The beginning of Majak Daw’s AFL career will never be forgotten.
His trailblazing, history making journey to becoming the first Sudanese player to pull on an AFL jumper came to realisation as he made his debut in Round 4, 2013, as North Melbourne took on Brisbane.
A moment so key to the modern history of our game, it would be almost impossible for any football fan not to have seen Daw’s first ever goal.
It’s moments like that which make our game so great, and helped inspire generations of Australians, young and old alike.
In an excerpt from his new book “Majak”, Daw describes one of the great moments in modern AFL history.
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“The siren sounded and with it came a wave of energy through my body. The umpire blew his whistle, slammed the ball into the turf and the game was under-way.
“Daniel Wells got the ball from about 75 metres out and bombed it in long with his raking right foot. I quickly identified where the ball was going to drop and found some space behind my opponent. He, too, had run to the drop of the ball but had gone too far underneath it, leaving me a great run and jump at it. I saw Merrett running back with the flight of the incoming footy and knew I had to launch at it. I jumped high over the back of McKeever and marked it, sending him and Merrett crashing to the ground.
“The crowd went berserk. It was a sound I had never experienced before in that way, knowing they were all screaming and shouting for me. Drew Petrie came straight to me and tried to calm my nerves, telling me to breathe deep and take my shot. As I walked back to take my kick the captain, Andrew Swallow, came over and gave me a pat on the bum and told me to block out the noise and go through my practised kicking routine. As I ran in, it was supposed to be about a 30-metre kick, but I stopped so short, because I didn’t want to kick the footy into the man on the mark, I ended up booting it from about 45 metres. Despite my miscalculation, it went dead straight and sailed right through the middle of the goals.
“Lindsay Thomas came hurtling towards me with a look of pure delight on his face and jumped into my arms to celebrate my first goal. In fact, every North player from all over the ground came to congratulate me. I looked up at the scoreboard, took a sneaky look at the replay and realised it had all happened within 20 seconds of the opening bounce. It really was the perfect start to my AFL career.”
“Majak” is available at The Roo Shop now.
