Fletch

by Dustin Fletcher

  Not that I saw myself as a potential AFL player. But behind the scenes, Dad had started to prepare me for the challenge of giving AFL a shot. My father had more drive than me at this stage of my career, and he was a very different personality from me, too. He’d almost been ahead of his time as a player in terms of professionalism. What he may have lacked in natural ability, he made up for with desire and work ethic. In an era where having a smoke and drink seemingly went hand-in-hand with playing football – some were even known to do it during games – Dad never drank beer.

  One story that his former teammates liked to tell is how on a pre-season trip to the Gold Coast, which was more slanted towards socialising than running around, Dad would be dragging people out of their rooms and hunting them down for training.

  He was a very determined person who got the absolute best out of himself and frowned upon those who didn’t. He wasn’t shy about sharing his thoughts and didn’t particularly care if it hurt someone’s feelings, as honesty was his trademark. In a way he was one of those people who you either like or you don’t; there was no in between.

  Even away from the football field, Dad was a ‘get in there’ type. If we were shopping and he saw there was a bargain to be had, he could snaffle anything.

  His key characteristic of saying whatever was on his mind – without a filter – was a constant stress to his family. If my father had to give a speech at school or at the football club, Mum would always hold her breath. With Dad, you never knew what was going to come out. ‘Don’t say anything stupid,’ Mum would tell him repeatedly.

  As kids we were just as petrified about what he would come out with at these times.

  ‘No jokes,’ was a common request.

  ‘Don’t ruffle anyone’s feathers up there,’ was another regular plea.

  Mum was the calm one of the family and I was a lot like her, whereas my younger brother Lachlan was fiery and had more of Dad in him. Being the middle child I had the luxury of being able to pick sides but regularly my older sister and I would enjoy winding up Lachlan, who would fight back every time.

  Most of our battles happened on our annual family trip north in the caravan. Every summer holiday we would head up to New South Wales and Queensland and without fail something would go wrong with the van, which was a source of constant amusement. There were never any hotels or motels for us, it was always caravan parks and we all loved those beach holidays.

  One advantage I had coming into football was that I already knew a lot of people at Essendon, in particular the staff. My brother and I had spent countless hours kicking the footy at training and, as ‘Kenny Fletcher’s boys’, were well known around the club. Even after his retirement Dad always seemed to be down at the club doing something, and we loved to tag along, knowing Windy Hill as the scene of so many great Essendon battles since 1922.

  It was like a second home to us. When I was a toddler I’d spent time in the crèche during games when Dad was still playing, but my earliest memories of the ground came when as a family we sat in the same seats each week – the front row of the Reynolds Stand – and watched our beloved team. After games my brother and I would kick the ball around for hours even when it was dark as we waited for Mum and Dad, who’d be up in the social club. There was a great community feel about the place and being a former captain Dad always had someone wanting to chew his ear, which meant more playtime for us.

  It was all fun and games until Dad suggested it would be a good idea for me to do a few boxing sessions in the players’ gymnasium. Any other kid would be jumping out of their skin for the opportunity to train alongside their idols at a professional football club facility, but I was daunted. And totally embarrassed. As I gingerly slugged away – a skinny lad surrounded by gigantic grown-up athletes – one question kept running through my head: ‘What am I doing here?’

  I got an even bigger taste of AFL life when I found myself heading down to Lorne on a pre-season training camp with the entire Essendon playing list. It was one of those things that happened very quickly; I had no idea how I ended up on the trip. Was I on trial? Did Coach Sheedy want to have a closer look at me? Or was it just Dad pulling some strings – or trying to get me out of the house and out of my comfort zone?

  Whatever the motivation, that three-day camp was a huge eye-opener. Here I was, a 16-year-old schoolboy, lying in a sleeping bag on the floor of a gymnasium and hanging off every word uttered by some of the greatest players in the club’s history, such as Terry Daniher. Shy and overwhelmed, I spent most of the time hanging out with the support staff I knew, including club doctor Bruce Reid, while the team went out at night to bond over a few beers. It was certainly interesting listening to the banter when they came home half-charged, although one night I soon found myself cowering under my sleeping bag as oranges zoomed past my ears. There must have been a couple of cases of oranges lying around because when the boys got home they started a war, launching these grenades from one end of the gym to the other.

  If Dad had wanted me to get out of my comfort zone, it certainly worked!

  Although I joined in with most of the training drills, it was all a bit surreal and I couldn’t shake the feeling that some of the players were looking at me, wondering: ‘What the hell is he doing here?’

  What it certainly did was make football a reality in my mind. Suddenly, it was getting serious.

  CHRIS ANSTEY

  Friend, tennis partner, NBA & Australian basketballer, Melbourne Tigers coach

  For at least four years Dustin Fletcher and I were clearly the best tennis doubles pair in Victoria. With Fletch and me, our ability as a doubles team far exceeded our talent as individuals. We were very different personalities but we read each other really well. In our minds we felt we could genuinely beat anyone in the country. In fact it went further than that: we expected to beat anyone in the country.

  Fletch and I were both serve-volley players, but more importantly neither of us had a conscience. We would pick out the weak guy and smash it at them. We did the same in mixed doubles games too. It didn’t matter to us that we were playing girls. We were always of the opinion that if you were good enough to be on a court against us, you were good enough to take our best.

  He was very competitive and he hated losing. I was seeded higher in the singles events more often than he was but I didn’t have that ruthless competitive spirit against mates that he had early on. Fletch didn’t give a shit that I was one of his best mates; he just really wanted to beat me.

  But here’s the big thing that’s set him apart. Fletch understood very early that sport is not always about just doing what you do best, it’s also about exploiting what your opponent does worst.

  He was always going to have the ability to play footy if he wanted to and I think he would have always regretted never trying it. But I do recall it being a difficult choice for him to make the change to footy from tennis. Given the career he’s had in Aussie Rules, that sounds pretty stupid today, but his talent, the ability to kick the Sherrin, that quickness of hand and sure touch was always there.

  That competitive spirit and that innate ability to do what he wanted with the ball is why he’s never had to be as fit or train as hard or maintain as perfect a diet or calorie count as other blokes.

  Even so, I never thought Fletch would become the footballer he is and I’ll tell you something else about Dustin: it’s never about him.

  In footy circles he tends to stick to the background and let others take credit, deflecting attention away from himself. I think he makes a great coach – he does his best work behind the scenes.

  As a communicator . . . okay, he’s not great at calling you back on the phone. With other people it’d piss you off but because it’s Dustin, it’s okay . . . and when you do hear from him, you feel bad for being mad at him even for a day.

  But despite that, Fletch deserves more attention than he gets and I hope he gets it by sharing his story as a public figure. He’s a champion and he’s been through a lot
and I reckon people want to hear the opinion of someone who is quiet because they value their words more.

  I remember when we were really young, we were in Mildura at this outdoor diving tower, which seemed really high back then. We both got up there and it was cold and windy as hell and we were talking shit about how we were going to jump off when both of us knew we weren’t going to.

  Then, sure enough, Fletch is off the edge and gone. I thought, ‘You bastard, now I have to go.’

  That’s Fletch. He’ll try anything to win, whatever it takes, in any situation. In his mind there is always a way to get something done. His whole life has been about finding a way, whether it’s jumping off a 30-foot diving tower, beating me at table tennis or spoiling a goal in a big AFL game.

  CHAPTER 2

  A RUCK SURPRISE

  It was a position I would become accustomed to throughout my career – back of the pack.

  I was doing a 4-kilometre time trial for the Western Jets. I knew already that distance running wasn’t my go, and even though I wanted to impress my new coach and teammates, it was too hard. I hated every stumbled step of that run, and it showed. Some walking was required before I found the finish line.

  For the 1992 season I had embraced football full-on, making the big decision to combine playing at Essendon Grammar with running out for the Western Jets, a team in the new under-18 TAC Cup, which had been set up to replace the AFL’s under-19 competition. Instead of each league team having an under-19 team, this new competition was based on geographic regions throughout country Victoria and Melbourne. So the Geelong Falcons catered for elite kids from western Victoria and the Jets’ zone took up Melbourne’s western suburbs, including Essendon, Williamstown and Altona.

  I was in Year 11 and in my second season under Dad’s coaching in the senior side at school. The star of the team was Scott West, who would go on to play 324 games for the Western Bulldogs and win a remarkable seven best and fairest awards along the way. Westy absolutely dominated the school games, routinely getting 30-plus possessions almost at will. My own influence from dividing my time between centre half-forward and centre halfback was nowhere near that level, leaving me tentative and unsure about whether I had what it took to progress.

  We’d been told from on high that it was in my best interests to join the Jets as the TAC Cup was now the pathway for making the Victorian Metro team in the national under-18 championship, the Teal Cup. For me it was quite a shock to the system. There were over 80 kids down there for the first Jets tryout. Some were really full-on, doing chin-ups and bench presses to get ready for the training session. ‘What the hell is this?’ I marvelled as I sat quietly at the back of the sheds.

  Yet I managed to navigate the tryout and even cracked the final Jets training squad, which was coached by Merv Keane, a former Richmond champion who, for the last few seasons, had been an assistant coach at Essendon under Sheedy.

  Right from the start, what I enjoyed about the Jets was the club atmosphere, which I’d never really experienced before. The friendships and bonds created from just sitting around the change rooms having a laugh and a joke were fantastic, and I enjoyed that side as much as the footy itself.

  I took a while to find my feet in the TAC Cup, but as my confidence grew I started to contribute more, mainly playing in the ruck and forward. It was enough to get me a gig in the Teal Cup.

  My self-doubt remained a serious issue, though. It wasn’t that I didn’t fit in – I simply didn’t feel part of it because in my own mind I wasn’t as advanced as the other players, either physically or mentally. There were some big boys and super-motivated kids in that team and, despite my storied bloodline and insider access, for a lot of the time I felt like I was standing on the outside of the team looking in.

  Nor was my fragile confidence boosted by the news that I had developed shin splints, which in hindsight wasn’t a great shock given that my training and playing had increased threefold that season.

  I was struggling to run, and played mainly in the forward pocket. In the final against South Australia, which was captained by future Adelaide Crows star Mark Ricciuto, I was switched into the ruck at half-time. We were behind by four goals at the time, but the move helped turn our fortunes around and we went on to win the title.

  By the time September swung around I’d packed a lot into the season, playing eight school games, a handful of Teal Cup games and 11 out of a possible 18 games with the Jets. The year finished on a big note – a TAC Cup Grand Final played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground itself, as a curtain-raiser to the AFL Grand Final between Geelong and West Coast. Running around on that hallowed turf was an amazing experience, but unfortunately the Geelong Falcons had our measure and claimed the inaugural TAC Cup title by 42 points.

  It wasn’t long after that I was officially informed that Essendon would be taking me in the 1992 National Draft as a father–son selection. (Under the father–son rule, if a player had represented his club in more than 200 games then his son was automatically eligible to be signed up prior to the draft.) I was still just an immature school student who not that long ago had thought his future involved a tennis racquet, not a football. It was a weird feeling, but I was on my way.

  *

  The Anderson Street hill had claimed many victims in the past. The name ‘Dustin Fletcher’ was added to that list in my very first week as an Essendon player.

  Anderson Street is a famous part of one of the most popular running tracks in Melbourne, the Tan, a 3.87-kilometre circuit around the Royal Botanic Gardens. The hill itself is about 400 metres straight up, and I watched in awe as some of my new teammates sprinted up like it didn’t even matter. I tried to do the same but failed miserably. Inevitably I ended up at the back of the group, usually alongside one of the senior players such as Derek Kickett, and together we stragglers ended up walking a fair chunk of that 400 metres.

  I did better when the footballs came out. The training drills happened at Cross Keys Reserve, where we did most of our pre-season training as the local cricket club occupied Windy Hill. The drills were good old-fashioned ‘gut busters’. Sheedy would pair us off and then kick the ball 40 metres away. We then had to chase after the Sherrin and virtually fight to the death to see who could get it back to the coach first.

  If a drill wasn’t going the way he wanted, Sheeds would blow his whistle and order us to do 400-metre sprints. With my fitness where it was, training sometimes lasted up to three hours at a time.

  I was still 17 and didn’t have my driver’s licence, which meant I was getting dropped at the club at 4 pm after school even though training didn’t start until 6 pm. I tried to use that time wisely. Instead of killing the hours kicking around, I looked on it as an opportunity to get to know people at the club. I also used to try to get my weights done before the rest of the team arrived. I was still a long streak of pelican shit and the weights I was lifting were embarrassing compared to those of the frontline veterans. I always felt better if I could sneak my way through without peer group pressure.

  I was still backward in coming forward, but I was getting more and more comfortable by the day. There was a good bunch of young players coming into the club and I fell in with a couple of local lads, Joe Misiti and Mark Mercuri, who’d come through the Essendon under-19 system.

  Our captain, Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson, also lived in Greenvale so I got to build a relationship with him, too. It was a strange way to bond, given he’d later be my coach, but back then he was my driver. Bomber was big time, so I’d have to wait around for him after training. Often he’d be caught up in meetings so sometimes I wouldn’t leave Windy Hill until after 10 pm.

  The club had been on to me to put on weight, but I never had much luck even though I ate like a horse. Mum couldn’t believe the amount of food I was consuming at home, but whether I chewed it up as energy exerted in training or just had hollow legs, nothing I tried made much difference. Often I’d have two dinners and chase it with dessert. There would be another snack
before I went to bed. The weight stayed off, but the will was strengthening. I also developed the handy ability to sleep anywhere and at the drop of the hat. With all the training and expectation, I was simply worn out most of the time.

  Dad was a regular at training because he was now on the club’s board, and I was surprised at a story he relayed after one of our pre-season practice matches against the Bulldogs. He’d been speaking to assistant coach Neale Daniher, who casually observed: ‘It won’t be long until Dustin is in the firsts.’ Dad couldn’t believe it. Nor could I.

  That conversation was soon forgotten when I didn’t get a look-in for the four games of the Foster’s Cup pre-season competition, the final of which Essendon won by 23 points against Richmond in front of a crowd of over 75,000 people at Waverley Park.

  That’s why none of the Fletchers had been expecting that life-changing phone call from Sheedy on Thursday 1 April in 1993. It was April Fool’s Day, after all . . .

  *

  ‘We’re going to start you in the ruck to see how you go.’

  I was just seconds away from running out on to the MCG for my first game as an Essendon player when Sheeds approached me and delivered the message.

  It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. Starting? The ruck? In the team meeting an hour earlier I’d been named on the bench. Now I was on from the get-go.

  Since I’d got the call from Sheeds on the Thursday night, I’d been mentally preparing myself to start from the interchange, which I figured would help the nerves to settle before I then came on to a half-forward flank position and tried to get a kick. Not in my wildest dreams had I thought about playing in the ruck, let alone at the opening bounce!

  Adding to the madness was the fact that Carlton had one of the best, and tallest, ruckmen in the competition in Justin Madden, the younger brother of Essendon legend Simon, who’d retired the previous year after a club record 378 games. Madden junior stood at 206 centimetres and 107 kilos but I swear it felt like 266 centimetres as I lined up across from him. I was still buzzing from the adrenaline rush of running out through the biggest red and black banner I had ever seen and on to the ground to deafening cheers for the first time as an Essendon player.