AFL Player #23: Harrison Jones - God-tier Hands

[Lore]

Contract Status: Out of contract 2024
My Boy Draft 2024: Pick 22, Duckworth

 

[Call Me Cake]

I’m interested to see how he goes against the pies.

Not expecting him to kick any goals tbh. More playing a role to structure the forward line, take the attention off the other forwards and create opportunities. Doesn't seem to match up well on the Pies and his last v Collingwood* outing might come back to haunt him.

 

[yodellinhank]

Not expecting him to kick any goals tbh. More playing a role to structure the forward line, take the attention off the other forwards and create opportunities. Doesn't seem to match up well on the Pies and his last Anzac Day outing might come back to haunt him.

Don't remember his last ANZAC outing. I remember the time he choked against the pies and cost Rutten his job.

Paying $81 to win the medal, I think I might get on...

 

[Call Me Cake]

Don't remember his last ANZAC outing. I remember the time he choked against the pies and cost Rutten his job.

Paying $81 to win the medal, I think I might get on...

Yeah I meant to say last outing against Collingwood.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

Harry Jones has seen this game before. He’s played one Anzac Day game in his career, but that isn’t the one he’s thinking about. It’s Thursday’s match, the one he hasn’t yet played. He’s already seen what happens.
The Bomber can see in his head how it plays out against Collingwood. He’s played it over and over beforehand. He saw last week’s game, too, before he played it. Many players dream of kicking five goals, or doing a David Zaharakis

11

David Zaharakis

Age

34

Ht

180cm

Wt

79kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

21.8

5star

K

12.3

5star

HB

9.5

5star

M

4.3

4star

T

3.6

5star

G

0.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

14.6

4star

K

9.4

4star

HB

5.2

4star

M

4.6

5star

T

2.4

4star

G

0.4

3star

and kicking the winning goal on Anzac Day, but that’s not what Jones has seen.

Essendon’s Harry Jones at the Shrine of Remembrance ahead of the Anzac Day game against Collingwood.CREDIT: JOE ARMAO
That’s a dream. What Jones is doing is picturing himself in the game. He runs a reel in his head imagining how it looks when he plays well. He imagines where he goes to get the ball, what he looks like when he jumps to mark, how it feels when he kicks the goal or lays a tackle.
It’s about visualising before performing. In fact, it is about visualising how you perform in order to perform. What do I look like when I play well? Where do I go? How do I mark it?

As much as getting his body right – after ankle surgery and back trouble last year – and having a full pre-season, the physical readiness was only part of the reason he has now strung together the best football of his career. You can’t disentangle the physical from the mental and even the positional – he is relishing being settled in a permanent tall forward role – in contributing to this solid vein of form.
“I wasn’t visualising and putting myself out there in that game situation,” he said of the change and improvement this year after working with psychologist Ben Robbins

Ben Robbins

Age

47

Ht

181cm

Wt

77kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.7

4star

K

6.7

3star

HB

8.0

5star

M

2.2

2star

T

2.7

4star

No current season stats available

D

10.0

3star

K

5.2

2star

HB

4.8

4star

M

2.2

3star

T

0.8

3star

. Coach Brad Scott, too, is a strong advocate of visualisation and talks to Jones about it.
“I know it sounds a bit tacky and corny, but the visualisations for me this year have really been massive, and I think being able to put myself out there and seeing myself doing the actions that I need to do for the team, once I actually am out there, it feels like I have already been there before and I can execute it.

“I remember as a kid, Mum and Dad used to say, ‘Don’t think about it too much, don’t keep going through the game in your head’. But I found this really helpful for me and I never used to really do it, I’ve never done it ever.”
It is a method that might play to Jones’ personality and way of thinking and looking at things. He is about to start a coding degree. He can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in about a minute. Ninety seconds tops.
“It’s a bit more specific than kicking five and winning the game,” he said. “There’s stuff in game visualising [about] getting up the ground, taking marks, kicking goals, stuff to do with launching for the ball, running patterns.
“I think it’s partly reminding yourself how you play best. I’ve always been a pretty good runner – tall, skinny and lanky – so I think I focus on that a lot. Also, my ability to get after it at ground level as well, so once the ball does hit the ground I’m almost like another small forward down there.”
When he was a kid he dreamt more than visualised. An avid Essendon fan, he specifically recalls one Anzac Day when he was about 15 and the silence in the ground, and the playing of The Last Post and the national anthem. He felt the tingles and imagined himself out there one day.

Then his dream became a reality.
“I was, what, 20 years old, and I was a little bit rattled to be honest,” he said of his first Anzac Day match in 2021.
“I was standing out there, and I was just like, ‘Whoa, this is this crazy’, like, who would have thought, you know what I mean? But I think as I’m getting older and a bit more mature, it’s more about taking it in and then coming straight back to the footy because it’s a footy game as well. We’re embracing all the events that are happening around us pre-match, but being able to take that in and perform on the big stage because everyone’s watching is my next step, I think.”

Jones speaks with candour. He is as critical of his previous performances as he is matter of fact about what he wants from football and what he hopes to be. Just being an AFL player doesn’t drive him; he wants to be great. What could sound brash from the mouths of others, and might even read like it on the page, does not sound that way coming from Jones, who has a gentle manner and a quietly grounded self-awareness.
“You’ve always got to pinch yourself and remind yourself that you are an AFL footballer because it’s every kid’s dream of becoming an AFL footballer and I feel like I haven’t played enough games yet to sort of satisfy myself and needing to be a gun AFL football player,” he said.
“I don’t want to just be an AFL football player, I want to be a great AFL football player. I want to be remembered for being a really good player instead of just the guy who came in and made the level and played.”
That carries a weight of self-expectation that perhaps matches that of the Essendon fans who are eager for Jones and the clutch of young top draft picks who arrived the following year to achieve that level of greatness. Jones, pick No.30 in 2019, is invariably bracketed in Bomber conversation with the trio of top 10s taken the next year: Nik Cox (eight), Archie Perkins (nine) and Zach Reid (10), who is now his housemate. He likes the way the group is always put together.
“I love it, I want to come through with these boys and play 100, 150 games with these guys. We’re so close as this younger group coming up. I enjoy being categorised with them because they’re unbelievable players and will be unbelievable players,” he said.

“In my draft year I was a pretty late bloomer, so I didn’t really have the idea in my head that I was going to be drafted until just after the start of year 12 ... then once I got there, it was like, wow, it takes a bit to soak it all in, and it’s hard to really believe.
“I was an Essendon supporter as well and there were these people I watched on TV each week in the locker next to me, so then to come into that it was not overwhelming, it was an unbelievable feeling.
“Now, five seasons in I’m like ‘All right, let’s do this’. I feel like I’ve got a lot of stuff not under control but AFL ready, and now I’ve got to perform and show it on the big stage.”

Coding and Rubik’s Cubes: Inside the mind of Essendon’s boom forward

Essendon’s Harry Jones wants to be remembered for having a great AFL career, and reveals the technique that has unlocked his best footy.

www.theage.com.au

 

[yodellinhank]

Coding and Rubik’s Cubes: Inside the mind of Essendon’s boom forward

Essendon’s Harry Jones wants to be remembered for having a great AFL career, and reveals the technique that has unlocked his best footy.

www.theage.com.au

Harry, do you see the medal around your neck at the end? Do you see me going to collect on my bet but the TAB is shut and then I have to try to pick it up someplace else tomorrow and then I panic because I think I've lost the ticket and then I pull out my phone to text "OMG I lost the bloody ticket" but then I find the ticket in that pocket and the attendant is annoyed at me when they hand over the money as if I took it out of their own pocket... Do you see that, Harry?

 

[ant555]

Harry, do you see the medal around your neck at the end? Do you see me going to collect on my bet but the TAB is shut and then I have to try to pick it up someplace else tomorrow and then I panic because I think I've lost the ticket and then I pull out my phone to text "OMG I lost the bloody ticket" but then I find the ticket in that pocket and the attendant is annoyed at me when they hand over the money as if I took it out of their own pocket... Do you see that, Harry?

I can see you need a TAB account

 

[yodellinhank]

I can see you need a TAB account

I wouldn't mind it to watch some replays of a few races here and there, but there's something visceral about going to the creepy place with the weird guys like on the sportsbet ad, getting that ticket and scrunching it up in disgust when it loses... s**t, wrong visualisation.

 

[ant555]

I wouldn't mind it to watch some replays of a few races here and there, but there's something visceral about going to the creepy place with the weird guys like on the sportsbet ad, getting that ticket and scrunching it up in disgust when it loses... s**t, wrong visualisation.

That’s why you go in line and Use the app
I usually bet with app at the races.