After starting his career as let’s be honest, somewhat of a thug and on the cusp of being delisted by the Richmond Football Club, he receives a last gasp offer to play as a defensive forward in the latter stages of 2010.
This new role gives King a new lease of life, as his lack of height often got used to the opposition’s advantage when he was played as a defender.
Now though, with his focus directed at the football and not the man, Jake becomes a dangerous option up forward, with his harassing and tackling mixed with his ability to kick a goal becoming a highlight of the Tigers’ final stages of 2010.
He takes this form directly into the 2011 AFL season, averaging almost two goals a game as a dangerous forward.
However, although he has cleaned up his act, he still gets battered from pillar to post. If it’s not opposition players lining him up and targeting him, it’s the opposition supporters who still label him as a thug, or even the umpires who blatantly refuse to pay him a deserving free-kick but are all over him if he tackles a player hard.
The media also can’t seem to see how he has changed his ways. The Herald Sun labelled him a ‘serial pest’, a term which could probably better describe some of their own journalists.
So we fast forward to last Saturday night, with Richmond taking on Brisbane at the Gabba. Before the bounce King’s opponent Ash McGrath runs, not jogs, runs at Jake before the first bounce. He tries to intimidate him, grabbing him by the jumper and pushing into his chest with his fists.
Now I have to ask, if you were King, how would you react to that? Do you stage for a free kick, even though you know you have a snowball’s chance in hell of receiving a free kick from an umpire? Or do you stand up for yourself and mimic McGrath’s antics to at least show that he’s not going to get away with it.
When the slight tussle was over, McGrath had a split lip. King had a one-week suspension. Obviously the AFL tribunal can’t put themselves in King’s shoes as easily as we can.
It’s this type of injustice that has a few football fans turning their back on the AFL in favour of country or amateur football. There are so many inconsistencies week in, week out with tribunal hearings and the like that it borders on the ridiculous. How King’s suspension is worth the same as a flying Lance Franklin elbow to the head of Maverick Weller is astounding and something that really
needs to be looked at.
Go Tiges!
