Jack Graham wants to repay Tigers the favourPeter Ryan
Fairfax media
18 March 2018On a Sunday afternoon in August, Jack Graham ran out for Richmond to make his AFL debut on Subiaco Oval.
Just 41 days later the hirsute 20-year-old stood on the premiership dais at the MCG.
He had played in five AFL games for five wins, laying 35 tackles.
His best performance came on grand final day in front of 100,021 people when he kicked three goals in the Tigers' drought-breaking win, shut down Adelaide star Rory Sloane, and earned a vote in the Norm Smith Medal.
He was the youngest player since Essendon's Mark Mercuri (who beat Graham by one day) to kick three goals in a premiership victory.
"It was my day, kinda," Graham says.
"You have your days and you don't. I was lucky enough to have mine then."
Only 19 players in the game's history have become a premiership player after fewer games, while Graham was the youngest person to win a flag since Hawthorn superstar Cyril Rioli did in his 25th game in 2008.
Only former Tiger Cameron Clayton, who became a life member at the Tigers this season – as did Graham after Richmond's board decided all premiership players would automatically qualify – can better Graham's record, playing in eight straight wins from debut to flag in 1974.
Clayton was a 17-year-old but he spent most of the two finals on the bench, only coming on in the last quarter of the 1974 grand final.
Graham's more experienced teammates have not missed the chance to remind him during the off-season how lucky he has been to experience a premiership before he turned 20.
"They sure do wind me up but they love it at the same time," Graham says.
A conversation he had with long-suffering teammate Shane Edwards after the qualifying final win over Geelong sticks in his mind.
Edwards told Graham it had taken him 11 years and 205 games to experience a win over the Cats.
By contrast, Graham was enjoying that feeling after just three games.
Graham acknowledges his good fortune, too, with a combination of humility and raw enthusiasm.
"It is still pretty crazy and pretty surreal," Graham says.
He did have to show a certain amount of resilience to even be in the hunt when the chance came. This time last year Graham could not have seemed further from a premiership, having tumbled to pick 53 in the 2016 national draft despite captaining South Australia in the AFL's under-18 championships and winning the MVP.
After initial hamstring issues, he was in rehab nursing a broken ankle suffered at training when now-retired forward Ben Griffiths tackled him.
Despite reassurance from the skipper Trent Cotchin that the injury would not affect Graham's chances of making a career in the game, he naturally worried that it would stop him from showing everyone what he had.
Lucky was not a word he was using to describe how he was feeling.
"At first I was thinking, 'Oh, God'," Graham says.
It was not until round 13 that he made his VFL debut and round 22 before he made his AFL debut.
He took each game as it came, believing the coaches when they said he was good enough to be there. And as each week passed he celebrated the fact he was living an impossible dream.
Not once did he worry about whether he would lose his spot, his attitude heading into the preliminary final signalling his humility rather than his confidence.
"I was thinking if I get dropped, fair enough. I've only played three games," Graham says.
Now, just days away from starting his second season, his intentions to carve out a long career are clear.
"I've ticked the first box and that was a full pre-season," Graham said. "It has been a great start in my journey but the journey has only really begun."
That journey will see him play against Carlton for the first time, potentially in front of more than 90,000 people for the fourth time already in his short career.
If the Tigers win he will become the first Richmond player since Richard Tambling to play in six wins in his first six games, a feat Tambling achieved in 2005.
But such things are not on the down-to-earth Graham's mind as he looks to cement his spot in the line-up.
The boy from Tea Tree Gully remains as determined, competitive and humble as he has always been, remembering the values his parents Jeff and Sue instilled in him.
"Dad always told me to be humble and to be who you are," Graham said.
He will forever be a Richmond premiership player, just the 12th man in the past 50 years to win a flag within his first 10 games.
He is also presumably the first life member of a club to still be eligible to win the AFL Rising Star.
But whether he becomes the 200-game player every draft hopeful dreams of becoming will remain a function of hard work.
He also wants to taste premiership glory again.
"I'm obviously honoured to be a life member at Richmond but I have got a lot to give back too, having been given [the honour] so quickly. I want to be known as a life member that played 150 games and gave back to the club," Graham said.
Early premierships since 1968: Jack Graham, Richmond 2017: Brent Renouf, Hawthorn 2008: Richard Hadley, Brisbane Lions 2003: Shannon Motlop, North Melbourne 1999: Ben Marsh, Adelaide 1998: Aaron Keating, Adelaide 1997: Greg Madigan, Hawthorn 1989: Stephen McCann, North Melbourne 1977: Rodney Eade, Hawthorn 1976: Peter Murnane, Hawthorn 1976: Cameron Clayton, Richmond 1973: Neil Chandler, Carlton 1968
http://www.watoday.com.au/afl/richmond-tigers/jack-graham-wants-to-repay-tigers-the-favour-20180317-p4z4v6.html
