*cough* Walters *cough*
What a great piece, Kane’s starting to do some really good stuff.Kane Cornes: I will miss watching Stephen Hill, the fastest and most explosive player I have ever seen
https://thewest.com.au/sport/afl/ka...hen-hill-hed-win-a-brownlow-one-day-c-3663506
You think you will play forever, even though not one of the thousands of AFL players who have come before you has forged an eternal career.
You are told your time in the AFL will go quickly, but a decade seems a long, long time when you are aged 17.
And then it does end.
The moment arrives for every AFL player, for some sooner than imagined. It is confronting and scary. Even the strongest men will emotionally break down and be reduced to tears.
Standing up in front of your team-mates, family and coaches to say there is no more is that moment you have pushed to the back of your mind hoping to delay for as long as possible.
Some get to make their own call. Some are forced to go by injury or a decision made by others, be it the coach or the list manager or perhaps the accountant counting the salary cap.
But everyone has to accept there will be a day when you can no longer play the game you love at the highest level.
Each player is different, as is every ending. Very few get the Shane Crawford exit with a memorable yell into the microphone after collecting an AFL premiership medal at the MCG.
But everyone has to deal with the uncertainty of post-football life - and this can be overwhelming.
No longer will there be a large pay cheque hitting the bank account each month. Gone is the discipline and training structure to keep you on a well-defined track. The massive rush of adrenaline released by running onto a famous sporting field with 60,000 admiring fans in the seats each week is gone in an instant.
You might never be asked for an autograph again...
For many players, the work of an AFL footballer is the only job they will have known on leaving school at 17.
Today, as well noted this week, the AFL calendar delivers that sad time when clubs and players – particularly those out of reach of finals – decide their partnerships must end. Some players will know the tank is empty. Some clubs will decide their futures are brighter by making a player part of their past.
AFL rules dictate that no team can remain unchanged for longer than 12 months. It is the brutal reality of professional game that moves so quickly.
Many players at several clubs experienced this gut-wrenching moment this week.
Carlton midfielder and former captain Marc Murphy will play his 300th and last AFL game against Port Adelaide on Saturday. In those 300 games, Murphy has six finals.
Adelaide supporters were informed that popular forward Tom Lynch was to be cut at season’s end - and a similar call looms for experienced defender Daniel Talia, who has not played a game this year while consumed by injury.
Lynch wanted to remain at Adelaide and is clearly still in the club’s best 22 while offering leadership and mentoring off the field to a young list. But the Crows believe their future is brighter without him.
On Tuesday, Port Adelaide midfielder Tom Rockliff tried every trick to avert shedding tears - even imagining his teammates nude - when calling time. He relied on self-deprecating humour when he told his comrades that the game has gone past him - and he still came unstuck.
Fremantle fan favourite Stephen Hill was stoic when he stood in front of teammates on Tuesday morning to declare he was done after three tough years with hamstring injuries that limited him to 28 matches since 2019.
His voice quivered but he did not cry. He would have known that this reality was coming after his body continually broke down in recent years.
I don’t know Stephen Hill, but I do know that he has been the cause for many of my restless nights.
For a portion of my time as a player at Port Adelaide, my job was to tag Hill whenever we played Fremantle. It was never even a debate; Hill was the player our coaching staff believed to be the most dangerous.
They were right.
By Tuesday, leading into the weekend’s game, I knew the identity of my opponent and my whole week was immediately dedicated to finding a way to stop him. I would go to bed thinking about him and wake with the same thought.
At training I would tee up one of my teammates to be that opponent during match-play. He would wear a different coloured guernsey and I would call them by that upcoming opponent’s nickname. For Fremantle matches, it was “Hilly”.
I would watch hours of vision. I would search out where I could gain an advantage. How would my opponent least like to be played I would ask myself repeatedly.
In doing this exhaustive preparation for Hill, I quickly realised that physically I was no match. I was the AFL’s slowest player; he was the fastest and most explosive player I have ever seen.
I would be an anxious mess while I took my position alongside Hill, usually on centre wing at the first bounce. Sometimes, master Fremantle coach Ross Lyon, knowing I was coming for his star colt, would play games by having Hill line up across half-back or even deeper in defence.
My sole focus was to keep Hill between me and the Fremantle goal. I would use any tactic, including illegally holding his wrist or guernsey when the umpire was not looking, to make sure I achieved my goal.
I knew if Hill was goal side of me there would be no stopping him and he would certainly set up a Fremantle score. Despite these questionable tactics, Hill never complained. He never became frustrated. He never trashed talked, in fact I cannot remember him uttering a single word.
He was selfless, he never demanded the ball off his team-mates, he refused to collect cheap handball receives like most of my other opponents did when having a quiet day while wearing a tag. He never took the kick-in duties to gather a cheap statistic by chipping the ball to himself and playing on.
Besides captain Matthew Pavlich, who went out of his way to protect his young star, Hill’s teammates rarely blocked for him or protected him off the ball as Geelong did with Gary Ablett junior when the Cats sensed he was getting tagged. Hill’s team-mates largely left him to fight his own battles.
How devastating would have Hill become had he been better supported?
Hill was humble, he always shook my hand at the final siren and was gracious regardless of the result or how he played. During one of our early exchanges, I said to him, “Keep working hard, you are going to win a Brownlow one day.” He looked embarrassed, but I was dead serious.
Whenever Fremantle was playing, I would watch with a keen interest but mainly I just looked for Hill knowing I would get another crack at him soon and I could learn something new.
I am going to miss watching him play. I miss the challenge of trying to stop him even more.
I am sure he never realised what a talent he was. He was one of the most daunting players I have ever played against and the most beautiful player in full flight that I have ever seen up close.
Stephen Hill does not have that Brownlow Medal I wished upon him, but he made a massive impact on the Fremantle Football Club, his team-mates and even the washed-up, slow taggers who made a living by trying to stop him.
FWIW, A whole number of Freo players were pissed about that on Instagram, Barlow, Ballas, Clakkas etc
Cheers, good to know. Weird though, if Cornes was the one doing the tagging and makes a point of saying he did everything including illegal holding off the ball etc and says he didn't think our players stood up for him much. He would know, compared to other players he tagged what our efforts were like.
The one thing I’ve never really seen in watching football that Hill has is the first 20-30m ‘speed’ ‘pace’ whatever you call it. He was able to get the ball then seamlessingly separate himself from the opponent in such a short time and distance. Always used this to his advantage. He was rated the fastest player off 0-20m at one period in the league.
His acceleration. He was humble but on the field he knew he was good and used that. He backed himself to kick those goals or take on players.
