BRIAN Lake sometimes seems to be fighting split personalities.
Take Lake the footballer, for example. Most of the time, he’s a rock at full-back for the Western Bulldogs, one of the best in the game at shutting down the elite power forwards.
Just ask Lake’s opponents in the past three rounds – Hawthorn’s Lance Franklin, Collingwood’s John Anthony and Essendon skipper Matthew Lloyd – all of whom he comprehensively beat, holding Franklin and Anthony goalless and Lloyd to just two.
Take Lake the footballer, for example. Most of the time, he’s a rock at full-back for the Western Bulldogs, one of the best in the game at shutting down the elite power forwards.
Just ask Lake’s opponents in the past three rounds – Hawthorn’s Lance Franklin, Collingwood’s John Anthony and Essendon skipper Matthew Lloyd – all of whom he comprehensively beat, holding Franklin and Anthony goalless and Lloyd to just two.
Every now and then, though, Lake will make a poor decision streaming out of defence, his “brain fade” leading to a turnover and a rise in Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade’s blood pressure.
Then there’s Lake’s preparation for a game. On one hand, he describes himself as someone who can overanalyse the game, saying at the start of his AFL career he would study his opponents so closely he often wore himself out mentally before matches.
On the other, he admits to occasionally nodding off during team meetings, especially when the talk switches from the Bulldogs’ defensive group to the midfield or forward divisions.
He is someone who had to mature quickly when he became a step-dad to his partner Shannon O’Malley’s son, Bailee, six years ago at 21.
But he also admits to being a serial pest at the Bulldogs, often pulling unsuspecting teammates’ underarm hair, when they’re standing hands on hips at training.
Confused?
Well, there was also Lake’s much-publicised decision ahead of his son Cohen’s birth in December 2007 to change his surname from Harris (his mother Chesel’s maiden name) to his family name (which his mother adopted after marrying his father, Brian, when Lake was about 11).
So who is the real Brian Lake? Speak to Lake and you soon realise he’s in no doubt himself. Keenly self-aware, through trial and error, Lake has discovered what makes him perform at his best as a footballer and what makes him happy as a person.
“The thing I’ve learnt now is, during the week, not putting so much pressure on yourself,” he says.
“Footy clubs can be very robotic places at times. But the way I am, I can be serious when I need to be, but you’ve got to lighten things up every now and then.
“And on the track, I just like to do little things to be annoying to keep people normal at stages.”
Likewise, his personal life with Shannon, Bailey, 8, and Cohen, 18 months, provides a welcome counterbalance to football.
“If I’d played a bad game and the coach had got into me a little bit, I used to bring that home with me a fair bit,” he says.
“But now when I get home and see the little fellas run up to me, it’s amazing how quickly I can go from being grumpy and stressed out to OK.”
Read the full story in the round 17 edition of the AFL Record, available at all grounds.
