What does it feel like to do your knee in your debut game? Richmond's Nathan Drummond knows Emma Quayle
The Age
June 4, 2015 - 7:01PM Not many people have asked Nathan Drummond what he remembers of his very first AFL game. The answer seems so obvious. Not many debutants have been back in the rooms before the half-time break after all, being told by the club doctor that they have injured their knee so badly that they won't be able to play a second match for another season or more.
Drummond can still remember his knee twisting inwards, after he backed into a contest on the MCG wing. He can remember how much it hurt, and his leg dangling freely as the physios took their first look at it. He hasn't forgotten what the doctor told him – you've done your ACL – and how upset his parents were for him.
They had been there with him less than two hours earlier, watching him get handed his first Richmond jumper. "Your immediate thought is just, why did it have to be you?" said the 20-year-old. "It's upsetting, but it also doesn't feel real. Emotionally, it was very hard to take."
It still is, some days. It had to happen in his first game? What if he had jumped a second earlier, or later? Landed on the other foot? Somehow forced his body weight the other way? One of the first steps in recovering from a knee reconstruction is learning to stand up on your toes, and Drummond feels like he is starting everything all over again. But when he thinks of the night his dream came true neither the collision, the pain nor the diagnosis is the first thing that comes into his mind.
He thinks first of all of his long wait to even get there, one that gained urgency when he was overlooked in the 2013 draft, at the end of a challenging year. Drummond was finishing school at Melbourne Grammar, travelling to play for the Murray Bushrangers and found it difficult to move easily from team to team while also dealing with a few injuries. "I found it a bit hard to manage all of it," he said, "and that was before even starting to try and get the best out of my footy."
There were reasons that wasn't so bad. Drummond grew more independent living in the school's boarding house after taking up an Indigenous scholarship; while his great grandfather on his father's side once captained Collingwood, playing in two premierships, his great great grandfather on his mother's side showed what he calls "a different sort of leadership," making him feel disappointed not to be wearing Richmond's Indigenous guernsey in Saturday night's Dreamtime game.
William Cooper was an Aboriginal activist, one of the country's earliest. He wrote letters to the prime minister and king of England, protesting the treatment of his people. He travelled around seeking signatures for his petitions, and helped organise the first "Day of Mourning" in 1938, on the 150th anniversary of colonisation. In his 70s, Cooper led a march of people down Collins Street, angry at Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jewish people. There are trees planted in the Forest of the Martyrs near Jerusalem for him, and his story is told at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. "He fought for people and he did it at a time when he wasn't even really considered human," Drummond said. "It's hard to imagine how brave he must have been. It's pretty special. Not many people would have done the things he did."
Drummond was sitting alone in his bedroom, watching the draft on his laptop, on the night he was passed over in 2013. Finished at school, he moved back home to Shepparton, got a part-time job at the Rebel Sport store a short walk down the road and trained and played full-time with the Bushrangers. On the back of his door he stuck a piece of paper with the number 18 written on it. "I had that there to look at every day, to represent all the clubs that didn't pick me," he said. "It was a reminder of what I wanted to do in my life and where I wanted to get to."
It was strong motivation. Drummond worked on his ground balls, on using his speed, on spending more time in the midfield. He was Richmond's third pick in last year's draft, and one of its best few runners by the end of his first pre-season, his disappointment not forgotten even by then. He was sitting at home when Damien Hardwick called to tell him he had made the side, feeling relieved and excited at the same time. It was hard to sleep that night – what was it going to be like? – and Drummond can remember everything that happened after that clearly.
He took housemate Dylan Grimes' dog for a walk to the park on the morning of the game, then went out for some breakfast. He was presented with his jumper in the rooms. He looked around the MCG during the team's first warm up – he had never been out on the ground before – and kicked the ball with Trent Cotchin in the rooms before they headed back up the race for real.
Drummond was nervous, his heart racing. He got four kicks before he was hurt, and was just starting to feel comfortable. He saw the ball move over his head and knew he had to jump up, back and at it. But five weeks later, knowing what happened and understanding everything that lies ahead of him, his lasting memory is of running through the banner and up towards the cheer squad, the theme song playing loudly and the supporters singing along with it.
It's what has stuck with him, and what he hopes won't go away. "I suppose that's when I thought, it's happened, I'm here. That was when the dream came true," he said. "It's just an unreal moment, it's what you've waited for and what you've done all that work for. It's one of the happiest days of my life and also the most miserable, but at least I know that I was in the team when it happened and that the coaches picked me. Those are the things I think of all the time and that's what's going to keep motivating me. I've made a start and I'll be able to keep going soon."
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/richmond-tigers/what-does-it-feel-like-to-do-your-knee-in-your-debut-game-richmonds-nathan-drummond-knows-20150604-ghb3iz.html
