Dan Butler’s journey to Richmond Grand Final player started in the barber’s chairJAY CLARK,
Herald Sun
September 30, 2017 DAN Butler’s football turnaround began at the barber shop.
Midway through last year, the speedy goalkicker had a bushy beard, surfy-style long hair but no contract for this season.
The feedback from the Richmond coaching staff was blunt. The No.67 pick in the 2014 draft had not played a senior game in his first year and a half at the club. He had to get better or start cleaning out his locker.
“I was going to get delisted,” Butler said candidly.
“I wasn’t playing the best footy and I had all this long hair and a beard and they said I looked completely different to what I used to. I was unrecognisable.”
So former development coach Mark Williams helped implement some changes which have put the North Ballarat product on a path to premiership glory at the MCG.
His frenzied pressure and sharpshooting in attack is the tip of the Tigers’ spear.
But before he undertook a gruelling off-season late last year, and mastered the art of kicking a tennis ball attached to a piece of string through some mini-targets created by Williams in the Punt Rd gym, Butler wanted to show Richmond he was serious about his footy.
So Williams suggested he try the clean-shaven look.
“I went in the next day thought I’d get rid of all the hair and have a trim and just have a fresh start, and that’s where it all started,” Butler said.
“My footy started getting better and I was luckily enough to get another contract.”
The target practice with the tennis ball was another one of Williams’s unconventional ideas, which Butler said worked a treat, as he launched the makeshift ball through the red squares thousands of times.
This year he has slotted 29 goals and 15 behinds from 22 games.
Butler also became Richmond’s top tackler in the VFL in the last part of last season and made his AFL debut in the Round 1 win this year.
Williams, who recently went to Butler’s 21st birthday in Ballarat, is immensely proud of his turnaround.
“One day he sets the camera up and sends me this video,” Williams said.
“It’s him kicking the ball through the target seven times in a row and he turns around and he just smiles at the camera.
“He’s brilliant. He’s shown so much commitment and resolve. He worked on his kicking and worked on his poise, and all the extra stuff getting over injuries and all of that stuff.
“He texted me when he got a new contract last year and he was just so happy.”
Coaching legend Malcolm Blight this week questioned whether the Tigers’ inexperience in attack would count against them today against Adelaide.
But Butler said Richmond’s young small forwards were relishing the big stage.
“All of us young forwards are pretty ready for it,” Butler said. “We think we can take it up to them.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/dan-butlers-journey-to-richmond-grand-final-player-started-in-the-barbers-chair/news-story/30b90b419ce483cf445615cc05918d9d
