Tiger tiger burning bright: for the love of Luke McGuane (and two other things)
All week I’ve grubbed out a stump in the front yard and thought of Luke McGuane. The two, in my mind, go hand-in-hand, and now have become one: the Stump, McGuane. Manual labour loosens the mind. In the meditation of physical work, one finds time to think about football, about footballers (manual labourers, of another sort), and how it must be being Luke McGuane.
The stump is from a Chinese silk tree that had overgrown its purpose. It was redundant. It came with the house, recently acquired, and full of problems. The other week I dug out a line of vitreous enamel stormwater pipes – cracked by roots – and set down instead PVC plastic tubes, and all the time thought of Jake King. He’s a plumber. He knows about these things.
This week it’s been back to the tree.
A flowering exotic, its branches had spread across the road and several storeys high. I lopped the canopy on Good Friday, on the morning after our win against Carlton the night before, making perfect cuts with the chainsaw, thinking of McGuane’s tackle on Josh Bootsma in the dying moments, and how I wanted to write about this as an acknowledgement of appreciation.
What I wrote in the Round 1 match report was this: “He [McGuane] didn’t accumulate big possessions, he didn’t take many marks, but his efforts were tireless. Watch his game and you see a man who’s all knees and elbows, playing within his limitations and to a team role of thankless tasks – standing under high balls, receiving half-chances, splitting the contest. Luke McGuane is a no-fuss, no-frills footballer. Rarely demonstrative, rarely beaten, few of his possessions come easy. He’s a scrapper, a stopper, a scrounger. But, most of all, he’s no easy man to shake.”
Ever since, I’ve watched Luke McGuane with a keen eye and burning admiration. His appreciation society is growing. His performances have turned public perception. Television and radio commentators talk about him. They set him apart. “He just leads,” says Danny Frawley. “He’s a leading machine.” Champion Data this week placed him as the league’s ninth-placed inside-50 go-to player, behind Cloke, Petrie, Schulz, Kennedy, Brown, N. Riewoldt, Franklin and Hawkins.
Not bad company for a bloke picked up at 36 in the 2004 National Draft, and never given the star billing of the top-10 recruits.
**
I’ve not ever met Luke McGuane, but I do understand the attraction of his story. It’s about exodus and banishment, and renewal and belonging, themes that are as eternal as the wind and the water; motifs that, on the cusp of his 100th AFL game, have in the minds of many made him a figure of resilience and fortitude. All who follow football admire these characteristics in a player.
Most of his career I have viewed from afar, in Sydney, through the keyhole of television. I liked him as a defender. Sometimes he gave away needless free-kicks, but you could never doubt his commitment and attack on the contest. From the beginning, he looked a hungry and lean footballer, like a Mallee wheat farmer, like a man with a thirst to run and jump all day long, then wrestle sacks of grain before dinner.
Last season I watched him on ABC TV in Coburg colours, playing on the wing at City Oval, and could not understand why. He seemed a better player than that. He seemed deserving of more.
As the story goes, Luke McGuane returned from the wilderness in Round 15 last year and has been revelatory. The coaching panel put him up forward and he’s not looked back. He kicked two goals in his welcome-back game, and 15 goals in the season’s last nine games. This year, he’s kicked multiple goals every week, except last, when he kicked one in the loss to Geelong. It was an aberration. He spent a good part of the second half in the ruck (despite four other Tigers on the ground being taller than him). He shouldered a burden. No other Richmond player had more game time than he did. No other Richmond player made more of such limited chances.
This week, while chipping away at tree roots clasped in clay, I’ve come to think of Luke McGuane as a Stoic, in its philosophical sense of austere fortitude. Maybe it’s the delusion of the exertion? The stump has become the player: lean, upright, wiry, hard, resilient, stubborn, and yet to be budged. As they say in footy, he’s “tall timber”, this hard-nosed, hard-leading forward, who’s not afraid to chase and tackle, back into packs, and never shirks from the most courageous act a man of his size must undertake – bend for the ball in oncoming traffic.
But yesterday I downed tools, to seek opinion on this matter of McGuane. I wanted to hear the voice of the crowd, and to do so turned to social media. I sent a tweet. What came back was a chorus of @LukeMcGuane love, a Twitter trail of clipped praise that in part, read:
@gohardtiggers Mate, l m extremely happy 2 tell everybody l thought Luke was gone last year. Gee it is good 2b wrong. Congrats
@ScotE_2hotE My tiger mates and i call him the Great McGuando. The magician who comes from nowhere to mark or kick a goal #needsacapeandhat
@ChrisElfy there was a VFL game some years back now where he broke a goal post. I think it may have hit him on the head, too
@eddie1007 I remember reading somewhere he was one of the Tiges toughest bench pressing 150kgs + #rumour #fact #dukelukem
@MallettCaroline did not give up...that is a great attribute in a person...
@StevieJpat20 love his passion for the club. Really improved areas of his game to become important. Loved by the supporters.
@TheHolyBoot Massive Lukey fan. Remember his first game v Swans at Docklands. We got smashed but he kicked a nice goal on... [eight subsequent tweets recount the story and pass-on well-wishes]
@mtorney78 just the fact that he was given the chance to reinvent himself, and restart his career, and took it.
@nattyibetta Hard work has taken him from Coburg to Richmond from defender to forward from indifference to another one WE LOVE
@jasonkfraser my brother @kevinfraser17 recently bought Luke's training jumper on the tiger auction and wears it with pride
@paul_football He is the Tiger spirit we want in every footballer. Grit and determination!
@ASpeedingCar Love the way he's worked to go from being one foot out the door to being an integral part of the team......
@atrafic why wasn't he played up front from day dot!?!
@DomFark The fact he's so unpredictable yet so consistent.
@thetalent19 spare parts man par excellence keep clunking them brother you are the difference
@puntrdend17 it may have taken 9 years but he now even has his own grog squad chant. Surely just as rewarding as playing 100 games #solid
@NathanBrown_07 only a skinny fella but pound for pound the strongest at the club. Eats the bench press.
@AndrewCumpston loved the way he fought back into the 1s last year by hard footy 4 the burg when it looked his career was over
@DrMikeAU Forward or back, he's one of our own, with each goal he kicks, in our hearts he has grown #McGun
**
What I know about Luke McGuane is from the handbook. He’s 26-years-old, 192cm, weighs 92cm and was recruited from Broadbeach. In his draft class of 2004, he was taken in the third round as one of 80 players new to the AFL. Of these, only 22 have reached the 100-game milestone before him, led by Brett Deledio, Lance Franklin, Nathan Van Berlo and Jarryd Roughead.
Only four players from Queensland were picked in the 2004 draft and, of those, only Tom Williams from the Western Bulldogs and Luke McGaune have made any impact on the speculative business that is AFL football. Both moved interstate for work, young men leaving behind the securities of home and family.
Following my Round 3 match report, I also learned of the McGuane bloodlines in Ballarat, the best known of whom is his uncle Mick McGuane, a premiership player and dual Copeland Trophy winner at Collingwood. A TTBB reader sent an email that told of a personal story. “Like you I am also a big Luke McGuane fan and follow his games with much interest,” he wrote. “I knew Luke’s father, Gavin McGuane, when growing up. He was a wonderful footballer in his own right, who played with Golden Point in the Ballarat league, and was a frequent BOG or thereabouts.”
“I’ve not seen Gavin for many years – he moved to the Gold Coast and married there (where Luke was born) – but hear news from time to time. I do know that some years ago Gavin was involved in a workplace accident, which left him legally blind. He cannot see his son playing football now, but I believe follows intently on the radio. I am sure Luke’s second lease of life at the Tigers would be giving him much pleasure.”
Gavin McGaune did indeed have an accident, which has left him with 20 per cent vision and unable see what so many of us see when we watch his son play football. I cannot imagine how, for him, this must be. I cannot imagine the regrets he may hold for not being able to fully appreciate his son play. It must ache in his heart. I do not know whether Gavin McGuane can read this, but if he can, he ought to know his son has given many football followers much pleasure over many years. He must be proud of him, as only a father can be.
Tomorrow, Luke McGuane becomes a 100-game Richmond player. I wish him good fortune and happiness, and want him to know also that so many respect him for what he’s done. He can walk tall on Saturday afternoon. A Tiger Army has his back.
**
And the Big O joins the band! Opportunity knocks. There’s much to love about the story of Orren Stephenson and there’s much to love that tomorrow he plays his first game in Yellow and Black. The man is a warrior; an honest and hard-working footballer, who it’s easy to hold faith in. Good luck to him. I hope he’s big news in the Sunday papers, I hope he makes a statement to all footballers who thought their chance had come and gone. In the Big O we trust, in the Big O we believe.
The other “in” that I, and many other Richmond fans will watch with keen intent on Saturday afternoon is, of course, Nathan Foley. He’s a Colac boy and my father played for the Colac Football Club (drafted to Hawthorn, buggered his knee, married, had for children, end of story). I hope another fine chapter in the Nathan Foley novella begins anew against Port Adelaide tomorrow.
**
A call to all TTBB readers. This week you will write the match report. I’ll watch the game on TV, like most other Richmond fans, but also join the Twitter conversation at #AFLPowerTigers. The match report will be a compilation of the most insightful/witty/emotive/clever/profound/humorous tweets. All comment is in the public realm. For those not on Twitter, please email succinct thoughts (140 words or less) on the game and I’ll include the best. Geez I hope it’s a win!
Tiger tiger, burning bright.
or Twitter: @dugaldjellie
