I had a quick chat with the old silver fox, Richard Gere lookalike Donald McDonald. He later spoke to us about some of the pressing issues in the AFL.
Paul Turk made us go for an early morning swim at a local pool and I noticed Drew Petrie and Corey Jones doing a couple of extra laps. I think it’s got something to do with their age and needing extra recovery time. If they had of been in the pool any longer they could have joined the elderly water aerobics session that took place just minutes after we got out.
After the swim we got changed and had a photo with the Herald Sun. The group in the shot was Brent Harvey and some of our up and coming midfielders. Liam Anthony wasn’t too happy with the short notice as he hadn’t had time to do his hair. I felt I coped with the chlorine pretty well and my hairstyle held up nicely in trying circumstances.
On the way back to the motel I had a good chat with some of the boys about some fashion faux pas and Boomer was talking about how he used to wear two different coloured pairs of converse socks. As Boomer is old enough to be my dad, I couldn’t quite recall that particular craze but did remember the undercut hairstyle, the Dunlop Volleys (which Lachie Hansen still wears and thinks are cool). There was also the basketball tracksuit pants which had buttons all the way up the sides - I think they were called snap pants.
After breakfast we headed out to some Ballarat school clinics. Ben Ross drove my group to Emmaus College which consisted of Lindsay Thomas, Brayden ‘Chuck’ Norris and Gavin Urquhart. It was only five minutes from the motel which we were happy about as some other groups had to drive over half an hour.
When we got there the Principal had a welcoming committee for us which was nice. Just as the prep’s arrived, the heavens opened and the session was rained out. Whenever we go to a school, there’s always one kid who says ‘My dad played football’.
At recess we joined some students in the car park for a game of cricket. They can’t hit a ball outside off stump so you have to bowl on the wickets for them to have a chance at hitting it. I hit one kid on the arm with a delivery and later managed to get a wicket with a spectacular one-handed catch. As they say, catches win matches. You just need to seize the opportunities sometimes, and I think I did. Then it was my turn to swing the willow and I stepped up with the bat when it was required. The first ball was a half-tracker from a kid with glasses and freckles; I played it on the leg side for six into a row of parked cars. They just couldn’t get me out after that and I’d say I made at least 50 runs. I was playing off-side, leg-side, just everywhere. Lindsay Thomas tried to fire some heat in, and I smashed it on the off-side straight into a kid’s foot. He wasn’t the only one to get injured…
We played poison ball with some older kids but the game was called off pretty early due to too many casualties. We were playing on a paddock with potholes. I drilled a ball at one girl - she was running along and it hit her foot, it took both of her legs out from under her and she fell to the ground. Her friend then tripped over her own two feet and ran off crying, she was never seen again. Another girl got the ball caught between her feet and face planted into the ground. Ben Ross tried to peg the ball at me when I was running the gauntlet, but he missed and hit a girl right in the face. In hindsight poison ball wasn’t a good idea. By the time we’d finished it was like a scene out of MASH and only about three children left able to continue.
Back at the motel I noticed Alan Obst walking around with his shirt off. It was raining all day and clearly not the weather for it, but each to their own.
After watching the movie ‘Inglorious Basterds’ I headed to Eureka Stadium for the North Melbourne super clinic. There was a great turn-out and plenty of kids were wearing Kangaroos jumpers. There were no injuries but I did hit Lachie Hansen in the head with a footy - he still doesn’t know who threw it.
I had a good chat to Majak Daw at dinner about how he grew up in Sudan and Egypt. I found out that he can speak Arabic and his native tongue, Sudanese. The boys were pretty amazed.
After dinner Drew Petrie, Jack Ziebell, Brent Harvey, John Lamont, Bryce Lewis and I conducted a youth development forum. The local kids walked away with some good tips on how to make it in the AFL and also received a very strong message from John Lamont who told them that Boomer has never missed a training session or been late to the club in 14 years. He delivered it in such a way that all the young kids were struck with fear.
On the ride home, Boomer came up with a potential new segment for the website called ‘Rumour with Boomer’ so stay tuned and remember - you heard it here first.
This is my final Ballarat instalment. Thanks for reading and we’ll be in touch next time the mighty Roos travel.
Follow Swallow: Day one
