Seb
7 Dec 2003, 08:26
Just took it from The Age, real footy.
The article (along with a picture of Mooney training) can be found here (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/06/1070625574690.html)
Mooney set for do-or-die stand
December 7, 2003
Cameron Mooney knows that even at the relatively young age of 24, he's just one poor season away from the AFL scrapheap. It's a position he's determined to rectify in 2004.
The big Geelong forward is also patently aware that in doing so, he could bury an unfortunate reputation as a footballer who has had more than his fair share of troubles.
That reputation started developing not long after the younger brother of former Swan Jason Mooney was drafted by the Kangaroos in 1996. In that first pre-season, the young recruit ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament, which delayed his senior debut by two years. When it finally came, in 1999, Mooney was promptly traded to Geelong, where he could manage only six games in 2000 because of persistent groin injuries.
In 2001, Mooney avoided injury, but not suspension. He was outed for a total of five weeks on a couple of highly publicised striking charges that also earned a public rebuke from coach Mark Thompson and scathing criticism from respected commentator Robert Walls in his column in The Age.
Then, after a promising end to 2002, Mooney's 2003 disintegrated under the weight of more injury, a spat with the coach and, finally, shattered confidence.
The shining jewel in his stop-start, 61-game, seven-season career is the premiership medallion he won with the Kangaroos in just his 11th and final senior game with that club. Talk with Mooney and you realise he's every bit as hard on himself as AFL football appears to have been on him.
"I started on the ground (in the 1999 grand final), but spent a lot more time on the bench," he recalls. "I didn't get a kick ... I feel I didn't really earn that one, and I didn't, because I came in for Jason McCartney, who was suspended. I don't think anyone even remembers I played in it."
Mooney is no less realistic about where his career is at. "I think next year's my last if I don't get a kick, to be honest. That was my seventh season for 60 games; blokes play 70 in three years these days. Half of it's my own fault, anyway. If I don't play at least 20 games this year, my career's gone."
"So what?", might ask a significant percentage of disgruntled Geelong fans, who have consigned Mooney to the growing pile of key forwards who have failed to solve the Cats' goalkicking problems.
It's the tantalising glimpses the powerfully built and agile big man has shown; it's the possibility that Mooney could still be a key to Geelong's season.
"We've all seen the good bits of form he's shown," says a still-hopeful Cats coach Mark Thompson, "and we all know he's capable of repeating it. In the end, we need someone to stand up and kick some goals, and if you're looking how you're going to field a side for round one, well, Mooney's there."
He was more than pencilled in there for round one last season, too, until he rolled an ankle in a Wizard Cup semi-final against Collingwood, an injury from which neither he nor the Cats' forward structure recovered. "He kept trying to come back and didn't have any range or flexibility in the ankle at all," says Thompson. "It impacted on his form and ours, and then everybody was telling us our forward line was no good."
It got to everyone, says Mooney. "We were losing, he (Thompson) was under pressure, I was playing bad, I had the s---s, and we just clashed a couple of times - nothing personal, that's just footy.
"But it was the first pre-season I'd done for two or three years. I was the fittest and strongest I'd been, then I rolled my ankle really badly. I missed a month's training just before the season started and I just lost so much fitness. We'd bulked up pre-season, and I wasn't fit enough to carry the weight. I just lost everything and, in the end, mentally, it just (hurt me) really badly."
It's confidence - or rather the lack of it - that Mooney admits is perhaps the biggest weakness in his make-up.
"I think that's what frustrates people. For a quarter or a half, I can do something, then I go completely missing. You see a lot of mentally strong guys out there, and I'm not there mentally.
"I've been trying to overcome it, but it's just something I haven't been able to get over. Everyone is hard on themselves, but I'm extra hard on myself and I think that's a big problem. I just get myself down and instead of staying positive, I go straight to the negatives."
The best part of 2003 for Mooney might have come after Geelong's season was over. With the club football trip cancelled, he, Steven King, Matthew Scarlett, Brenton Sanderson and Joel Corey took off for Mexico. Mooney says it was "probably the best 10 days of my life".
The break enabled him to clear at least some of the mental demons and doubt and, noticeably, it's Mooney who has been one of the most enthusiastic players at pre-season training.
"I had the ankle operated on and it came up pretty well," he says. ". . . Now that's back on track, I reckon I'll be all right."
If he is, not only might a career be revived, but, quite possibly given Geelong's perennial goalkicking problems, the Cats' finals hopes to boot. And if not, Mooney knows the consequences. "Mate, I'd be in Europe next year," he says.
The article (along with a picture of Mooney training) can be found here (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/06/1070625574690.html)
Mooney set for do-or-die stand
December 7, 2003
Cameron Mooney knows that even at the relatively young age of 24, he's just one poor season away from the AFL scrapheap. It's a position he's determined to rectify in 2004.
The big Geelong forward is also patently aware that in doing so, he could bury an unfortunate reputation as a footballer who has had more than his fair share of troubles.
That reputation started developing not long after the younger brother of former Swan Jason Mooney was drafted by the Kangaroos in 1996. In that first pre-season, the young recruit ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament, which delayed his senior debut by two years. When it finally came, in 1999, Mooney was promptly traded to Geelong, where he could manage only six games in 2000 because of persistent groin injuries.
In 2001, Mooney avoided injury, but not suspension. He was outed for a total of five weeks on a couple of highly publicised striking charges that also earned a public rebuke from coach Mark Thompson and scathing criticism from respected commentator Robert Walls in his column in The Age.
Then, after a promising end to 2002, Mooney's 2003 disintegrated under the weight of more injury, a spat with the coach and, finally, shattered confidence.
The shining jewel in his stop-start, 61-game, seven-season career is the premiership medallion he won with the Kangaroos in just his 11th and final senior game with that club. Talk with Mooney and you realise he's every bit as hard on himself as AFL football appears to have been on him.
"I started on the ground (in the 1999 grand final), but spent a lot more time on the bench," he recalls. "I didn't get a kick ... I feel I didn't really earn that one, and I didn't, because I came in for Jason McCartney, who was suspended. I don't think anyone even remembers I played in it."
Mooney is no less realistic about where his career is at. "I think next year's my last if I don't get a kick, to be honest. That was my seventh season for 60 games; blokes play 70 in three years these days. Half of it's my own fault, anyway. If I don't play at least 20 games this year, my career's gone."
"So what?", might ask a significant percentage of disgruntled Geelong fans, who have consigned Mooney to the growing pile of key forwards who have failed to solve the Cats' goalkicking problems.
It's the tantalising glimpses the powerfully built and agile big man has shown; it's the possibility that Mooney could still be a key to Geelong's season.
"We've all seen the good bits of form he's shown," says a still-hopeful Cats coach Mark Thompson, "and we all know he's capable of repeating it. In the end, we need someone to stand up and kick some goals, and if you're looking how you're going to field a side for round one, well, Mooney's there."
He was more than pencilled in there for round one last season, too, until he rolled an ankle in a Wizard Cup semi-final against Collingwood, an injury from which neither he nor the Cats' forward structure recovered. "He kept trying to come back and didn't have any range or flexibility in the ankle at all," says Thompson. "It impacted on his form and ours, and then everybody was telling us our forward line was no good."
It got to everyone, says Mooney. "We were losing, he (Thompson) was under pressure, I was playing bad, I had the s---s, and we just clashed a couple of times - nothing personal, that's just footy.
"But it was the first pre-season I'd done for two or three years. I was the fittest and strongest I'd been, then I rolled my ankle really badly. I missed a month's training just before the season started and I just lost so much fitness. We'd bulked up pre-season, and I wasn't fit enough to carry the weight. I just lost everything and, in the end, mentally, it just (hurt me) really badly."
It's confidence - or rather the lack of it - that Mooney admits is perhaps the biggest weakness in his make-up.
"I think that's what frustrates people. For a quarter or a half, I can do something, then I go completely missing. You see a lot of mentally strong guys out there, and I'm not there mentally.
"I've been trying to overcome it, but it's just something I haven't been able to get over. Everyone is hard on themselves, but I'm extra hard on myself and I think that's a big problem. I just get myself down and instead of staying positive, I go straight to the negatives."
The best part of 2003 for Mooney might have come after Geelong's season was over. With the club football trip cancelled, he, Steven King, Matthew Scarlett, Brenton Sanderson and Joel Corey took off for Mexico. Mooney says it was "probably the best 10 days of my life".
The break enabled him to clear at least some of the mental demons and doubt and, noticeably, it's Mooney who has been one of the most enthusiastic players at pre-season training.
"I had the ankle operated on and it came up pretty well," he says. ". . . Now that's back on track, I reckon I'll be all right."
If he is, not only might a career be revived, but, quite possibly given Geelong's perennial goalkicking problems, the Cats' finals hopes to boot. And if not, Mooney knows the consequences. "Mate, I'd be in Europe next year," he says.