O’Neill.

“At primary school as I was a bit chubby and a bit rounded in those days and I didn’t really have much ability to run or get around the park,” he said. “But getting into high school, and particularly years 10 and 11, football wasn’t a massive thing in my school - it was mainly AFL.

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“I was playing football for ECU Joondalup at weekends but at school I used to watch some of the lads play AFL at lunchtime, and thought I’d like to give it a crack to see what it was like. “So I joined in with some good mates of mine at recess and lunch, it just became second nature. One day the sports teacher invited me to play in a game, which was a laugh, but then he was trying to persuade me to leave football and became a serious AFL player.

“He asked if he could ring my mum and dad to see what their thoughts were, but I just never had an inclination to play AFL. It was purely a social thing, playing it for a laugh at school, I always wanted to play football. I played on the wing, I could keep the ball under control and they loved it. But it was never part of me and what I wanted to do.”

By 14 he knew not only that football was his preferred future, but what sacrifices would be involved.

“I got older and stretched a bit, and lost a bit of puppy fat,” he said. “But also when I realised football could take me quite far, I made a decision to stop eating McDonald’s on a Friday night, stop eating the ice creams and the hotdogs after a game.

“I had to take myself seriously if I wanted to make it, I had to change what I was doing off the field. I had to learn pretty quickly too, because I had got to 14 or 15, the age where you decide either I’m doing this for a living, or I’m going to party and drink and have fun that way. I chose to take it seriously, thank God.”

Originally published as Sydney FC midfield general Brandon O’Neill reveals how he sidestepped the siren call of AFL in Perth