PART 2
Saturday, April 12, 2014 – THERE are certain things you learn about yourself when all you are allowed to do is run laps and deliver water bottles.Today, the AIS-AFL Academy is playing in London against the European Legion. Paddy McCartin is in his Australian uniform, but only for the team photo. He injured his finger two weeks ago playing for the Geelong Falcons, with the fracture expected to take about four weeks to heal.
The injury has interrupted the best parts of the Academy's 10-month program, and the parts he had been looking forward to most since being inducted last year: playing on the MCG against Collingwood's VFL team and a two-week European tour.
Training away from the main group for the past week has taught McCartin plenty about himself.
He knew before that he was competitive. Those who watch him can see how he attacks the contest and opponents with his barrel chest, shoulders pinned back and a discernible strut. (His younger brothers Charlie, 15, and Tom, 14, joke about the walk.)
But how much he wants to make it has only really dawned on him.
The sidelined star
"This morning the forwards were doing some leading training, and 'Otto' (Brad Ottens) asked me if I could shadow one of the guys and let him mark the ball," he says."I did it the first time and he marked it, and I thought 'I can't do this, I can't let him beat me'. It hurts. It's a natural instinct to go at the ball.
"You feel recruiters might be watching saying 'Maybe he's not as good as the other guy'.
"But in the back of your mind there's that thing where you have to play your role and let him get it, because it's just part of my role on this tour."
Missing the MCG game (or 99 per cent of it) was perhaps more frustrating. Five days before it, McCartin had played for the Falcons against North Ballarat at Camperdown in Victoria's south-west, in the first round of the TAC Cup.
In the third quarter, fighting for the ball, someone stepped on his right hand. He didn't think much of it, and when he felt pain at the three-quarter-time huddle, he assumed his hand must have been jarred.
He played on and kicked two goals in the final term to finish with four, but over the next two days the hand swelled up. He was told to get X-rays, which showed the fracture, and was then ruled out of playing Collingwood. Ruled out for most of the game, that is.
McCartin (left) was at training when told he was ruled out of the Collingwood game, and (right) that opening-minute mark
"Mick Ablett (the Academy's development manager) took me aside and said it was too good an opportunity to miss wearing my country's colours, so they'd let me run out with the team and stay on for the first two minutes," McCartin says.
"I was pretty stoked when he told me that. It eased my disappointment a tiny, tiny bit."
'What just happened?'
Although his teammates were nervous in the rooms, McCartin was relaxed knowing he would get only a small taste of things.But moments after the opening siren, McCartin was at full-forward with the ball in his hands. The Academy had won the opening clearance and kicked it long, and like he usually does, McCartin got away from his man, reached high and marked the ball cleanly.
He spun around, snapped the goal, and was mobbed by 11 teammates. You can watch the moment here:
Thirty seconds later, he was on the bench, his hand in a bag of ice, his day over.
"They didn't really want me to touch it. I completely forgot about everything that had happened in the previous 48 hours with my finger and just jumped up and grabbed the ball.
"It all happened so quickly. After I kicked the ball, I walked back to the square, and I'd forgotten. I saw 'Amesy' (Academy physiotherapist Nick Ames) running out and he said 'That's it, off you come'. I sat on the bench and I was like, 'What just happened?'"
The tour, which includes a week-long stop in Italy at the Australian Institute of Sport's European base in Milan, gives McCartin a chance to recoup some conditioning after a pre-season when he spent some time on the sidelines.
Much of his February was disrupted by nerve damage in his foot, which was hard to detect but ultimately not much to worry about after some rest.
He had other things to tick off during that time, too, like choosing a manager. After letters started arriving from agents last year, McCartin had let it sit. Jo and Matt weren't overly comfortable with the attention, or the feeling that signing an agent might have others believing they thought their son would definitely be drafted.
But in the end making a call was more about taking the pressure off than putting it on. Having seen his Falcons teammates Lewis Taylor, Darcy Lang and others go with Scott Lucas and Winston Rous at Phoenix Management last year, McCartin found it easy to do the same.
"I've known them (Lucas and Rous) since under-16 level. They've always been there, and I've been able to talk to them," McCartin says. "But it was a big decision, and I did think a lot about it."
Recruiters ask the 'consistent' question
The European tour has presented other tests. When the team's itinerary was confirmed two weeks ago, McCartin sat down with his parents and went through a schedule to make sure he didn't have any health mishaps.He was nervous about the long flights – the previous furthest he'd flown was six hours to Bali – so they put a highlighter through days and times he might find it tough to monitor his levels.
Jo and her mum Lorraine are among the 30-strong group of family members on tour, and having got through the long-haul trip to London via Abu Dhabi, he's sure he's past the worst.
"My diabetes has been spot on," he says. That hasn't stopped people asking about it. After the January camp, McCartin came home and told Jo he thought he'd need to work out a consistent answer to the questions, because he could see they were going to come.
All clubs bar Melbourne, Essendon and the Sydney Swans have sent recruiters on the trip to get to know the players better, and all have asked about diabetes.
"It's been a pretty consistent question – not really if I'd be able to handle it, but just what it's like, how I deal with it, and whether I think it's easy for me to deal with on a day-to-day basis," McCartin says.
"I think it is, because I've dealt with it for nine years or so and it's become second-nature to me. Diabetes is part of my life. I can think of a lot of worse things I could have."
McCartin (left) is interviewed by Collingwood recruiter Dom Milesi in London. Picture: AFL Media
If recruiters think they are going to ask an awkward question, they'll check with him if it's OK before. McCartin has found the more open he is about the diabetes, the better placed he'll be, and recruiters also see his honest approach as appealing.
"I really rate that he isn't afraid to articulate his genuine love of his mum and his gratitude for her support, especially with the diabetes. He shows self-awareness and perspective on life," one scout says.
"The biggest challenge for a lot of kids is being able to cope with the daily grind and ups and downs of AFL footy, especially when they've had a pretty good life and haven't had many hurdles.
"He's had one, he's had to cope with it, and he's still coping with it. But at least he's got some coping mechanisms. He's well positioned to handle the down periods everyone faces in the game."
Although McCartin is frustrated by missing out on tour, he's taken it in his stride.
That's also the case with the feedback he's received about his style of play. He's been told to continue developing his running, so that the step up to AFL standard isn't too much of a shock.
As a bash-and-crash, lead-and-mark, don't-get-in-my-way key forward, McCartin wants to add other elements to his game.
"I have to keep working on picking the ball up below my knees and getting into the play in ways other than taking a mark," he says.
"They're definitely things I'll be focusing on improving."
Read part 1 – The diagnosis that almost cost Paddy McCartin a crack at the big time
NEXT: Part 3 – 'This will put a dint in your championships'
Twitter: @AFL_CalTwomey
