Max Gawn :-*before leading Demons to flagIf Damien Hardwick had his way, McKinnon Secondary College could have been the scene for one of the AFL’s great recruiting heists of the 21st century.
It was 2014. Max Gawn was an emerging but still unproven ruckman. He had endured two knee reconstructions and was not yet a senior regular at struggling Melbourne.
Hardwick and Gawn kept crossing paths. One meeting came at Gawn’s local club, at which Hardwick also had ties.
“I was coaching at Ormond. I coached under-16s and under-17s,” Gawn says.
“I remember I played against Richmond, I felt comfortable at the level, I played quite well, took a few marks.
“And I saw Dimma at Ormond, because his son played at Ormond.
“He was going crazy. He was saying, ‘You were unbelievable [against us], we need someone like you’. Then I saw him again at my high school. We were both keynote speakers for our high school at McKinnon High. And he kept on saying in front of the whole group, ‘If we had someone like Max’. He kept on making it quite loud.”
Gawn had been a Richmond supporter as a child. How history might have turned if the Tigers had landed the best ruckman of his generation, poaching him from the club to which he would ultimately become a premiership captain.
“My manager did tell me at some point that Richmond were showing interest. But I [had] signed [with Melbourne] way before.”
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/teams/richmond-tigers/afl-news-2021-richmond-tigers-wanted-melbourne-demons-captain-max-gawn/news-story/67c445952015e3298a62404ea7d62d3a
