On Sundays, I’ve started running laps of a footy oval across town. The first time was three weeks ago and I’ve returned every Sunday since. It’s become a ritual of sorts, somewhere between a meditation and purge.
Last Sunday, at the completion of this physical prayer, I crouched down, knees pointed outward, elbows on my knees and eyes looking straight down, my heaving breath the only sound. I was reminded of an old footy myth.
I’d heard that the great Stephen Kernahan believed that there was a single stretch (very similar to this crouch position I was in) that took care of everything a footballer needed. Groin, lower back, quadriceps and calves. Frozen in position, I was reminded of my pure love for such things in footy.
Was the story true? Doesn’t matter, I live for these little pieces of footy folklore.
I stayed in my restorative pose, which I will call “the Sticks”, for an extra minute or so reaching for other foggy stories about footy players that I used to know.
Nathan Ablett (a rich source for this type of thing) was alleged to have insisted to his fitness staff that if they wanted him to run six laps, then half of them would have to be run in the opposite direction to satisfy his innate need for balance. Bonkers. Or so I used to think. Then I realised I had been doing exactly that on my weekly circle work. It’s a form of meditation.
Ward in agony after injuring his knee. It’s since been confirmed as an ACL.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
On this most recent outing it was hard for my thoughts not to wander towards a friend in pain,. It was an old Bulldogs teammate and current GWS Giant veteran, Callan Ward, who had crumpled onto the grass the night before, his season done, his career in the balance. “Ah footy, shivving footballers in the kidneys for over a hundred years,” was how a good mate once put it to me. It rang true at that moment.
The footy community can, at times, feel a bit like professional wrestling, everyone hates each other, but for the most part, it’s not real. Callan Ward is loved. This adoration from those who inhabit the game is rare. Players so tough are rarely as kind and empathetic in equal measure.
I’ve known Cal since he was a boy, and he’s always been a tough footballer. More than that, he has always been achingly sincere. My favourite story of Cal, in the vein of half-truth, was not the right memory for the moment, but it’s where my thoughts went.
It’s said that on this day, then Giants coach Leon Cameron was seething about his team’s treatment from the umpires and sent his captain, Cal, to have a word with them to get that message across. Cal stood in front of the umps and was a few minutes into a spirited plea on behalf his coach when a smirk ran across one of the umpires’ faces: “Cal, we’re the boundary umpires, the field umpires are over there”.
Approaching the umps is not the instinctive thing for a leader to do. Nor is it instinctive to stand in front of your teammates at the three-quarter time huddle and plead with them to find a little more when your knee is torn apart just like your heart, but that’s what Cal Ward did on Saturday. That’s who he is, and I am in awe of him.
It wasn’t what he said – Ward wouldn’t be the first footballer to implore his teammates to play their roles – it was the fact he was selfless enough to say it in that moment, on crutches, knowing his career might have just ended.
Cal’s teammates are in awe of him, too. All that emotion, sealed with a Lachie Whitfield kiss. Ward was lying on his back in pain, wiping his eyes with a towel when Whitfield hugged and pecked him on the cheek. It said everything.
Callan Ward sheds tears as he leaves the ground on Saturday.Credit: AFL Photos
The Giants currently sit seventh on the ladder, after hauling in a significant deficit in the last quarter to beat the Tigers. They’re now up to their eyeballs in the premiership race. That is due in no small part to the heart and goodness of Callan Ward and all that he has given them and the game. The privilege of wearing the orange and charcoal jumper just got heavy with significance. Watch out.
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