Retired Jarryn Geary

‪Geary reigns supreme in the summer rain http://www.saints.com.au/news/2017-12-01/geary-reigns-supreme-in-the-rain via @stkildafc‬
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Jarryn Geary will flourish as skipper in 2018
  • Peter Ryan

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson expects Jarryn Geary to flourish in his second year as captain as the importance of his leadership grows following the retirements of Nick Riewoldt, Leigh Montagna and Sean Dempster.

The Saints' coach spent the first week of the pre-season in Darwin with the leadership group including Geary, Seb Ross, Josh Bruce and Dylan Roberton as well as local youngster Ben Long to train and discuss some of the values the club should adhere to in 2018

He said it was a great platform for the players to launch their pre-season.

Although the Saints are yet to officially elect their leadership group for 2018, Richardson has little doubt Geary will once again be captain
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Saints coach Alan Richardson says skipper Jarryn Geary will flourish as the club's leader. Photo: Pat Scala
"That would certainly be my want," Richardson told the Saints' website's Inside St Kilda podcast.

Although the 29-year-old performed well, Richardson said it would have been natural for Geary to hold himself back a little in his first year in the job with Riewoldt and Montagna still at the club.


He said that "now he is the man" he thought Geary would be even better.


"He's an impressive person and we're rapt he's our skipper."

Richardson spent time in the off-season with the All Blacks in New Zealand ahead of a test against South Africa before walking the Kokoda Trail with his family.

He then headed to Darwin when the senior players returned to pre-season in an attempt to set the tone for what looms as a season of high expectations for the Saints.

"There is a bit of a line in the sand moment, with these great players having moved on ... how do we want our footy club to look and what does it mean to play for the Saints?" Richardson said.

"That was brilliant to be able to get away and have those conversations."




Can’t wait for 2018 season.
 
St Kilda started 2018 with a traditional 3km time-trial on Saturday, although there was a twist.

Unlike the normal format where everyone starts at the same time, the high performance department at Linen House Centre opted for a handicap start.

Endurance king Jarryn Geary started at the tail end of the field, with a reverse order weaving its way from top to bottom.


The St Kilda skipper didn’t have too much trouble working his way from scratch.

Reigning Trevor Barker Award winner Seb Ross said the aerobic animal made up a ten-second deficit on him by the midway point, before stopping the clock quickest.

Young midfield duo, Ed Phillips and Jack Sinclair, finished further back on the same time, just ahead of Ross and Blake Acres.

Mobile forward Josh Battle was next across the line in an impressive run, while pocket rocket Jack Lonie also returned with a personal best time.

“Gears started 10 seconds behind me and I reckon by the one and a half km mark he flew past me,” Ross told Inside St Kilda this week.

“I’m not sure what his second km was but it definitely would have been his quickest km.

“We’ve come to expect that from Gears; he hasn’t lost a time-trial since I’ve been here.”

While the handicap approach didn’t favour Ross’ style, the star midfielder said change is welcome during a pre-season program that can become monotonous.

“It was a different approach, just to mix it up a bit because the old 3ker can be a bit mundane,” Ross said.

“We did one when we first came back, so the order was based off the times the guys got. So the guy that came through last in the first one, he started first and everyone’s times were based off the difference.

“It made it quite different, especially for someone like me who gets into a bit of a rhythm, so I don’t think it suited me too much having to overtake guys.”


Can’t wait for 2018 season.
 
Captain Jarryn Geary has set the standard this pre-season, winning the opening 3km time trial in December from Ed Phillips and backing up with another win in January. Midfielder Nathan Freeman finished fourth in the most recent run as he pushes to make his debut in 2018, while wingman Daniel McKenzie pushed up to second.



Can’t wait for 2018 season.
 
St Kilda Captain Jarryn Geary says the Saints are desperate to play finals this year after narrowly missing out in each of the past two seasons.

After comprehensively beating eventual premiers Richmond in Round 16 last year, St Kilda appeared to be on a path to the finals at 9-6, before dropping five of their final seven games to swiftly fade out of contention.

Geary, who was unveiled as skipper for the second consecutive year on Tuesday, has played in only one final in his 163-game career, which was the Saints’ most recent September appearance back in 2011.


“We’ve been bitterly disappointed that we haven’t been able to play finals in the last couple of years. We are not going to shy away from the fact we want to play finals this year,” Geary told journalists at RSEA Park.

“Our fans have probably expected us to take a step further than we have, but we’ve won more games than we’ve lost in the last two years and we’ve been pretty close (to playing finals).

“We think our best footy has been good enough throughout the last couple of years, it just hasn’t been consistent enough.

“We’re hoping we can produce our best footy more often than not, and not only make finals this year, but be contenders when we get there.”

With so many teams fighting for a top-eight berth this year, Geary said St Kilda has focused on improving the transition phase of their game across the pre-season, with Senior Assistant Coach Adam Kingsley driving that part of the program.

“It’s certainly a tight competition and it’s going to be tight again – I can’t imagine it going any other way,” he said.

“Adam Kingsley has taken over the transition phase of our game, that’s both offensively and defensively.

“We haven’t had someone in that role previously and that’s a focus that the coaching group have put in over the pre-season.

“The transition part of the game is something that has become a big part of the game and we’re hoping to improve on that.”


Can’t wait for 2018 season.
 

All these photos you and others have been putting up just don’t like my iPad . Considering the iPad is supposed to be so good why does things like this still happen . I have to go on to my computer just to see what the photos are and I’m a very lazy person lmao.


Can’t wait for 2018 season.
 
Jarryn Geary’s special bond with late grandfather and the inspiration behind his rise to St Kilda captaincy

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IT’S the ritual St Kilda captain Jarryn Geary enacts every time he heads home to Bendigo.

He is always armed with a handful of Minties and a treasure trove of memories of the man who helped shape his destiny.

Geary leaves the Minties on his grandfather’s grave in the White Cliffs cemetery, one of the first stops whenever he returns, as he did this week on an AFL Victoria regional visit.

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The lollies are part of the connection he had with his late grandfather, Brian Geary, who died in 2010.

The gesture is also a signal to his grandmother, Tess, that he has visited the cemetery, which is nestled between the rough-and-tumble of Eaglehawk, where he grew up, and White Hills, where his grandmother still lives.

As a kid, Geary spent every Saturday afternoon — football in the winter and cricket in the summer — travelling to matches with Brian.

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St Kilda captain Jarryn Geary visits his grandfather's grave. Picture: Rob Leeson
There was always a Mintie in the console of the car.

“I had a great relationship with him,” Geary told the Sunday Herald Sun. “He did so many things for the community. He was a teacher for a while and then he taught teachers at the teachers’ college.

“But he had a great connection to the local sporting clubs — the YCW football club and Sedgwick cricket club.

“I would play sport every Saturday morning and he would be there at the finish. I would jump in the car with him and we’d be off to the local games.

“That would be the same every Saturday for as long as I could remember.”

Few days go by without Geary, 29, thinking about the impact Brian made on the impressionable future St Kilda captain, and the connection with his exceptionally large family and its place in the Bendigo community.

To get a sense of what truly makes Geary tick, this backstory is paramount.

He has rarely spoken about it, but family is at the forefront of his mind.

Jarryn Geary is the fourth child in a family of six — five boys, one girl — who grew up in Eaglehawk and whose backyard games were every bit as rugged and devoid of rules as games in the Selwood family, who grew up not far away.

“Sport was everything for us,” Geary recalled. “You didn’t have to go too far for entertainment.”

His parents drove the six kids — Jarryn’s sister Caley and brothers Daniel, Shannon, Cal and Eli — around in a Mitsubishi van to their sporting pursuits.

It was known as “The Green Bus”, which used to embarrass Geary, but as a new father he now looks back with pride on the sacrifices his parents made.

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Jarryn Geary‘s only final with the Saints came in 2011.
His family tree is more akin to a forest, given the reach of the Geary and Driscoll families, united in the marriage of his father, Damien, and his mother, Antoinette.

Damien Geary was one of 10 children. Antoinette Driscoll came from a family of 15, whose mother, Molly, had to bring them up on her own after her husband died at an early age.

Damien and Antoinette now have 11 grandchildren — including seven-week-old Harriett, the daughter of Jarryn and his fiancee Emma.

That means Geary has more than 90 first cousins.

Can he name them all?

“No, I would get a fair way along, but I wouldn’t be able to finish it — there are too many names,” he said with a smile.

Add to that the 100 or more foster children Brian and Tess Geary helped to bring up, or looked after, along with their own tribe of 10.

“They used to take in kids from broken families and with problems,” Geary said of his grandparents’ fostering.

“Some stayed for years. He (Brian) had a saying: ‘It’s kids what count.’”

That saying is etched on Brian’s headstone, and Jarryn’s brother, Daniel, got a tattoo with the same message when their grandfather passed away in his sleep in 2010.

“He was an inspiration to us all,” Geary said. “He loved people and loved being involved in sport. He didn’t miss anything that anyone in the family did.

“He had three heart attacks and had a stroke which paralysed him down one side. But he ended up teaching himself to use his hand again, and he also taught himself to drive again.”

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Determined Saints leader Jarryn Geary’s late grandfather shaped his life. Pic: AAP
Geary, overlooked in the 2006 national draft but picked as a rookie by St Kilda the same year, chose his grandfather as his invited guest for the 2009 Rising Star function.

“He was a real footy-head and loved it,” he said. “He was old-school and used to write me letters. Going through his stuff after he passed away, he was in the middle of writing me another letter when he died.

“The week before I had played against Collingwood and played OK, even though we had lost. I got dropped on the Thursday and that was the night he died.

“Whenever I have gone through a rough patch or through any difficulties with my footy, he’s always been the person I have thought about.”

The Sunday Herald Sun tagged along with Geary this week as he visited two schools as part of an AFL Victoria regional visit.

The first was his old primary school, St Liborius, in Eaglehawk, where he chatted to wide-eyed kids.

He pointed to where the old portable classrooms used to be near the school oval, where he and his brothers used to hide a footy on the roof late on Friday afternoon. When he and his siblings would be dropped off on Sunday afternoons for the obligatory 5.30pm Mass, they would walk into the adjacent church until “The Green Bus” disappeared into the distance, then walk out just as quickly, climb the roof and play with the ball until their parents returned.

The other school he visited this week was Kennington Primary School.

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Geary has been a mainstay of the Saints’ backline for the better part of a decade. Picture: Wayne Ludbey
It was on that oval he and his good mate Joel Selwood — on opposing teams — each kicked seven goals in an under-13 game.

Geary, the heartbeat of St Kilda’s defence for much of his 10 senior AFL seasons, reckons he was stiff not to kick an eighth, but it was disallowed for kicking in danger.

“It was a tiny oval,” he said. “I played forward and only had about 10 touches, while Joel was legitimately taking the ball out of the ruck, kicking the ball to the boundary and running in and kicking goals.”

Family means the world to Geary, and so, too, does the football club that gave him the shot at the AFL that three of his brothers — all very good players — missed out on.

That has only magnified now as he enters his second season as St Kilda captain, the first without the presence of club great Nick Riewoldt.

“I probably won’t be any different externally (as captain this year), but internally things might be a bit different,” Geary said.


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“The fact is ‘Rooey’ (Riewoldt) was such a big figure within the club, which was great because the information he was passing on to the group was so strong. He had plenty to say, and at times I was sitting back.

“It was great to have him there and I was never going to try to compete with him.

“The thing about the captaincy is that I don’t love it for the great prestige. I just love the fact my teammates like me to be in that position.”

Geary knows there is plenty of work ahead for him and the Saints to break a seven-year finals drought, but with two more seasons on his contract, and with the desire to play longer, he is desperate for success — and to make his family, and Saints fans, proud.

“The reason I play footy is the people around me,” he said. “There are so many people watching me each week and you don’t want to let them down.

“I don’t feel the pressure of that. I just take it as a privilege and an honour to be out the representing my family, because they have been so supportive.”

He knows his grandfather would be as proud as Punch if he was around now, just as his two grandmothers are when they watch him with pride.

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Geary speaks with Saints coach Alan Richardson during last week’s JLT Series clash against the Blues. Pic: Getty Images
THE SKIPPER SPEAKS ABOUT ...
Suggestions from Gerald Healy and Leigh Matthews that Paddy McCartin would have been a better player in another era:

“He probably could have been a superstar back then (1980-90s), but there is no reason why he can’t be now. I am really confident about Paddy. He has done a mountain of work and is starting to work out what he can do as an athlete.”

Whether McCartin, Tim Membrey and Josh Bruce can play in the same team:

“I think so. We have to get the structure right and, if we can do that, then I am sure it will be a big benefit to the team.”

Nathan Freeman’s latest injury:

“He has been so impressive with his attitude. He hasn’t really had a taste (of AFL). All he has ever known is getting injured. He got to a really strong level last year and played some really good (VFL) footy. It’s another hiccup.”

His own head-knock during the week against Carlton after being concussed in Round 23 last year:

“I’m not sure if it was the daze from the (Ikon Park) lights or my own vision, probably a bit of both (laughs). They were both pretty mild incidents and I’ll be fine.”

St Kilda’s return to Moorabbin in a fortnight:

“My first five years were at Moorabbin. I loved it. It was a real community where you could walk down the shops and everyone was a part of the club. It will great to get back there and have a real community hub for your family to come in as well.”

Good Friday football:

“The club hasn’t played in too many big games over the past few years, so hopefully we can turn Good Friday (against North Melbourne) into something special. As players, we have gone into the hospital to visit the kids. There are some really sad stories there but also many great stories that come out. You see the families who spend so much time there. Now, being a father, I can’t imagine what they are going through. So to be a part of the day, and to hopefully help out some more, we are really looking forward to it.”

How former Bendigo Pioneers teammate Joel Selwood tried to get him to Geelong:

“I don’t think it was ever going to happen. Joel was keen for a while. I was injured when it happened. I had done my elbow. I was in contract talks with the club at the time and that always stalls when you are injured. In a way, that might have helped me out, as I re-signed not long after.”

His only final, the 2011 elimination final loss to Sydney:

“It does seem like an eternity ago. It was a bit of a nothing year for me. I broke my leg and played the last eight games.”

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Gears numbers this pre-season;

JLT 1 v Carlton - 3 kicks, 6 handballs (9 disposals), 1 mark, 1 tackle. Head knock in the 2nd quarter, DNP rest of game.

JLT 2 v Melbourne - 6 kicks, 12 handballs (18 disposals), 1 mark, 2 tackles.
 
St Kilda captain Jarryn Geary says the Saints won't let external noise become a factor this year.

The 29-year-old is confident his side can silence critics as the club pushes for its first finals appearance since 2011.


“People will say what they want, and you can either listen to them or they can be noise in the background," Geary said.

"There’s no more pressure put on us than we put on ourselves internally, so we’re expecting big things from ourselves and I know that’s the case externally as well."

With a strong young list now bolstered by top-10 picks Hunter Clark and Nick Coffield, the Saints are well placed to make a charge towards September this year.

"We feel like we’ve been building for a number of years now, but there’s no doubt that the time has come for us to take the next step in our progression as a football club," he said.

“We’re pushing ourselves hard and feel like we’re in a good position to improve and play finals this year."

Geary, now in his second year as captain, is confident that at their best the Saints can match it against anyone in the competition.

"We’ve got to get better and be better for longer… be stronger for longer," Geary emphasised.

"Our best footy is good enough, but we just haven’t been able to play that way often enough. The next progression is to play that way that week in week out."

Progress has continued off the field as well, with St Kilda's men's team now officially back at their spiritual home at RSEA Park in Moorabbin.

"Moving back, there’s been so many stories relayed through various people around the club," he said.

"We’ve been able to name rooms here and make it both a home and a football club.

"We've got the Robert Harvey room, the Darrel Baldock room... so there's a few names that are etched in the memories of Saints fans, and now our players will be able to see them every day and re-live the history of the football club.

"Moorabbin has been home to St Kilda for a long time."


Still looking forward to this season.
 
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