'You can't keep shirking it': How tough love shaped this TigerLiam Baker has epitomised the Tigers' toughness and spirit throughout his 90-game career
By Callum Twomey
afl.com.au
8 April 2023HERE is something you wouldn't think about Liam Baker: he was once told he needed to harden up as a footballer. And here is something you might not expect about the Richmond dynamo: he kind of agreed with that opinion.
Baker was at school at Aquinas College in Perth, where he had been a boarder since year eight, when the message was clearly delivered.
"I'd played in year 10 and it was the start of year 11. I was about to get dropped and the coach said to me 'You're not in year 10 anymore, you're older now, you can't keep shirking it'. I think I learned," Baker told AFL.com.au this week.
"You ask a few school mates from back then and they'll say I was an outside player who didn't like getting my hands dirty. A few people have had a laugh at that but it's the one thing I don't like getting called – soft – so maybe that's where it grew from and I learned to love it.
"I probably was a bit soft back in school days but in WA if it was early morning it would be wet, dewy and cold and I didn't like playing in that. I'm used to it over here now but if I grew up in Victoria I would have been a little softie I reckon."
Talk about alternate universes.
Baker has epitomised the Tigers' toughness and spirit throughout his 90-game career at AFL level, featuring in Richmond's back-to-back premierships in 2019-20. He's as rugged as his haircuts, so fearless he never fumbles and up for any task his coach Damien Hardwick sets him. Last year his bravery was made official when he was named the AFL's most courageous player, an accolade that brings a smile but also some self-effacement.
"It makes me most proud that it was peer voted," he said.
"I want to put my body on the line for the team and do whatever I can but so does everyone. I think because I'm small I get a few brownie points, there's probably a lot of tougher blokes out there, I'm just small so they think I'm maybe tougher."
The recent evidence suggests the award has even more merit, though. A month from the start of this season, Baker woke up for the third day in a row with an aching pain. A couple of days later, he underwent surgery to have his appendix removed.
Some sore days in bed ensued – "You don't realise how much you use your abs until they get ripped to bits by the surgeon," he said – before he returned to training. Two weeks after his operation, he was best afield for Richmond in its practice match against Melbourne.
"I had to go out on the track and tested myself and came out of it pretty sore. The doc said 'Nah mate you're all good, you're not going to do more damage' and that was all I needed to hear pretty much," he said.
This season, the plan has been to settle in defence, where Baker has spent 98 per cent of game time so far in the opening three rounds and averaged 24 disposals. However, he's still up for being the Tigers' go-to man, their 'Move 'Bakes' in case of emergency' (they used him in the midfield late against Collingwood last week when he finished with 32 touches) and he has come to terms with the sometimes quick flip of roles.
"Early days I'd go into my shell a bit if I was moved and think I'd done something wrong. But after a couple of years in the system you realise 'What's the point in thinking you're doing something bad? Go out and do something good'," he said. "I love smothering and trying to stop goals as hard as I can but I also like getting a kick as well."
Baker's path to Punt Road from his family wheat and sheep farm in Pingaring, 50km north of Lake Grace and a four-hour drive from Perth, has been well-documented.
Overlooked by every club in the 2016 and 2017 national drafts before the Tigers grabbed him as a rookie, Baker quickly became an internal favourite at Richmond. He's still 'Dimma's' desperado, even if Baker isn't keen to give further air to the suggestion he's the coach's favourite. "There's a bit of a joke running but I try not to buy into it too much," he said, smirking.
He was excellent in the flag seasons, came second in Richmond's best and fairest in 2021 and has shown an impact as a busy, combative forward, a smart midfielder and also a brilliant defender, where he's been most damaging. Being 173cm may have stopped him being drafted but it hasn't changed his approach. It was no wonder West Coast came hard last year when he was out of contract, after two years that had made it difficult to see his family in Western Australia due to closed state borders and COVID controls.
He weighed things up before signing for two more years at Richmond through to the end of 2024, a key in the Tigers' push for another premiership.
"At the end of the day everyone at the club here knows it feels like we're the luckiest players in the AFL being drafted to Richmond. You're crazy to want to move away from that so that's what it came down to," he said.
"I found it a lot tougher in 2021 than the 2020 hub year with just the constant grind of coming in during winter and being locked up in the house again and not being able to get home [to WA].
"It was tough, my family found it tough too as they used to come over a lot and they will again this year. That's where a lot of that thinking came from, but last year it was back to normal and back having a lot of fun again.
"Every club passed up on me except for Richmond, they saw something in me that a few other people didn't. I wanted to repay the faith they showed in me."
Baker's ascent has seen him grow in leadership responsibilities at Richmond, where he's enjoyed giving a different perspective, but the traits that make him one of his team's integral players haven't waned. Just look at a couple of other sports.
He is renowned for shadow batting in front of mirrors at Punt Road, practicing cricket shots whenever he can in a quiet moment, while he is a committed golfer and plays in a manner that you'd, well, think and expect from Baker.
"Early days I was a bit more anxious and couldn't sit still. I still can't, but back then was worse so I'd get up and practice my cricket shots. I still do it, but not as much as I used to. Because I love it so much and the shadow batting the boys actually think I was good at cricket like 'Oh, could you have played?' But ask the people at home, I was no good, I couldn't hold myself down for 20 balls," he said.
"I love my golf. We didn't have much of a golf course back home and I wasn't allowed to play when dad was playing but I'd just hit balls as hard as I could in the paddock. If you see me play golf I swing as hard as I can and everyone's always saying 'Why don't you just try to hit it with a bit of ease?' But it seems to work at the moment."
https://www.afl.com.au/news/897898/-you-can-t-keep-shirking-it-how-a-bit-of-tough-love-shaped-this-fearless-tiger
