Tom Papley spent his first year as an apprentice plumber working in Melbourne, and that meant two things: more than an hour’s drive in the cold from his hometown of Bunyip, and a tradie’s breakfast. “About 5am my mate would pick me up, then I’d start in the city at 7am,” he says. “I’d get a sausage roll and a can of V on the way through to work. That kept me going a bit; I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker.”
The daily V – if we may be so bold – does seem to account for some of Papley’s more recent on-field escapades. Back then, though, it got the teenager through nine hours of digging ditches. Finishing at 4pm, he and his mate headed back to Bunyip, before he hopped straight back in the car to drive himself an hour in the other direction to Morwell for training with the Gippsland Power.
“Then I changed bosses to work closer to Morwell, and that helped me a lot because I didn’t have to travel as far,” Papley says. “My diet didn’t change much. I was still eating some pretty crap stuff, and drinking a lot on the weekends – just what normal 18- and 19-year-old kids do.
“I always wanted to [play AFL] but probably didn’t really think I was good enough. I didn’t really do everything right. Then I got my chance. And to be honest, if the Swans didn’t pick me up I would probably still be plumbing. I might’ve went to VFL, might’ve not, but probably I would’ve been outside footy. Good timing, and I’m very, very grateful that Kin took a chance on me.”
Sydney’s recruiting manager Kinnear Beatson did take a punt on Papley. The then 19-year-old had generated initial interest from recruiters after some standout VFL performances for Casey in 2015, including one against Geelong when he played on Jimmy Bartel and kept the triple premiership-winning Brownlow Medallist in hand.
But he was still overlooked by all 18 clubs in the national draft, amid questions from clubs about physical limitations. The small forward was seen as “a tad slow” and “a little bottom-heavy”, his manager Winston Rous has since recounted. Being on his feet all day every day at work did not help, and he was advised to ask his boss for the day off before games to conserve energy, and take some time the day after to properly recover.
Papley clashes with Will Rioli during Sydney’s preliminary final win over Port Adelaide.Credit: Channel Seven
Even when the Swans snapped him up in the rookie draft with pick No.14, Papley was by no means a natural runner. But his presence on the footy field as a nuggety goalsneak was dynamic and damaging, and he had a feeling he was “going all right here as a young fella” during his first Swans pre-season. That was confirmed when the leadership group told him he wasn’t far off an AFL debut. “I was pretty intimidated by Jarrad McVeigh at the time,” he says. “Then there was Josh Kennedy, Kieren Jack, Luke Parker. I was a big Swans man, so these guys were my idols.”
That debut came in round one of 2016, which soon became a round-six Rising Star nomination and 20 senior appearances in his maiden season, including Sydney’s grand final loss to the Western Bulldogs.
Papley celebrates a goal against the Power last weekend.Credit: Getty Images
By the time he’d turned 20, the grandson of 1960s South Melbourne Swans players Jeff Bray and Max Papley had earned himself a two-year contract extension and a reputation as the best plumber-turned-footballer since Kevin Sheedy, who, during his playing days, was famously called a “bloody back pocket plumber” by his late former Richmond coach Tom Hafey.
There is another reputation, too, which has a bit more to do with the early morning energy drinks (although “I’m more of a Monster man now – I’m sponsored by Monster, so maybe change ‘V’ to ‘Monster’” ). Toby Greene and Willie Rioli know all about this guy, the Swans’ chief pest who talks a big game and legitimately backs it up (he has five goals and 10 score involvements from his past two matches).
Three weeks ago, he returned from an ankle injury and squared up to Greene after the siren sounded for quarter-time in Sydney’s qualifying final against GWS, kicking off a scuffle as players ran in to pull the pair apart. Papley continued to rant at the Giants skipper over his shoulder, and then even managed to grate an opposing official in Jason McCartney (the Giants were later fined $20,000).
Papley later revealed on his weekly The Early Crow podcast that Greene had sledged him, saying “You’re puffed, Paps, you’re puffed. You’re tired mate, you’re tired. You haven’t played in five weeks”. “Anyway, I obviously wasn’t tired in the last quarter,” Papley said, referencing his match-turning role alongside Isaac Heeney and Joel Amartey in the Swans’ six-point comeback win.
Last weekend he backed it up against Port Adelaide, slotting the first of his three majors in the comfortable preliminary final victory before promptly throwing himself into another quarter-time brawl, this time with Rioli. “Willie started it,” Papley says, smiling. “He ran my way. He started it. I thought, ‘siren’s gone, we did this two weeks ago so may as well’.”
Papley, with his aggro antics, love of horse racing (in January, his Getafix upstaged Matt Damon’s first Australian runner at Royal Randwick), might be one of the most ‘rugby league’ AFL players there is.
“I probably have a little bit of a – I don’t know, can’t really say the word – in me,” he continues. “But my whole career, even when I was little fella, [I’ve been] maybe a little bit of a prick sometimes when I’m on the field. I think it’s not a bad thing to have. If I look at Toby Greene, he’s one of the best players in the competition. I look up to him a lot and the way he goes about it – how good of a player and a leader he is.
The Tom Papley v Toby Greene stink.Credit: Fox Footy
“When I walk on the field, it’s just white-line fever. I’m just out there to win, whatever it takes. I might probably come across the wrong way, and people probably don’t like me, but I don’t really care. I know my teammates like me, and that’s what it’s all about, doing everything for your teammates. I think my old man was a bit of a wild boy back in the olden days. He played just local, but he was a bit fiery.”
If Papley is a prick, then Brisbane’s Brandon Starcevich is his level-headed opposite. An in-form defender with the no-frills task of stopping the fire starter on the other team from lighting up. Who says things like “I’ll do my homework and try to give him as little space as possible”, even though Papley could well be the one all up in his grill as he bids to better his one-goal showing from two grand final defeats in 2016 and 2022.
The funny thing about enjoying a league-like biff and mouthing off in a manner very unlike his clean-cut Swans contemporaries, is that Papley – unlike his coach John Longmire and most of his teammates – is more than happy to add his voice to this week’s code wars with Peter V’landys and the NRL.
“The AFL is taking over, I’ll confidently say in the next five years,” he said on Tuesday’s episode of The Early Crow. “The NRL would be getting worried, I reckon. The AFL is just going bananas up here. Even the kids just down the dog park … they start noticing you a bit more now, because they’re running around with an AFL ball and not an NRL ball.”
At this point, Papley’s co-hosts wagered that being recognised by kids at the park explains why he actually picked up his dog’s poo that day, before further postulating that “there were no crowds at the NRL on Saturday night because they knew Paps was driving to the game” next door to Allianz Stadium at the SCG.
They were, of course, referencing Papley’s car accident on Anzac Parade as he was on his way to the SCG for the GWS game. Anxious about his return from injury, he rear-ended a vehicle in front of him after another car had attempted an illegal left turn. Despite being in full club uniform he was not recognised, so did not tell Longmire pre-game for fear he “would have been going off”. A fortnight later, for the preliminary final victory over Port Adelaide, he “left a bit early just in case there was a drama”.
For all the banter, Papley has a softer side, and in 2019 requested a trade to Carlton to be closer to his family as his father David struggled with bipolar disorder. In the end he stayed to continue playing at the club with strong family pedigree he has loved since he was a kid running around in the backyard pretending to be Brett Kirk. Back then, as a 10-year-old attending Sydney’s drought-breaking grand final win of 2005, he did not envisage his own non-traditional pathway to professional footy.
“Coming on from a plumber to a rookie helped me a lot to work hard and don’t take it for granted,” Papley says. “If you only got that one year, you need to work hard and take that chance. It’s pinch-yourself stuff, I think you’d probably look back on it when you’re finished, but it’s just a dream come true – but I’ve got to win my first [flag]. I’ve been to two grand finals and they were great, but I didn’t get the job done … it’s not good when you lose, so third time lucky I reckon.”
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