Delisted Blake McGrath

[Kildonan]

Pos Number Player           Age    Games    Price        2009            2008            2007       
                            DT     SC     Played    DT Avg    SC Avg    Played    DT Avg     SC Avg    Played    DT Avg     SC Avg
RUCK 48 MCGRATH, Blake (Rookie)    19    0    $94,500    $100,200 0    0.0    0.0    0    0.0    0.0    0    0.0    0.0

 

[the emergency]

MCGRATH, Blake

Date of Birth: 24th April 1990
Height: 208cm
Weight: 85kg
Recruited from: Pennant Hills/NSW ACT U/18

Comfortably the tallest player on the Saints' list, standing at a monolithic
208cm, Blake McGrath is a work in progress. McGrath played basketball
for much of his younger years, making him relatively new to the sport.
From the Pennant Hills region, McGrath got his lucky break as a result
of the NSW AFL Scholarship Program, which the Saints had taken part
in, and was eventually snared at No.84 in the 2008 NAB AFL Rookie
Draft.
McGrath is still extemely raw, as well as being in need to bulk up if he
wishes to play AFL at the highest level, but so far, progress is coming
along nicely, as tall, lanky ruckmen take time to develop.

 

[Kildonan]

Delisted at end of 2010 season

 

[Squizz]

McGrath was an Australian under 18 basketballer attending a Sydney sports high school when a St Kilda talent spotter approached him after a state game. He had never kicked an Australian rules football, and did so now "just to shut him up".

Told he would be given three or four years to develop, he soon discovered the AFL system wrestles with the idea of a slow burn. At a Gold Coast camp in late 2008, days after arriving at the club, he "got mauled by pretty much every bloke on the track".​

Someone asked him how long he had been playing footy; his reply of less than a year brought laughter.

"The coaches worked out I had absolutely no idea what was going on,"

He worked mainly with development coach Danny Sexton, and felt himself improve with every session. He remembers speaking rarely to then coach Ross Lyon, "mainly when I was in trouble".

Placed with a host family who followed the club dietitian's orders to the letter, he fell into a routine of training, eating and collapsing into bed.
The contact of football, from any angle, threw him, but he embraced it. The long, hard running sessions were foreign after basketball's short-burst conditioning. "That took a bit of getting used to."

His second VFL outing was against Bendigo "My first contest, David Hille just smacked me right in the face," he laughs. "I was thinking, 'What is this?' It was a steep learning curve, I got absolutely annihilated."

He broke an arm, played mainly VFL seconds, was runner-up in Sandringham's reserves best and fairest, thought he was making progress. Putting on weight ran counter to all the running, so he was sent home in the off-season on a program to bulk up.

The first day back was a four-kilometre time trial.

"I thought, 'Shit!"' says McGrath, who'd stuck religiously to his program, which did not feature running. He beat only one player home — infamously, recruit Andrew Lovett.

"I got pulled out in front of the group, told how embarrassing it was," he says, wishing he had had the courage to say he had just been following orders. A senior player quizzed him later, and the next day Lyon called him out of the weights room and apologised. Nick Riewoldt told him, "You've gotta take that — Rossy never apologises to anyone!"

Asked if he ever thought he might make it, he cites the end of that first year, when improvement imbued confidence. Then the injuries set in, to knees that laboured under his giant frame. As the second season ground on he felt like he was in a subgroup, with others who were on the way out.

Still, he felt part of something, riding every bump from the sidelines at two grand finals "That Collingwood roar . . . it was sickening."

The phone call came the day after the 2010 best and fairest, a summons to a meeting where he was told he had made progress but, sorry, not enough. He was numb for hours, then shook himself and moved on. "That's sport, I've seen it happen before. I still love the Saints now, I've got nothing against them."

McGrath remains happy with his outcome. He stayed in Melbourne, has his own personal training business, works with people with acquired brain injuries. And after a shocking run of injuries — more knees and broken arms — he is still playing footy, with St Bede's Mentone in the amateurs.

He has just turned 23 and knows the time he spent at St Kilda could have been devoted to studying. But what he has taken out of two years in an AFL environment he believes he could never have learnt at university. "I'd do it again, I'd do anything to be back there."

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-makeorbreak-experiment-20130606-2nt9l.html#ixzz2VUAhgaVs