Ex-Swan has earned his stripes
By Richard Hinds
Sydney Morning Herald
May 13, 2006
HIS days as one of the few home-grown Sydney Swans, ruckman Greg Stafford always had a slightly left-field approach to football. He was committed once he crossed the white line, but never as obsessed by the game as some of his southern-born teammates.
So when he was traded to Richmond at the end of the 2001 season, Stafford did something unusual in a volatile sport in which careers can end with the snap of a knee ligament. Offered a two-year contract by the Tigers, he instead asked if he could sign for just one.
It was not that he was disgruntled about the trade, of which he had approved. Stafford's reluctance to commit long-term was due to a suspicion he would not enjoy life in AFL-mad Melbourne, where his every move on and off the field would be scrutinised.
"I have to admit I was pretty apprehensive about that," says Stafford, who will line up for the Tigers against his former club at Telstra Dome today. "I was worried it could be too intrusive, but it hasn't been like that at all. I don't know if I'm lucky, but the fans have always been friendly, not threatening. They are quick to let you know how you're going, but I don't mind it at all."
So comfortable is the former Ashbury boy in Melbourne, he has no plans to leave when his playing days end - possibly at the end of this season (the 31-year-old and the Tigers are yet to make a decision). He has finished a building course and started on a career that could take him elsewhere interstate or even overseas.
Nor did Stafford have any pangs when the team he grew up supporting, and for which he played 130 games including the 1996 grand final, won the flag last year. "In four or five years the list turns over pretty quickly," says Stafford. "I've still got friends there who you get messages from now and then. But the list turns over pretty quickly. I didn't go to the grand final. Haven't been to one since I've been here."
However, if he no longer bleeds red and white, Stafford's experience in embracing the Victorian football culture is suddenly relevant to a new breed of Sydney youngsters who have dreams of playing in the AFL.
Concerned by the low numbers of local players taken in the national draft in the past few years, the league this year initiated an apprenticeship scheme whereby clubs can take on talented kids from Sydney as young as 15 and bring them into the fold. Collingwood and St Kilda are among the clubs to have already chosen players.
Having been converted to Australian football as a kid because there was a field with goalposts behind his family home, Stafford's story proves that a Sydney boy can make it to the top in the AFL through the traditional route. However, having spent time in the game's heartland, he believes bringing Sydneysiders into southern-state clubs could accelerate their development.
"If you're inside the Swans system, then it is probably no different being in Sydney than here," he says. "But if you don't have that sort of support, it can be hard. I think it could be really beneficial for kids to be down here, a real eye-opener. It could certainly instil some of the passion they have down here and that might help a kid make it."
For Stafford, the benefits of moving to Richmond have been mixed. The Tigers have finished 14th, 13th, 16th and 12th in his four seasons and niggling injuries have sometimes limited his own output. "As a team, we probably haven't performed that well," he says. "But as a club I've found it terrific, the place and the people here."
After a savage 115-point defeat by the Bulldogs in the first round in which Stafford was, perhaps fortunately, sidelined by injury, the Tigers have turned around their season with victories over Brisbane, Carlton and Essendon, although no one is getting carried away. "We've beaten the three teams on the bottom of the ladder at the moment, so you can't take too much from that," says Stafford. "The pleasing thing is we haven't played the most perfect or precise football, but we've shown a lot of heart."
Today's match will be Stafford's 195th - within touching distance of the 200-game landmark often used to separate the journeymen from the elite. But while he still gets a buzz playing against his former teammates, that motivation decreases each year.
"There's still something about it that gets your competitive nature going," he says. "But it's not like the first year or two when you're crashing into blokes you played with. It gets less personal every time."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/afl/exswan-has-earned-his-stripes/2006/05/12/1146940735299.html
