Retired Daniel Merrett (2002-2016)
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Mooch
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I can't believe that got 3 matches. Not that it matters in the scheme of things but it was a whole lot of nothing collision really. And the fact that the other dude intentionally initiated the bump should count for something.
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-08-29/big-swan-avoids-ban-sauce-goes-out-with-a-bang
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-08-29/big-swan-avoids-ban-sauce-goes-out-with-a-bang
Hollow Knight
Imperfect vessel
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He should go to the tribunal and then appeal the verdict for a second time, just to drag the whole process out for a suspension that he will never have to serve.
Back2Back2Back
In Fagan we trust.
And he's back:
Bucking Beads
Brownlow Medallist
I thought he was doing a welfare role at our club?
I'd say he'll be doing that in addition to working as an assistant coach with the female team. He mentioned in that video that he's just got back from Melbourne in which he spent time doing a welfare course
Forward We Go
Cancelled
Not captain...they already have appointed their captain. He's committed to play 8 games & finals if they qualify.
Fatcat08
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If i was the coach i'd be having pre game warmups in the morning at Dan's house. Everyone pack and move 10 boxes and that's your warm up
Learning to Love Footy Again
Really cool piece by Dan and good to see he is enjoying his footy again, including as runner of the men's team.
I enjoy footy again.
When I finished my playing career, I was physically shot and mentally cooked. I’d lost the love for the game. Two coaches were sacked, the team wasn’t playing great footy and I was playing fullback. It’s never fun playing fullback in a struggling team. We were conceding the most inside 50s of anyone in two of those final years. Let’s just say I saw a bit of footy.
Joining the Brisbane Lions AFLW coaching staff has given me a chance to take look at the game with fresh eyes and a different perspective. These are women with jobs and families and real-life experience. They’re playing footy for the pure joy of it.
Around match selections you’ll get someone asking, ‘Can you please let me know early if I’m playing this weekend because I’ll have to ask my boss to get Friday off.’ The boys don’t have to contend with anything like that.
It’s a fulltime job and something they’ve been groomed to do since childhood. Their No. 1 priority is to learn about the opposition, refine game plans, work on their craft, gym, recovery, nutrition and so on. They’re protected from real-life situations and problems.
Everything else comes second. At times, that includes family, which is pretty bloody sad when you think about it. Professional sport isn’t fun a lot of the time. It’s too hard. You’re under pressure to win-win-win and you’re pushing your body to its limits every day. Team comradery is what keeps you going but, from an enjoyment point of view, it can be a battle.
The women are more appreciative of the opportunity to get out there and play. AFLW has meant the pathway to footy that once was blocked from their early teens is now clear. There’s the chance to play at any age and, if they’re good enough, at a senior level.
To say the girls are more appreciative might sound like a knock on the boys, but it’s not their fault. A bloke who comes into a footy club as a 17-year-old doesn’t know much about the world outside of the sport and, if he’s any good at it, it will stay that way until he’s well into his 30s. The girls know how hard it is in the real world. They study, work and grind out a living. They play footy on the weekends for the fun of it. You can see it in their faces, in the way they train, in the way they approach gameday.
They love the game. It’s made me fall back in love with it, too.
A SCIENTIST, A FULLBACK
Let me tell you a little about Leah Kaslar.
If you’ve watched many of our games, you’ll know she’s an absolute weapon on the field. She plays the same position I did so I know how good she is. She’s as competitive as they come, man or woman.
But there is much, much more to here than that.
She works as a scientist and has to fly to Newcastle a couple of times a week. And she lives near Coolangatta and that can be a three hour-plus round-trip to training. We train three times a week.
She amazes me. I’ve said to her, ‘Where do you find the energy to train let alone play on the weekends?’ And yet, when she’s on the field, she’s as hard as they come.
This team are the most resilient bunch of people I’ve ever known. At the start of the season we came together as a group and discussed three significant things that have happened in our lives. They have been through so much. Hardship. Adversity. Deaths to close family members. Some of what was said was genuinely heartbreaking. It’s an absolute credit to them they have turned into the people they are.
They love the game. It’s made me fall back in love with it, too. I was a bit naïve to all this before Craig Starcevich invited me to join his coaching team.
For example, I remember when Aasta O’Connor used to work upstairs at the club. She was always in the gym. It never occurred to me at the time that she herself was a good player with no opportunity to play senior footy. When I saw her running out for the Bulldogs, it struck me just how important this competition is. There won’t be another generation of girls denied the opportunity to pursue a career in footy, if that’s what they want to do.
The experience of season two has differed a bit from the first one.
Last year was amazing. Everything was new. We all just rode the wave. This year, when we came back, there were expectations and nerves. They came back in really good condition and had great pre-seasons which led to great seasons. I’m talking about players like Jess Wuetschner, Ally Anderson and Kate Lutkins.
WOMEN’S FOOTY VS THE BLOKES
There are a few differences between a women’s footy environment and the one I came from. You’ll ask the boys at training, ‘How’d that drill go?’ ‘Yeah, nah, good.’
You ask the girls the same thing and they analyse everything. You almost have to say, ‘Righto, time-out, we’ve got to get to the next drill,’ otherwise we’d be standing there breaking everything down all night! They’re very switched on. I was treading on eggshells a bit at first.
I’d shout out something like, ‘Pick up your man! I mean, woman. Pick up your woman! No, wait, that doesn’t sound right …’ There was another moment that cracked me up. Brent Staker was at training one day and he wasn’t happy with the intensity he was seeing out there. He shouted, ‘Jesus! Come on! You’re training like a bunch of schoolgirls!’
‘Mate, I don’t know it that works,’ I said to him. ‘We do have a couple of schoolgirls out there.’ Everyone pissed themselves laughing. The girls saw the humour in it. They’ve been way more relaxed than us about these kinds of things from the start.
Another funny thing is the pre-game experience. You’ll walk into a blokes’ locker room before a game and there’ll be a bit of music playing. Typical male pump-up stuff. You know the kind I mean.
It’s pretty different when you walk into our dressing room now. It’s non-stop girl anthems and singalongs and songs to dance to. Britney, Spice Girls, the list goes on. If you closed your eyes, you would swear you were at a slumber party!
The most rewarding thing as a coach in the AFLW is seeing the immediate difference your advice can have on the players. These women have had little-to-no one-on-one coaching in their lives. Whereas you’ll see small improvements in the boys you coach – again, they’ve been primed for this for a decade via the pathways, the academies and the under 18s – with the girls, it’s a quantum leap. The results are immediate.
When I’m doing bodywork, I’ll tell them, ‘Just get under their hips and nudge them under the ball.’ They’ll say, ‘Are you allowed to do that? I didn’t think you’re allowed to push them.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, you’re just not allowed to push them in the back.’
It’s really cool. There is so much to work with, so much improvement.
THE REAL VICTORY
We had our chairman’s dinner the other night. It used to be for the male players, but that’s changed the last two years with the women’s team making the grand final both times. It’s changed the conversation.
Rhys Mathieson and Benny Keays were the early adopters among the boys. They knew all the girls and their stats last year. Now everyone is on board. Luke Hodge was talking to Stakes the other night and saying how much he’d enjoyed watching the AFLW this year, having not watched it much last season. That was a pretty common theme across the night.
It’s not surprising to me. The contests are thrilling and anyone who gives the game a chance will see that. I get frustrated when I see keyboard warriors trying to shoot the league down. By saying ‘They don’t score enough,’ or, ‘Their skills aren’t great,’ means you’re really not watching the game for what it is.
I love the way the girls compete and have a crack. You can never question their commitment, desire or bravery. They give their all. Skills will develop over time as the league evolves and the pathways develop.
As a coach, I constantly say to them, ‘All I want you to do is compete’. That’s controllable. The bounce of the footy, how your opponent is playing, the umpiring and the weather – that’s all out of your hands. But the willingness to have a crack is completely within the individual.
Part of me is looking forward to the AFLW expanding, developing and becoming more professional. Humans are always seeking perfection. We are always seeking to improve.
But part of me likes the way it is now. Female athletes, with lives outside of the game, playing footy for the joy of it. Winning is obviously important and, trust me, we’ll be leaving no stone unturned ahead of the grand final against the Bulldogs. But I reckon in life there are wins that don’t show up on a scoreboard.
This league is one of those. For everything it means now. And for everything it means for the generations to come.
Really cool piece by Dan and good to see he is enjoying his footy again, including as runner of the men's team.
Thanks for posting D12. Great article
Mavlions1961
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ZoBlitz
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2023 Football Hall of Fame – Daniel Merrett
Daniel Merrett is a triumph for AFL Queensland’s Talent Identification Program. He grew up playing rugby league, cricket, volleyball, and touch football and finished a 200-game AFL player with the Brisbane Lions.
It all changed one Saturday afternoon in mid-2001 when the 195cm redhead, whose family was originally from Adelaide, was watching some mates play for Surfers Paradise Under-18’s at Broadbeach. They were short so he filled in and remembered it well.
“I first went on at centre-half-forward or centre-half-back – I’m not sure which because I didn’t know which was which at the time – and then they threw me into the ruck. I loved it and I got a $5 award. After that, they gave me $2 a week to play, and I was getting $10 in awards. It was like ‘how good is this?” he recounted.
He quickly found himself in the Surfers Paradise seniors and with a little help from AFLQ Development Manager Mark Browning, was given a run in the Brisbane Lions Reserves in their last game of the qualifying rounds. It was his ninth game of football. He joined the AFLQ Talent Search Program in 2002 and in less than 12 months, was drafted by the Lions at #30 in the 2002 National Draft.
Among those drafted behind him were 222-game Sydney premiership player and five-time grand final player Sean Dempster (#34), Essendon captain and 220-gamer Jobe Watson (#40), Carlton captain and 342-gamer Kade Simpson (#45), Sydney premiership player and 210-gamer Nick Malceski (#64), and two standout rookies – Hawthorn 200-game dual premiership player Brad Sewell, and Collingwood 208-game premiership captain Nick Maxwell.
It was Round 2 2005 before he made his AFL debut, but after three Brownlow Medal votes in his 11th game against Collingwood he was a fixture for 12 years thereafter.
Blessed with a generous mix of speed and power, he was among the premier key defenders in the competition through his prime. He was an occasional ‘weapon’ up forward like in the Lions’ very first game against GWS at the Gabba in 2012 when he kicked seven goals – five in the first quarter.
Elevated to the Lions leadership group in 2009, he finished top 10 in the best and fairest three times and was the 11thQueenslander to reach 200 games in his last game in Round 23 2016, following Jason Dunstall (1994), Scott McIvor (1997), Gavin Crosisca (1997), Marcus Ashcroft (1999), Michael Voss (2003), Jason Akermanis (2004), Mal Michael (2006), Max Hudghton (2007), Nick Riewoldt (2011) and David Hale (2014), and preceding Jarrod Harbrow (2017), Sam Gilbert (2018) and Dayne Zorko (2021).
In retirement, he worked in the Lions sales and marketing department for three years and was a four-year assistant coach of the Brisbane Lions AFLW team from their inception in 2017, deputising as senior coach once in 2020 when Craig Starcevich was hospitalised.
