I'd people say that, you know, if I wasn't one of the boys, and if I didn't buy into the culture, I wouldn't make it as an AFL player.

So that was going to affect my ability to perform.

Ultimately, what I found was that I could actually do both.

I could show all those traits on the field and be the loving parent, be the caring husband.

I could be someone who was a really great friend to people.

I'm John Ralph and I'm Glenn MacFarlane.

Welcome to Sacked, a podcast that explores what really happens when the X falls in the AFL world.

Will take you behind the scenes with some of the biggest names in football and find out how they found out their time was up and who pulled the trigger.

Today, footy done differently.

The Ben Brown story.

There was no more consistent key forward in the AFL from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen than North Melbourne's Ben Brown, and yet at the conclusion of the twenty twenty season, he was out the door at Arden Street, devoid of confidence and searching for a new home.

Fast forward another twelve months.

And he just kicked three goals as his new team, Melbourne stormed home to win the twenty twenty one flag.

A crazy year or just parf of the course for the unlikely footy star from Tazzy who always did footy a bit differently.

Ben Brown, Welcome to the podcast, mate, thanks for coming.

In, Thanks very much.

Played one hundred and seventy five games, three hundred and sixty goals, Ralphie, two AFL clubs, a drought breaking premiership, four time club leading goalkicker, multiple runner up in the Coleman Medal.

It's a great record.

What do you think about when you think about your career.

What's the one defining moment other than the Grand Final?

Oh, defining moment, I think it was I think about draft day, to be honest.

It was, you know, four drafts that took me to get to the level, and I think you know that you know, that relief in some ways, but that pure excitement I think that everyone would have felt when they were every AFL player would feel when they get drafted.

I still remember that sitting there with my mum and dad and my grandma and how excited they were.

And yeah, that was sort of the moment that kicked it all off, and it was you know, over a period of years and having to put all that time and effort in and yeah, that's pretty cool memory.

So you're Tasmanian Royalty because granddad Jym is a footy star and a leading politician.

Of course, uncle James part of his own great baking flag.

Yeah when did that draft aspiration?

When was it unearthed?

Didn't you tell us to tell us about those early years?

Yeah?

I only played.

I played a whole heap of sport growing up and just loved sport of any kind.

A lot of basketball in their cricket, tennis, wherever he hit my hands.

On footy.

I played school footy until I was in grade ten in Devenport and after that point we didn't have a school team, so that's when I went and played at Devenport Club.

Joined up in grade eleven and just yeah, enjoyed my footy.

I didn't think that i'd i'd ever make it to a high level.

I would have absolutely loved to more than anything, being a being a sport loving kid growing up, but I never thought that I'd get to the highest level.

But it was probably a teacher I had at school that said you should go and maybe try out for the Tazzy Mariners and the out sixteen's and you know, go along to some trials, and so I did that and was selected a couple of those teams, and I remember it was my top age, my top age under eighteen's.

Yeah.

I played as a ruck all my life and I got the opportunity to play Ford a couple of times and another ruck they wanted a trial and I kicked a few goals in a couple of games.

And then, as you do when you're a seventeen year old in that area, go on to Big Footy, and.

Of course that's what you're doing.

And I saw my name popping up, people saying, oh this guy from Tazzy, this big, weird looking fell at.

Yeah yeah, no TikTok.

But big Footy forums were definitely thing, and we get a couple of stories out of there, and yeah, that sort of lit the fire.

I mean, I had the biggest roller coaster you'd ever imagined.

Because I didn't think I was a chance of being drafted.

I had maybe three good games in the in the Championships and thought, oh, it might be a thing here, and then I did MACL did a c L.

Yeah, twenty ten or twenty ten.

It was a game against was it NT, Yeah, game against NT, I think I was.

I think I maybe rocked against Stephen May that day or maybe that was another game I'm thinking of.

But and it was actually a teammate ran through.

It was Jimmy Webster.

So Jimmy, thanks mate.

But yeah, that it was almost that moment though, I think was another really key moment for me, because after that moment, I didn't I didn't play any more basketball.

After that point, I went, I want to I want to make it to the next level in football.

Yeah.

So I put everything I could into my into my rehab, and yeah, another another four drafts that took me.

But yeah, that's that heartbreaking to watch, to listen to drafts that probably was was was it on TV then?

I'm it would have been on TV then, And yeah, I have your name called out.

I mean yeah, I remember watching it, watching the picks roll through on a laptop.

Yeah, in my room, and then the picks had go through and your name wasn't called.

I'm like, all right, I better go back to studying for my exams.

Yeah.

So it was definitely.

Any of those three drafts clubs interested interviewing you.

Yeah, I had a I remember after the rookie draft in my draft year, I've done macy L so I'd gone to the combines, the State Combine I think it was, and I was in Melbourne actually for the rookie draft and having a couple of weeks staying with my staying with my uncle actually remember Derek Hein and I think it might have been Jason Taylor then was it Collingwood.

About an hour or two after the rookie draft, they drove out to my uncle's officers in Cheltenham and sat me down and said we'd like to have you a part of the VFL program or do all of your rehab through the club.

And I turned them down and said I wanted to stay in Tazzy so playing a Magpie.

Yeah, yeah, I remember having that conversation and me, as a seventeen eighteen year old, went, no, I want to I want to do it myself and do it on my own merits and not sort of be need a club to Whether that was the right or wrong thing to do at the time, I don't know, but yeah, went back to Tazzy and back to senior footy at Glenorky footy club.

And how was it playing over there?

You're playing against men as you're coming through in a lot of ways there And what brought you across was that the promise of North was aligned to Worry at the time.

But was there any promise there that you come across you're at ans or was it just on Specky decided to come across a little bit later.

No, No, I wanted to play senior footy and tazzy and have that opportunity to play against bigger bodies, get and get used to that.

I did have to play as a ruckman primarily down there, and that was probably the thing that I got to the point where I went, I'm probably not going to make it to the next level as a ruck and I need to play as a ford.

And it was actually Mark Stone, good good weerriby man and lovely, lovely human who came down over a couple of couple of years.

He came down I think it was the end of twenty eleven, maybe the end of twenty twelve, and I said thanks very much, but no thanks.

And then the following year had another coffee with me and said I think should come and have a trial at werribe and so I did really liked it, decided this is my opportunity to move across.

Scottie West sold me the world and he was going to said he was going to play me as a key forward and a few too didn't.

Yeah, that year we were a tall forward line.

I think it's ever existed.

We had Magic Door and Daniel Curry coming back from North.

We had young Mason Wood playing in that team.

Ben McKinley and Ben Warren were in that team and somehow they fit me there as well.

And yeah, that year was that year was probably what gave me that opportunity to play as a key ford and show what I could do.

The Foxtel Cup as well, was that year.

I got a couple of opportunities in that.

So yeah, it was a really interesting year.

And the alignment with North Melbourne, I suppose I was under their eye quite a lot.

So you celebrate your twenty first.

They eventually take you at forty seven in the draft.

What's that draft night like?

Given as you say, you'd watched the laptop and been overlooked so often before.

Yeah, I'd had a chat to a couple of clubs and so I thought maybe this was my best opportunity.

Actually, I had a call from Adrian the door about an hour or so before the draft saying like maybe strap in.

So I that was the most confident I've been, but I'd sat through three drafts.

I didn't want to take anything.

It gives a lot of promises.

Yeah, And I've actually spoken to Cam Joyce since he was the the list manager at the time about because I asked him about it years later, because I remember they sat there for a minute and had a discussion.

I remember asking him like, what was that discussion that you had and a little in there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I was just interested.

And he said that they were tossing up between me and Joel Tippett at that at that pick, and I ended up getting Joel in the in the rookie draft.

Yeah, so he said they got the best of both worlds there.

But yeah, that was that was interesting.

I remember sitting and I had back in the day they used to read out the readout the number, the player number, six digit registration.

They famously got Buddy wrong.

I'm pretty sure taking yeah, the registration number.

So I remember I'd memorized my my registration number.

I couldn't tell you what it was now, but I remember hearing the number and like, here we go that.

Yeah, so that feeling was up there to.

Celebrate with your family as well.

I think your name was there, your five younger brothers, is that right?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah it was bad and yeah, my five younger brothers.

So it was me and my mum and dad and my grandma sitting sitting in front of the telly and and watching that play out.

I think my brothers were scattered around the house.

They sort of started watching it and then lost.

Interesting they get to pick forty seven.

Yeah, no, they didn't quite make it, so but that yeah, it was so exciting, awesome.

And he's straight off to Utah after that?

Is that?

Like?

How weird is that kid from Tazzy gets drafted after you know, missing a number of drafts and then he's.

Off to Utah.

Yeah, yeah it was.

It was straight off to Utah within a few days.

So I think I had to organize a passport at short notice.

I never traveled overseas before, and so yeah, it was straight into it.

That was it over there?

Sorry?

How was it over there?

Yeah?

It was interesting.

I walked straight into a room I was roomed with Robin Nahas my first my first time there.

They actually the guys said, you've got to play.

The first thing you've got to do is you've got to play our worst FIFA player.

And they set me up because Robin Nahas was one of the best fifty players in Australia at the time and he played around with me for a bit.

But yeah, no, I remember my very first night with with was he I said, if you've got any issues.

I was a bit of a snorer.

I said, if you've got any issues, like just you know, wake me up, throw a pillow at me and I reckon.

It was within twenty minutes of falling asleep, pillow in the face and Robin moved out of the room next the next night.

So I had a ruin myself, which wasn't the worst thing.

So Heatha locked on who as the media manager at the time and there with basketball.

He said, oh, this guy's going to be a new cult here.

Where did the hair come from?

Where did the long run up come from?

Idiosyncratic?

But that was you and you were determined to keep all of those parts of your character and your football identity.

Yeah, the hair came about because I'd moved out of home and my mum couldn't tell me to go and get a haircut anymore.

So I grew it out and it was honestly, it was probably laziness more than anything else that I didn't want to go and go to the barber.

My long run up was I think, as I said, I was a rock growing up, so I never really developed anything as a set shot routine.

So I developed it quite late on would have been at Glenorky Footy Club.

I started it.

It started out more robotic than it ended up, believe it or not.

And yeah, it was something I sort of yeah with the coaches at Clonorkey Footy Club and then Keenan Reynolds.

Was it at where you when I was there?

And yeah, it just that's what felt comfortable to me for whatever reason.

It was more basic than it looked.

It was run straight, kick straight, follow through straight.

If I do everything straight, the ball should go straight.

That's that was it.

That was the that was the basis of it.

Did you ever think about did you ever trial with shortening it?

Because you had such a lovely action technically when ball hit boot, But did you ever you know, well, I'll go exactly the same ratio because it was long and it was almost labored.

Yeah, it was.

I think I had a mental checklist along with a physical checklist, if it makes sense, when I went back from my for my shots.

So I think it was important for me to sort of follow through and be able to tick that off.

And for me, it was more about knowing that I'd done the work and knowing that what I was doing was setting me up to kick well and to calm myself down on game day.

So knowing that I had a routine and that routine, as you said, it was weird, but it made me feel comfortable.

So it made me feel like I'd done the work, So that was the most important.

You made you Taboo round fourteen, twenty fourteen versus Melbourne wearing the now famous or soon to be famous number fifty.

You're twenty one, almost twenty two, your last minute inclusion for Robbie Tarrant.

You're playing with a young bloke called Brent Harvey who's thirty six and has played three hundred and seventy five.

Tell us about your memories of that day and kicking the goal.

You made a bit of a tribute I think to your grandfather, didn't you tell us about that and what that meant to you?

Yeah?

Family, Yeah, I was nervous.

I was so incredibly yes, you know, first game on the MCG.

North didn't play on the MCG much either, so to get that opportunity to play on the MCG, I took my first first mark and first kicked pretty much right in the center of the ground, which was which was incredibly cool.

I think I settled into the game about maybe half of the way, halfway through the third quarter.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was playing on Lyndon Dunn, who I had a lot of battles with over the years and was a real pest to play on.

I'll talk to him about this, but yeah, I just remember taking a mark and everyone's telling me to go back and have a shot.

It went pretty straight.

They take the march first shot a goal.

But he is really working the cameras here.

This is the longest run up with him.

Twenty one year old Ben Brown.

His first goal has plenty Brenny six with a goal and the Roswie by forty four points.

But yeah, it was it was important, particularly I think for my from my grandma and my pop who was you know, as you said, a player in Tasmania who played a lot of games and a big, big personality I suppose, and just to show that, you know, he'd been part of that experience, but you know, passed away in twenty ten and he never got to see that first goal.

So yeah, that was what the tribute was for.

And he passed away in really challenging circumstances.

That house was ransacked and he went down and had a look at it and then came back up and had a heart attack.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

He was an avid collector, had if you went into his dar, I want to call it like just bookshelves on bookshelves of stamps and postcards and everything you can name.

My mum's still going through it to this day, fifteen years later, and so yeah, I think the fact that someone had broken into the house, you know, that was pretty stressful.

Had a bit of a weak hard as it was, and yeah, it was.

It was a pretty tough time obviously for my grandma, who's one of the most amazing women you'll ever meet.

And yeah, that was that.

The first one was for her.

It's a good side.

Brad Scott's up and running Pem Harvey's flying.

What's it like being thrown into that Arden street environment there with I assume lots of strong personalities and yeah, an expectation to perform.

Yeah, it was.

I actually found my first couple of years at AFL level pretty tough in a lot of ways, probably didn't fit the mold of your typical AFL player, and at times, yeah, found that environment challenging.

Not necessarily for you know, that was anyone's fault.

I think it was just that I was twenty one, twenty two and still figuring out who I was as a person and who I wanted to be, and yeah, and found that challenging at times.

I think that in terms of the footy side of things, that it was an incredibly committed team.

You know, some really amazing athletes that I was able to be a part of.

And so to have that experience in terms of learning what it was like to be an AFL player and the professionalism that was required, I had a lot of really good role models in that sense that sort of pushed me along and pushed me to become a better player.

So, you know, the likes of Drew Petree when I came to the club.

To be able to learn off someone of that caliber who was probably in the back part of his career, but you know, taught me so much and to have some you know, I'd mentioned Mason Wood before, but you know it was one of the most professional players from really really young age and really incredibly driven.

So to have someone like that that wanted to play a similar spot to you, and yeah, it was definitely the drive was there to sort of get to get better.

And now watching the heights that Mason's been able to get to the in this part of his career has been has been great to see too.

You've got a pretty strong moral code.

I imagine the locker room's pretty blokey place.

It's probably a misogynous place at times.

What's alike when you're twenty one, so you're not a kid you want to call stuff out?

You probably don't at times.

There's other times yet understand your walk past the ones you accept.

What's that like for a lot of people, you know, given that Collingwood's locker room was changing, Yeah, what's the dynamic?

Yeah, it absolutely was.

I think, as I said, a lot of really positive things about being in a football environment.

This is not exclusive to North Melbourne at that stage by any means, But yeah, it was something that I had to come to terms with.

It's like what standards do I actually want to want to walk past and which ones?

Which ones am I accepting?

And it took me, yeah, a long time to come to terms with that and to I suppose learn There's a lot of listening and learning I think from you know, the women in my life, also other men within football clubs that I found as I started to understand a bit more about the stats around finance against women and about the kind of cultures that lead to violence and to disrespect, and it was it was a lot of a lot of listening to people and understanding that a lot of the a lot of other men in those environments are feeling uncomfortable and about certain things.

Again, not everything being a negative, but yeah, I sort of learned that there are a lot more AFL players, staff members within football clubs that actually that felt like the environments and cultures needed to change.

And so that was a lot of the learning that I did in that space probably led me to that point where I was more comfortable speaking out and was more comfortable being that person within football clubs.

You can blow back at times because even from twenty fifteen to where we are now and now you're just in coach at Esen AND's afi W side and there's so much more awaren than of that.

Yeah, So what's how challenge challenging is it?

When you would I assume you call people out?

Yeah?

I think it was.

Actually I got less resistance and backlash than what I thought I would probably as a twenty one year old.

I felt like, you know, a lot of social pressures, as most of us do, anyone, not just men.

A lot of people feel those social pressures that I felt.

I think as I got more comfortable with myself and was more comfortable and just expressing the person that I was, the more people accepted that, Yep, this is the way Ben is, and you know that that sort of helped me to be in those situations.

I think too.

The thing I always come back to is, as I said, the stats around violence against women in Australia, the stats around you know, sexual harassment that women experience.

I think the discomfort that men feel there is an element that we need to get comfortable being uncomfortable in that space because it's actually important enough I think the thing too, I'd say, is that a couple of things on this that we've got.

We've got an issue in this country with men's mental health too, and the kind of cultures that we've bred that our society has bred that aren't any again, aren't anyone's fault, but it's actually not serving men either.

And clearly they're connected the two, aren't they The mental health compared to the domestic violence.

Yeah, absolutely, we see that.

The other thing I'd say is that there and I talk a lot about men and masculinities, and we hear a lot about toxic masculinity at the moment.

That's a bit of a buzzword.

I think that is a bit of a misnomer.

I think there are there are elements of traditional masculinity that I think are really important, and that there are times where being stoic, being strong, being respectful, being courageous, all of these things are incredibly important in certain aspects.

I'd say the problem is when we expect ourselves to be that way all the time, or we expect our mates to be that way all the time, and that we lose their elements of tenderness and care and you know, listening to other people all of these aspects as well.

I think finding that there's a time and a place for all of these things.

That was the point that I got to in particularly my football career, because people said that if you're not strong and courageous and stoic all the time, you won't make it as an AFL player, which for me came back to my experience of football.

You know, I had people say that, you know, if I wasn't one of the boys and if I didn't buy to the culture, I wouldn't make it as an AFL player.

So that was going to affect my ability to perform.

Ultimately, what I found was that I could actually do both.

I could be the I don't think I was the strongest and toughest player on the field, don't get me wrong, But I could show all those traits on the field and be the loving parent, be the caring husband.

I could be someone who was a really great friend to people, who cared about my teammates in a way that the people found, you know, that's me and that's the way I do.

You didn't have to go to the pub till three am.

You didn't have to make comments.

How's the AFL experience, afl W experience across ten years.

Has that instructed how much better those locker rooms are, because sometimes you've got to see it to bet You've just got to be around these AFLW girls to learn what is acceptable in the locker room.

I think again, like people have asked me a lot, like what's it like for the male players?

Do they get started?

That was one thing that I think was a real positive for me in terms of being involved in the male environment.

Afl W came in and the amount of support that male player have for for afl W athletes is huge.

I think a lot of the a lot of the commentary about the issues with afl W is coming from outside the AFL landscape.

Within football clubs, there's a whole lot of respect for each other and I've seen that from you know, all of the clubs that I've been a part of.

There's there's none of the talk that that some people might expect within football clubs, and yeah, the rest the respect is really mutual there.

Now, do we still have work to do in terms of the systems and structures around football clubs to allow to allow athletes to succeed on the same level.

Absolutely, but you've seen an evolution in that.

I've seen it.

I've seen an evolution in it.

We still have long we still have a lot of work to do to get all of that, to get all of that right.

At the end of the day, I think, I think about my I think about my daughters, and I just I want them to have the same opportunities to succeed in not only just football but in life.

Why should we I always come back to what kind of society we wanted to create, not about which football team do you want to go watch on the weekend.

It's actually bigger than that, or which competition do you favor, It's actually bigger than that.

What do we want our society to look like?

What do we want our opportunities to be like for our young girls and women in Australia.

And that's where AFLW has given has given people not just access to high level footy, but what it's done for my girls going to OZ kick on the on a Friday night you know where I live.

What it's done for local footy, what it's done for talent pathways for girls.

These are things that are far more important than you know.

I love my AFLW players.

It's incredible.

That's the stuff that that's why AFOW is important.

It's not for it's not for the pay grade necessarily.

The women I wanted to be paid more.

I think they should be.

I think they should be a full time athletes all of that.

But that's that's almost secondary in my mind.

We'll talk about the FLW again.

Tell us about that first year.

So four goals in your first final.

It's your ninth game, elimination final against Essen, and you're thrown right into the cut and thrust of it, and yeah, you dominate.

Ah, that was.

Yeah.

You talk about moments that I remember forever.

Yeah, that was.

That was unbelievable to be part of that, to be part of that experience.

I still remember kicking a goal in the third quarter, and I can take myself back to the feeling of because we were in the midst of a huge comeback at.

That forty odd points.

Now, yeah it was forty odd points down, we were we were nowhere in that game.

Three in that third quarter too.

Thirty three points down early in the third term, and.

Then he comes out and kicked three in seven minutes.

Ben this to get it back to nine points Brown with these third God, he's got it, he has got it.

Yeah, that was I think it was after the third.

I still remember the feeling of the felt like the stadium was shaking.

Maybe that was just me, but the excitement of being in that moment that was that.

You know, twenty one year old, that's just fresh into it and yeah, so exciting to come back and win that game and just to be I still remember.

The other moment I remember is Drew's second goal and he banandaed it from forty five and just running like a lunatic towards him.

We're going to win.

We're going to win this game.

Yes, I remember that game.

I got a great quote from John Ralph.

Here, of all people, the blue and white stripes on the front of their North Melbourne jumpers are the only qualities linking Wayne Carey and Ben Brown.

One was the strutting, glorious exhibit of football royalty, and the other is the Gorky side show Bob look alike from Donorky versus via Werribee.

Yet as the mcg crowd feasted on an epic second half, it was Brown masquerading as North Melbourne's latest finals Here it was a big moment for you, really, wasn't it.

Yeah, you had the club of course, but for.

You, well it I questioned along the journey, as I said, like whether I actually belonged at the level or not, and that showed me that I could do it and probably helped to springboard myself on from there.

That finals campaigns, you bet Essendon, you bet you're long in a semi final, you get to Sydney at ains and Stadium.

You kicked the first goal of the game, but Buddy Franklin and Sydney up and running and I don't know how you run out of petrol tickets by then.

Yeah, I think we did, and we were up against a pretty good Sydney team that year.

Yeah, yeah, I remember that game pretty well and coming out of it and going wow, that's that's the level you need to get to to play in the Grand Final.

But to have that experience with got a AFL prelim final eleven like that was something that I just hadn't even conceived of being an option.

So yeah, extremely cool.

So back to back years through it a prilium so you dropped mid season in the next year that you kick thirty two goals you know, you sling shot in the finals, a seven game winning streak, you make it through to a prelim final, Boomers four hundredth game against Brisbane.

So again, a couple of prelim finals would just say you're really close.

Maybe not, but they were pretty heady times at the Ruse.

Yeah, they were.

And we had, you know a few players who were heading towards the end of their careers the twilight, Brent Harvey and Drew Petrie and Nick Del Santo over Michael Frito, these types that, yeah, it was so desperate for it and hadn't had that.

Well, I think Boomer had that experience, but none of the rest of us, given how long he was in the game.

But yeah, it was pretty clear to us as young players that you know, they'd sit us down and go, you don't realize what this experience means, and you'll appreciate that later, but we need to impress on you how important this is.

So yeah, that we didn't get to a Grand final, that definitely.

That definitely sat with me and sat with a lot of us.

I think it probably hurt us that we didn't make that top four in any of those hard yeah.

Yeah, and each time.

We sort of gone through the first couple of years, got through the prelims from the fifth to eight slots.

Yeah.

Everyone talks about the twenty fifteen gaming.

It's West Coast, and we came out and kicked a few goals at the start of the game, and we're probably unlucky not to kick a couple more and.

Goals to Nilan that first time termally by five points at halftime.

A couple of decisions maybe didn't go there way.

Yeah, so that was clearly as close as you've got and then they come over the top of here.

Yeah, And I probably think back on that game in that second half and think we were run off our legs and we're pretty tired by that point.

Yeah.

Again, maybe if we had a couple of decisions go away in the first the momentum in footy you can swing like that.

But yeah, I think that second half we were pretty run off our legs.

But you're still thinking it's more to come.

You have it.

You know, earlier that final series, you have an amazing elimination final win over Richmond.

I think you were twenty odd points down twice in the game and come back.

So are you thinking going into twenty sixteen, that we've still got another shot left in the locker.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely we did.

I can't remember it was that year that we went.

Think won the first nine games in that year and your two games on top after nine round is yeah, yeah, and we probably trying to remember, but I think we probably had a few injuries and yeah, you dropped three, only won three of the last ten.

I think it was injuries, and yeah, a whole lot of things.

Is that what went wrong?

Do you think?

Yeah, we kind of crawled our way into finals in the end, and I think we had beaten Badelaide resoundingly in the in the elimination final we played in so and that was probably.

Yeah, you looked at it and went is that us?

Is that the window closed?

And after that year it was the bit the four of our players were retired at the same time or moved on at the same time.

I retired, They were sacked really so Brad Scott clearly felt this was the end of the year.

You lose by sixty two points.

Where were you when you found out?

Yeah, all those four blokes, Harvey, Petri, Farido DALs and I would be moved on.

I would say against there, Well, yeah, it was.

It was.

I can't remember, I couldn't tell you where I was, but I remember that feeling of just wow, that's such a such a big decision.

Yeah, really changed the course of the club in a lot of ways, and you look at where the club's been for the last ten years and sort of one of those moments I think that was it signaled a big change in the direction of going.

Did it rip the fabric out of the group a bit?

In that sense like you're losing some incredible players and you know, potentially one or two of them could have gone on.

Certainly Boomer felt like he could have played another two seasons.

He had twenty five disposals in that last game.

I think I was at that game, the elimination final.

He thought he had two years left.

Did it impact the group?

Do you think?

I think?

You know, obviously, the feelings that those guys, you know, that's I can't speak for them and how they and how they felt.

I think in football you do have to move on pretty quickly, and it probably was that case that we came into that twenty seventeen season.

We're pretty young, We've just got to We've just got to crack on.

Yeah, yeah, I suppose I didn't really give too much thought to it in terms of what it did to the what it did to the group.

We would definitely I think we played off for the playedoff essentially for the Wooden Spoon in the falling year.

So it was a big shift in terms of what we were the direction we're going to the club.

For sure.

You kick sixty three goals, a team wins six wins, sixteen losses, You're getting a lot of the ball, you're delivering, you're the man.

What's that feeling like?

It was mostly pretty good.

I feel like being able to perform most weeks.

And I think I was very fortunate too that I had a coaching Brad Scott, who really backed me in.

We've had a game plan that suited the way that I played.

So I think for any AFL player people talk about, I always look at the conversation around you know, the top ten picks and where are they now and what happened to them?

And I think there's so much in the way that football clubs are able to develop players.

It's not always in the individual themselves.

There's a lot of luck, I think involved in football I landed at North Melbourne at a time where they were searching for that third key forward and that I came in and probably kicked a couple of goals at the right time, and you know, you get another opportunity and another opportunity and you're sort of able to grasp it.

So while I think I worked pretty hard for what I got and put a lot of time into areas of my game to get myself to that level, I think there was a lot of There was a lot of fortune in that as well and timing in that.

So I do feel incredibly fortunate to have had that experience, And a lot of players don't get that.

They for whatever reason, don't fit into the system as well as someone else might.

You know, have a coach that doesn't see the positives necessarily in their game and focuses on the negative.

So so much can so much can impact a players experience of life in an AFL club.

It's a good time to be kicking sixty three goals.

You're out of contract at the end of that year, you signed a new deal.

Were there any other clubs coming for you at that stage?

Ben, you signed a new deal to the end of twenty twenty as it was, we were always going to stay at North.

Yeah, I was.

There were a few little feelers I remember out at the time.

Yeah.

No, I never considered that stage going anywhere else.

Yea.

And I was pretty comfortable with where I was at at North Melbourne, probably at that stage and pretty much at every stage of my time at North Melbourne, I thought I was going to play at North Melbourne.

Yeah, until the end.

Sixty one goals, youkick sixty one to twenty four.

You had a beautiful set shot ROUTATET so you only missed finals by a game of percentage.

You finished second in the Coleman You see you're almost on the upswing again with a young side that's going places.

Yeah, yeah, I think it.

On reflection, I think what we missed.

You said we missed finals by percentage, But I feel like we probably outplayed ourselves that year to go from having the list clean out that we did at the end of twenty sixteen and then twenty seventeen we only beat Brisbane for the Spoon to finish fifteenth I think it was, and then to finish ninth.

I think we're probably playing above our pay grade that year.

And yeah, I mean, it was exciting to be playing better foot of you always want to be winning, but I feel like we were on the up swing.

We're still very young.

That probably impacted things from there, I think.

So then your coach gets moved on, sacked, whatever it is, difference of opinions.

Do you remember where you are when you realize, hang on, my first coach you believed so much and is going to be moved on?

Yeah, it was.

I remember coming to the football club and you know, all the players standing around and listening to the press conference and sort of wondering what's going to change, what's going to Yeah, I suppose, yeah, yeah, he always think about that kind of thing.

And I'd only ever had Brad as a coach at AFL level and that was all I knew.

So it was certainly going to be a period of change.

What that change is going to look like, I wasn't sure.

But yeah, it's definitely emotional too, because as I said, Brad had put so much, so much faith in me as a as a player, and and as I said, you know, the the kind of way that the team played at that time I think really suited me in the way I played, So yeah, it was.

It was definitely an emotional time.

It was and Brad now it's weird, it's come full circle.

My office is on my office, My my desk is right next to Brad's office.

So we say a lot to each other in the in the hallways now at Essendon.

So it's it's strange how things come back around.

And as well, like I'll say too, Brad was was present for me over his years, even at the AFL would call and check in.

You would often speak to him even after that.

Yeah, absolutely, which for me was incredibly important.

And like for him to be there for me at some difficult times in my career and to be another year for me and to show that interest in a player that he really had no right to or need to show interest in.

Yeah, that was.

That was pretty special for me to So Reshaw's the caretaker coach.

He comes in playing hard ballistic football.

He gets the gig.

I remember just you know, seeing him at the end of that season, you thought, this bloke is going to be a coaching great.

How challenging was it for him?

You know he had his mental health battles as well.

How what's it like to see the unraveling almost of a senior coach, which must be so tough.

It was.

It was tough, and I feel for recent a way.

I think he came in as a young coach, and for a young coach coming in and having your first experience and then having most of your football department stripped away from you and sent off to a hub to coach with a really young team, a young, inexperienced team, and coming off the promise of the previous year as well, I can imagine how that would have would have weighed on him.

And yeah, it was an incredibly tough experience in the hubs in twenty twenty as well.

I struggled a lot in that environment and obviously that year didn't go as as I would have liked personally, but yeah, it was to have all of the to have all of the support taken away from football clubs would have been difficult, not only for North Melbourne but I'm sure a lot of other clubs too would have really struggled to just provide the support that players that staff needed in that environment to be able to continue to play footy at that time.

I think was really important for a lot of people and for the AFL to be able to keep that going in some respect, I think it was important not only for people in the industry, but for people back home who were yeah, nodding your head, sitting.

Back on the couch and that as well.

It was a pretty important time.

Jadon Stevens had talked about one hundred and five days in the Hub.

They might have been playing final, so fractionally longer than you.

Yeah, there'd be people who say, you know what, I lost my job.

You likes to play football in these beautiful luxury resorts in Queensland.

That's not the experience, but distilled for us why it was so challenging for IFL players.

I think it was again, I can only speak for it from my experience in the hub.

I think.

You know, we had we had the option of taking our partners and kids up with us, and for me that was a no brainer in order to sort of have them there with me.

And initially it was said that we might be up there for twenty days or something like that, or a couple of weeks.

And for the even for the partners and the kids who had to go into two weeks of quarantine to be able to join their partners in you know, after that point.

I'm really happy that we did things the way we did them, but the there was just not the ability to support people in the way that they needed to be supported, and a lot of.

Them, as you say, the foot departments basically had to cut their stuff so there was none of them back up.

Yeah, I mean North Melbourne didn't take their psychologists alone so into an environment where they would be as important as the senior coach as anyone.

So yeah, that the but that was kind of the nature of things and that you know, even people at the club would have had to have made those decisions incredibly quickly, without without any precedence for what the best scenario was, so being being shifted around and again from our experience at Northwall losing every week, so it was it wasn't a fun place to be, no respite.

And losing often because you know there was short and games.

And no escape from from it.

Really there twenty four to seven, you can't get away from it.

Yeah, yeah, again, there were in order to continue with our jobs and be able to do what we were able to do.

I think what was done was the best the best that people could do at that time.

But yeah, it was incredibly and it was challenging for you to in that sense, you were about to come out of contract at the end of that year.

The previous year, you know, the second last game, you've shown how good you were.

You've kicked ten goals against Port Adelaide for number ten.

This is.

Ben Brown.

It's double figures.

Flying.

How close were you to signing a contract earlier in that twenty twenty season, was the contract was on the table.

It was a really interesting time in that At the end of that twenty nine seen seasons, as you said, you'd I just I just had a big three years.

One hundred and eighty eight girls.

It's in sixty six games Ralfi.

So at that stage I felt like, you know, I was about the peak of my powers.

I was playing really good footy.

We along with my management, sort of we talked to the footy club.

We didn't really have people to talk to at that point because we didn't have a senior coach, we didn't have a general manager of footy, so the ability to communicate and talk about contracts at that time was incredibly limited.

We're sort of told you'll just have to wait and have to wait, which was fine.

As with most contract negotiations.

We started out and I think it would be very rare for a player to have the first contract put in front of them and you go, yep, great, let's move it on, which I think I'd done in maybe twenty sixteen after a little bit of cushion.

But you know, this one, we sort of started out, We started out apart, were.

Sort of.

Working to come together, as I think happens with pretty much every contract negotiation.

But again, things were moving very slowly because we didn't really have a football department to talk to, a general manager of footy to talk to about these things.

Brady Rawlings is in the process of coming across to the.

End of sorry, the end of twenty twenty nineteen.

Yeah yeah, And then part of the way through those discussions, COVID hit and there was a contract freeze.

So we were halfway through those negotiations and sort of starting to come together on them, and we literally weren't allowed to help communicate and talk about contracts anymore.

So as of course had taken that manaf you pay card and people were working through what the CBA.

Will even look like.

Yeah yeah, yeah, So at that stage for me, it was like, all right, we're going to go to the Hubs.

We've just got to play footy.

As things transpired, my form was not great in the Hubs.

We were struggling as a team, probably struggling with a new system and how to implement that.

And I got injured part of the way through that year, and you.

Played none of the first ten then didn't play after around ten.

Yeah.

Yeah, so knee injury and yeah, and was out for the remainder of that season.

So when the contract freeze ended, it went from we're having a negotiation to there's no contract for you and you've got to look somewhere else.

So how early did you know that I exit interview or this is way before exit interview?

I was told, But I knew before that.

Yeah, but no one had told you.

You just heard around the traps or someone had.

Actually it was.

It was relatively clear to me that they wanted to move in a different direction at that point, and I think the way the club was going, I could understand that to an extent that I was not the only one who has moved on.

At the end of that year, I think they decided that they wanted to go down the youth route.

Shawn Higgins has moved on, Jamie McMillan has moved on a couple of others.

I think too.

So in terms of lack how it played out, I can very much understand that the club just wanted to go in a different direction.

I don't necessarily harbor any any poor feelings towards anyone for how that played out.

I think it was a whole set of circumstances that we were working through at the club was working through that everyone was working through, and it was unfortunate that I had seen myself as I'm going to be a North Melbourne player for COVID.

Doesn't hit you probably are in that sense that that contract get signed and.

Yeah, potentially potentially, Yeah, it was again circumstances.

Circumstances are different.

Who knows, who knows what might have happened as it transpired.

I think the reports and take them, you know, the truth throughout the reports.

But the reports where you guys are looking for four years about seven fifty at one stage they were looking for three years, as you say, you were haggling.

So Rabanaskaus, your manager, took some criticism for the likes of David King, who suggests that you know, one of a better expression.

He bunked it.

So there was no real contract that you could sign at that stage that was pulled out of the table that was satisfactory to you.

My point is Rama didn't do anything wrong.

Oh no, no, he didn't, And that is absolutely true that the club had a three year deal in front of us.

We'd put four years back.

At that stage, my mind was, I've had a few good years.

This is going to be the last contract really that I'll probably sign.

That's a reasonable length of time, and I was thinking about, you know, the you know, the four years would give that extra security of knowing that I was at a club for for longer in terms of where we would have got to had we continued those discussions, maybe we would have signed a three year deal at the end.

I think it was so, and this is where all the discussion around it, I think didn't really take into.

Account the circumstances.

As I said before, we were right at the beginning of a discussion, like of course we're going to say four years and they're going to say three.

Like we're trying to get the best, the best scenario for both.

So I think who knows those discussions, if they had to progressed further than being like right at the start of the conversation, probably would have progressed further and we would have found a middle ground.

As happens with every contract negotiation.

As it was, COVID hits no general manager of football, no coach.

That's pretty hard to like, it's pretty hard to make those calls.

So but in terms of.

From my perspective, I don't harbor any ill feeling.

How traumatic was that year for you with Hester as well?

It was?

It was a tough year, wasn't it, that whole season, not just football personal as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well we went up to the Hubs and Hess was incredibly unwell.

She was pregnant with our second second child at that time.

We found out a stage along that journey that Asma our second was a twin, and we lost one of those twins relatively early on in the pregnancy, vanishing twin.

So going through all that experience without having the family and the support around necessarily to deal with that properly, and also trying to head to training when we had a one and a half year old and my wife incredibly sick and spewing up multiple times a day and still trying to be able to perform in that environment.

She went to hospital at one point because through the through the through the illness.

So yeah, it was it was incredibly challenging just being in that environment.

Uh.

And and also not playing the football personally or as a team as as we would have liked to, and then having the injury off the back of that.

It all probably exacerbated things.

It's probably, yeah, in terms of mentally and how it was getting through that year is probably as tough as it's been for us.

But yeah, these these things, these things happen.

You just got to push through and get through them as best you can.

How did you get to Melbourne?

It was probably a process through after that exit interview, looking at what are the next options?

Melbourne came to me and where immediately I felt like it was clear why they wanted me as a player and they saw the strengths that I could bring.

And I remember sitting in that first meeting with Simon Goodwin and Alan Richardson and I think Gorney was in the first meeting that I had with them too, so sort of showed their interest levels and I remember them saying that we feel like we're in a premiership window.

And I don't know if everyone at that time would have thought the same, but that's fair point.

But when they explained it and said these are the players we've got, this is what we're building, it did I could believe it.

So yeah, it became it became pretty clear that that they were sort of the front runners there and that I could potentially go across and sort of reignite my career at that point because I'd taken a hit, I suppose in confidence and in the my strengths and what I could bring to a team.

So to hear that a club could see those strengths and wanted to bring them out, it was a really positive thing for me.

Your links with Simon Goodwin, how was that?

Like?

He was obviously at the first meeting and got you a spot in the team, said here's where you're going to play.

How was he to you?

Like we've just.

Seen a lot of his current players sort of talk about how important he was for them.

How important was he for you?

Well, I mean the club and good you took a took a punt on took a punt on me.

I'd just come off a knee injury, Yep, I'd had multiple knee injuries before that point, So they're taking a guy who's potentially got that cloud over him, that had that had a poor year by all, buy everything from an external point of view, at least the previous the previous season.

So in order to see through all of that and to give you an opportunity and feel like you can fit into something that was incredibly important for me.

I think from from really early on, I remember sort of walking around walking around the ground out at Casey Fields with him and saying, we don't need you to we don't need you to get there straight away, just to know that you know we back in and we know that you're going to put the work into to do what you need to do.

Even when I even when I came in in twenty twenty one, played a couple of games and then was dropped back to the VFL, the support you know from him was still there and he believed that I could get back to play my best football.

And yeah, that was important in terms of getting back to my best the back end of twenty one.

So you missed until round seven within the you play around seven to nine, then I think you missed with some injury.

Did you play some VFL or some of that formulated before you got back in for round seventeen, And obviously we know what that built towards.

Yeah, it was form related.

I played a couple of games and probably, like I had a little bit in twenty twenty, probably went away from some of the things that made me a really good player, and I needed to rediscover that for myself.

I think as much as anything, I remember going back and playing my first game back in the VFL after being dropped.

I was against GWS out at Casey, and I remember just being so resoundedly, resoundingly beaten.

I think I had four or five touches, couldn't get near It felt just felt like I'd forgotten how to play football.

And the following five weeks, I think it was in the VFL where that's probably the moment I think back on with the most pride, is that I was able to dig myself out of that hole that I was in.

I'd had twelve to eighteen months of probably feeling like I couldn't discover where my best form was at or how to find that again, and I went back and watched some old vision of myself playing well and then probably competed it to that GWS game, and I went, what am I doing now that I wasn't doing then and vice versa, and I just saw a few things that it looked like watching a different player.

So okay, I'm going to get back to my best.

These are the things I've got to do.

I started.

I got a little book and started writing just one thing I was going to do each training session, in each game, I'd start with today.

I will do this because for me, I think I got to that point where I was trying.

I had a million things in my head that I needed to get exactly right and get perfect down on the field, and it meant that I basically collapsed in on myself and I got so tight that I couldn't do anything because I had to be perfect.

So to be able to write those little things in that book and tick them off when I did them well, whether it's a training or a game, it simplified the game again and made it go.

I just want to launch into contest today.

That's all I want to do.

Maybe forget about the goal kicking, and maybe forget about having to be perfect in every body up one v one contest, like, these are the things that make me a good player.

This is what I want to go back to doing.

And I did that and I managed to get back into the side after playing in playing in the twos for six weeks, and then to be able to actually not just be part of a flag but to feel like I really contributed to that team in the back part of that year.

That's something that I you know, that sort of resilience piece me out to bounce back with something that I'm probably most proud of in my career.

What part of you, yeah, you're in hubs again, you're away from your family at that stage.

What part of you think saying on more a chance here because you've beat Brisbane in a qualifying final goal, We've beat Geelong on a prelim and then of course you're into a WA based Grand final.

It just it was a really good feeling around that group.

I think we had very minimal injuries that year.

I think towards the back particularly, we were an incredibly healthy list.

So we had players that have played a good chunk of football together with each other coming into the coming into the finals and coming to the Grand Final, which I think really helped we also had a really driven group underneath that sort of core group who were training us incredibly hard and going at us.

In training.

That weren't in the team.

But and forever for I've seen scenarios where some of those players are just switch off and I'm not getting back into this team and I'm just going to get I'm going to check out and I'm going to get through training.

These guys were not checked out.

So the ability pushing and pushing and push, the ability for the coaching staff and everyone who was there to be able to keep that motivation going, I think was incredibly important for us.

But it did feel like we were building something, building something pretty special.

Go through that.

Ben kick gold Brisbane and you kick too against Gelong in the preliminary final.

What are your thoughts You're in a grand final, you came so close or you know a couple of preliminary finals, what are your thoughts going into that grand fall?

Your family sort of split hester and the kids back here if Tasmanian family can go.

I think there was a week off that year was the week off before the Grand Fall.

And I've forgotten it all.

I've got toxic Apart from the flag of the quarter for me a bit.

Of a wait.

But yeah, to get the family across from Tasmania was great.

But how tough is it that Hester and the kids back here in Melbourne.

Well, yeah, they went through I mean for Hess and the kids, like Hess went through some of the toughest times with me, and I think for me, I would have loved to have been able to share that that the biggest moment with her, and so that was incredibly difficult in the fact that at that time she had to hold it all together while we had a baby who was barely sleeping at that time.

I think she'd nearly lost her mind while I was in those husbands.

For her to be able to every video call that I had with her and the kids was positive and I love what you're doing and I want you to succeed that I will.

I really cherish how much she was able to support me through what was really a pretty horrific time.

But to have my tazzy bassed family, mom and dad, my brothers, my Gradma came over, the game.

Melissa and Doug.

Four of your five brothers, Alex, James, Luke, Dominic, only Cameron worked missed through work.

Everyone was there.

Yes, to have them in the rooms afterwards was so so amazing, and yeah, that whole, that whole experience of that Grand Final was just yeah, bizarre and a lot of take us through the game.

Stephen May of course at the other end, has a hamstring issue, might have been six centimentitary.

He didn't want to know.

Plays on Norton, who doesn't really expose him.

Pod Deppelli in that second court second order was catching fire.

You kick three goals, Take us through the flow of an incredible game.

Yeah, I remember I was incredibly nervous the night before, the night before the game.

Again, I wrote a lot in that year.

I wrote down in my little notebook all the things that I was telling myself might happen that were making me feel nervous.

And then just and then I wrote on the other page one, I'm going to write back to that voice that really cald me down.

Going to the game still obviously incredibly nervous, but that gave me the gave me the confidence that I, yeah, I was ready to go.

In terms of the game.

I remember sitting down halfway through that third quarter on the bench and going just we feel like we were in like third year here and we haven't got going yet, but this game is going to get away from us.

We're going to lose.

One kicks the goal at the twelve minute mark and then nineteen points in front.

I think everyone thinks the momentum switched.

Yep.

I felt that too.

You can't contempally, this is some game he's playing.

Yeah.

I just thought we've got to get going here.

It would be a huge opportunity missed.

It felt like coming out of the the other finals that we were just primed and ready to go, and the Bulldogs are going to win and then Yeah, I've never been part of anything like at the end of that third quarter before it was just the one for guarding.

Surely not another one had got a lot of streaming.

True, It's just a wave, wasn't it.

Really.

It was just a wave of momentum.

Yeah, the easiest, well, the hardest seventy four points when you've ever seen because it was hard, but it just was extraordinary.

Yeah.

I I to be out there on the ground while that was what that was going on to participate in it to.

Yeah.

Ah, that's something you just look back on and just shake your head.

So they kicked a lot of those goals over your head.

But what was it like looking as you know, Luke Jackson and Petracker and Oliver and resting it out of the stoppages and just bombing it from fifty and as that's ticking along, you're thinking, we're a chancey, hang on, we're in a great position.

Hang on, wi caut lose.

Yeah, I think that was what we'd built throughout that whole year was I don't think I've come across many teams that were as good at being able to get the ball out of a contest to the outside as we did.

And that was you know, Clary and Track and Jack Viney and all these time Cozy Picket, Young Cozy Picket at that stage Luke Jackson.

Just their ability to get out of contest and get it to the outside.

And that was the thing that the Bulldogs have been able to take away from us, and suddenly we're able to get the ball out.

It just it felt like it felt like this is us at our absolute best.

But yeah, the last the last ten or fifteen minutes was really fun because we got to the end of a Grand Final.

We know, a home.

As you say, you didn't play in that Grand Final.

You really contributed that Grand Final?

How important is that for you?

And you're a grandkid telling the kids you put the access in whatever it is to say, yeah, I stood up.

It's it's really cool.

It's something that no one can ever take away from me that I was able to that I was able to do that, I was able to contribute to a Grand Final winning team.

You know, I wasn't just there.

I played really well.

And the fact that I can say that after that previous sort of eighteen months it was the real rollercoaster of that AFL can be.

But yeah, incredibly proud of it.

You know something that I think, Yeah, maybe I'll tell the grand kids in the future.

If I'm a Melbourne fan, I'm thinking, O catch you just got sacked this week as we're recording this podcast.

What went wrong in those intervening years?

You kick thirty goals in nineteen games in twenty twenty two more challenging in terms of some of your injuries.

How do you distill Yeah, that the challenges Melbourne faced and ultimately wasn't able to respond to.

Yeah.

Probably in terms of that twenty twenty one year, As I said, like, we were remarkably healthy at the back end of that year.

I think we had various struggles to at times in those following years with injuries to key players, even in twenty twenty four, like Angus Brayshaw and what he went through to lose a player of that ilk in the pre season.

Well everything, yeah, everything.

He was so integral to the fabric of Melbourne, what made Melbourne what it was.

Yeah, that was that we probably struggled to get back to that level of having everyone out on the park at the same time.

And yeah, for me personally, it was a case of sort of battling my body the last couple of years a little bit more, which was something that I mentally tried to put to the back of my mind.

So you never want to be thinking about that kind of thing.

But yeah, it did get it did get more difficult.

People have talked about the culture of Melbourne.

It's been spoken about more than any other club.

What is the culture of Melbourne that you lived through and experience.

You saw some highs, you saw some lows.

Is it hard to define?

You know in a couple of minute answer to sum it up, Yeah, it probably is.

Did Melbourne and people in Melbourne do everything right over the last few years.

I don't necessarily think they did.

I think, you know, AFL clubs are far from perfect.

What I would say is that I don't think it's ever as bad or as good as it seems.

I really love that term in terms of talking of that phrase, in terms of talking about AFL clubs, it was it was it was another AFL club, just another AFL club to be actually in the place.

The way that the coaches the players were able to you know, get through any get through any point like or any hardship that came up, or anything in the media.

It was it was being able to move on and get on with football and get on with trying to be the best team we could be.

I feel like being able to bring things back to to just what are we trying to do as a as a footy team.

That's what most clubs will do.

That's what Melbourne did.

I don't think it was, you know, anything to write home about.

So when it was finished, yeah, Jadon Stephenson said, I'm free, Stewart Cranery said, I'm free.

You probably knew by the end it was time your body was packing up to a certain extent.

How did it finish up in terms of your career.

Yeah, it was probably as I said, it was tougher those last couple of years.

I'd probably just had a couple of I mean, I had nine knee surgeries by the end of my career, So got to the point where I'd have to warm up in the rooms or in the gym for forty minutes just to get out and train, and I'd just I'd train, and then I'd be sore for the next three days, and then I'd just get up for the game and I'd play, and then I'd be hobbling around at home for the next four days to get up for training.

So, yeah, it was tough to come to terms with that in terms of I could feel like I remembered what it was like to play that best football, but being able to not be able to train it enough to be able to get out on the park and actually do it was difficult.

And to probably lose that that that little bit of.

That little bit of spring and.

Then it so it became inevitable.

Your thought in that twenty twenty four season, I think you played six games that and your last one was like round eleven, that it's I can't do this anymore.

It's yeah, yeah, that it became it became too tough.

Yeah, it did your body.

For a long term perspective as well.

You're a young man, got kids, you want to joy live.

Well, that was one of the biggest things.

Was I want to still be running around with my kids definitely, you know, in ten to fifteen years time.

So yeah, that was definitely definitely a consideration.

But I yeah, I do remember my last VFL game I got, I got one.

I got one last VFL game up and up in Gold Coast and I really wanted to I really wanted to send off on a on a good note.

And yeah, it was nice to be able to do that my last game.

How did you find yourself at the esther Than Footy Club?

A bit of the migration, A lot of the North Melbourne people along with Brad Scott.

What are you doing and tell us about the afl W.

Yeah, so been involved in women's footy since well, going to watch the exhibition games in twenty fourteen.

It must have been when I was just twenty fifteen, when I was just starting out North Melbourne, I really wanted to get involved again.

It was kind of I felt like I had been so incredibly lucky to have the experience that I had had in football.

And you know, I remember playing with girls that I grew up with who were told after grade six at school that there's no team for you to play in.

You've got to go play something else, girls that were at that stage better than me and bigger than me.

I just felt like that wasn't fair.

They didn't get that opportunity.

So that was what drove me into it and going, well, I have I'm lucky enough to have this.

How can I give back to the game in a way that invites more of us into So went down.

First of all, before North Melbourne had a team to help out at Melbourne UNI training sessions had some had like a young Izzy Huntington holding the marketing bag for us as you could, or kicking footies back out for Caitlyn Griser and just having shots at goal.

So met a few players there.

North Melbourne got a team.

Was sort of part of the group that wanted to sort of bring the players in and make them feel like they were really part of the club.

So did some work on that.

Loved being a coach over the last eight nine years.

So when I finished up, I knew I wanted to stay in the W space, and the opportunity came up at Esen then to be their head of development.

They were looking to expand on their on their coaching group and to be able to learn from someone of Natalie Wood's experience in football and experience in the way that she teaches the game was and again, it's very different to be a senior coach at an AFLW club compared to an AFL an AFLM club.

So to just experience the workload and the amount that Woody has to be across, that's given me a real appreciation for what it's like to be, you know, in the women's space.

Last one for me, tell me about your wife.

What an extraordinary woman.

Yeah, I mean, we could do a whole other podcast on that.

Yeah.

I love everything that she is.

I love everything that's that she's about.

She taught me.

She taught me I suppose to be the person that I wanted to be.

She challenged me to be the person that I that I knew internally I wanted to be, but she brought that out in the best way.

She is a wonderful mother.

She is Yeah, she is everything.

Yeah, it's Yeah.

I could talk about her, I could talk about her all day and but just to yeah, to sum it up, she is.

She knows exactly who she is, and she taught me to be comfortable with the person that I am, and that, for me, has been everything.

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