Grimreepah
BigFooty One Armed Man
Link
Charman to stick with aggression
By Andrew Hamilton
March 05, 2007
JAMIE Charman is the classic white-line fever sufferer: a fashion-conscious metrosexual off the field and a growling Lion on it.
And he has no intention of taming his bone-jarring attack despite again finding his name in the umpires' book for striking.
"I won't change my approach," Charman said. "If the ball is around I'm going to attack it. I've always liked the physicality."
The Lions will contest the charge if the AFL's video review panel today deems Charman has a case to answer for striking Bulldog Ryan Hargrave in Friday night's NAB Cup quarter-final win over the Bulldogs.
The events of last year still haunt, when the Lions opted to not fight a charge of rough play on Magpie Anthony Rocca because Charman had injured his back and needed a week off to recover.
An early guilty plea had the charge reduced from a two-week suspension to one but did little for Charman's reputation.
However the premiership ruckman, who owns a men's day spa, does part-time modelling and spent the summer learning to surf, says he does not go out to deliberately intimidate his opponents.
"I think it (aggression) is a valuable tool to the team as long as it's cool aggression," he said. "I'm very relaxed in my own life. Then when I go across the line I get into a different zone."
It has been that way forever.
Up in Cairns they still talk of the impact Charman made in a handful of senior games as a skinny 16-year-old kid with a body like a "baby giraffe".
His first senior game started in memorable and violent fashion, and probably explains Charman's ultra-aggressive style of play.
"I used to wear headgear then one day I just decided it was time to take it off," he said.
"But in my first contest, bang, I got whacked and I was gone, out like a light.
"I was pretty young and he chinned me."
The president at the time of the Cairns Saints, Bruce Gonsalves, says there's more to the story -- the part where Charman got up and dished it back out with interest to anyone who crossed his path.
"His attitude hasn't changed too much since joining the Lions, only he's 20kg heavier," he said. "He's never taken a backward step in his life."
Neither has his coach Leigh Matthews. In fact, "Lethal" has more than once expressed doubts that he'd have managed his own decorated career under the intense scrutiny of umpires in the modern era.
"The game's rules are very, very strict and you have to play within those rules," Matthews said.
And like reformed bad-boy Jonathan Brown, who was once a serial offender but is now a cleanskin with a spot in the club's leadership group, Matthews says Charman's record is unlikely to stand against his future leadership aspirations.