The time to shine is now for Richmond elder statesman Brett Deledio Michael Warner
From: Herald Sun
February 22, 2014 BRETT Deledio has two Jack Dyer Medals and an All-Australian jumper tucked away in his cupboard.
He has played 195 of a possible 199 games since Round 1, 2005 and the Champion Data computer rates him “elite”.
But his critics still argue the jury is out.
His former coach Terry Wallace is an unabashed fan, but concedes the next two or three years will define Deledio.
“It’s gone pretty fast,” Deledio, 26, told the Herald Sun before another season of Tiger Army expectation. “You don’t tend to reflect too much while you’re still playing, but we’ve had some ups and downs — more downs so far, but things are looking good at the moment.
“Hopefully the next 50 games can be a lot better.”
Deledio, Richmond’s third longest-serving current player behind Chris Newman and Dan Jackson, has been through rebuilds before. He’s seen the same pre-season headlines and endured numerous false dawns.
But he said the Richmond of 2014 was barely recognisable to the cash-strapped club he walked into a decade ago.
“I suppose early on I was a bit naive to it all, how the club was running,” Deledio said.
“I just thought it was the best place because you were just so excited to be there. You didn’t really look too far outside your own performance and what was going on.
“But certainly since Dimma (coach Damien Hardwick) has come on board and having Brendon Gale as CEO ... it’s a different place. I know Gary March has stepped down as president, but Peggy O’Neal has come on board.
“It’s so professionally run and so warm and welcoming of not only our wives or girlfriends, but your family and extended family.
“We are striving to be a top-four club. We’re a big club — the numbers say that with our members — but we haven’t put the performances on the board at this stage.”
Reflecting on his early years, Deledio said the club just didn’t have the resources to compete.
“I don’t look at it as being less professional,” he said.
“We still trained hard, but we just didn’t have the equipment. The old Punt Rd sheds that we had were just chalk and cheese to what we have now. And certainly off-field things have changed quite a bit.”
Deledio said the Tigers had been at their lowest ebb when Wallace was sacked in June 2009.
“When ‘Plough’ lost his job, the s--- hit the fan pretty much,” he said.
“Everyone thought there was infighting going on with the players and the coach, but it certainly wasn’t that at all. It was just sad to be around the place at that time and to have the media circling around all the time. We were walking on eggshells.
“The game where I thought we had hit rock bottom was after Plough had gone. It was the last game of the season playing West Coast over there.
“We got absolutely trounced by 89 points or something. It was Cogs (Mark Coughlan) and Browny’s (Nathan Brown) last game. You would have thought that we’d be able to do something for them.”
Wallace has watched Deledio’s career with interest since leaving Punt Rd.
“I’ve got to say I’ve probably got a higher opinion of him than your general run of the mill person, because I know how devastating he can be,” Wallace said this week.
“I’d love to have seen him over those early years in a Geelong side to see how people would have considered him, because the sides he played in for a long time really did battle. And as a young player he was targeted.”
Champion Data statistics show Deledio plays his best football at half-back, hitting targets and gaining big metres as a run-and-carry player.
This year he’ll play a number of roles as Richmond’s swingman — in the midfield, off half-back and occasionally in the forward line.
Wallace said where to play him had always been the conundrum.
“I’m an unabashed fan, but I absolutely understand why some people get a little frustrated,” he said.
“It’s fair to say that over his career ... he has really struggled to be able to absolutely beat that one-on-one, tagging-type player in the middle of the ground. That’s where some minor inconsistencies have come.
“My biggest call on him has always been, are those who are coaching him teasing themselves by wanting him to become something he may never become? It’s always an interesting story. Do you just throw him into the guts and make him tough it out and play that sort of style, or is he a Robert Murphy-type, a swingman from end to end, who can play on a wing at centre half-forward or half-back flank?
“We’d have this same conversation at match committee.
“It will come down to how they decide to use him this year. If they decide to use him through the middle of the ground, to me that will make Dustin Martin a better player because Martin won’t get that tag.”
Of footy’s class of 2004 — the infamous Lance Franklin and Richard Tambling national draft — Deledio has played more games than anyone apart from Collingwood’s Travis Cloke. But Cloke’s 196 games, one more than Deledio, include 19 finals.
In nine seasons, the durable Deledio has missed just four games.
“I’ve been pretty blessed. I missed three with a broken hand and one with a knee,” he said.
He got lucky in 2010 when former teammate Shane Tuck crashed through his legs.
“I thought I was in a bit of strife,’’ he said. “I was by myself and he went straight through me, but that was Tucky, he knew no other way, did he? He was just see ball, get ball.
“I’ve been looked after by the big man upstairs, I think.”
Deledio, reinstated as vice-captain this month, said he had matured as a player and a leader.
“I certainly don’t feel old. But you notice it a bit more around the club with a lot more young guys coming through. You feel like you’re an elder statesman, I suppose,” he said.
“I just think about what it was like when I first came down. I used to look up so much to guys like Joel Bowden, ‘Richo’, Nathan Brown and Kane Johnson.
“I used to think, ‘I can’t imagine being at that stage of my career’. But now I’m there, you’ve got to take a step back and say, ‘I can’t be acting like a kid any more’. You’ve got to stand up and be a leader.
Away from football, the 2004 No. 1 pick from Kyabram likes wakeboarding, dirt biking and hunting wild pigs.
“I certainly still like to have some fun and take a few risks outside of footy,” he said.
“I love shooting with my uncle right up to Wilcannia in NSW. We’ve been going every year in my break for five or six nights.”
He’s also started a started a landscaping business, GMac Outdoor Living, with teammate Shaun Grigg.
“We roomed together in New Zealand on a trip and he just started bagging me and I took a liking to it, would you believe,’’ he said.
“And we’ve been pretty good mates ever since. He was in my wedding party with ‘Newy’, my brother and Cam Howat, who used to play at the footy club as well.”
Asked about post-career plans, Deledio said: “Ideally I’d like to stay in footy. I think about it all the time. You never know what can happen the next day or if Tucky might run back through me.
“I really like development and love helping out the young boys. I take great pride and pleasure in seeing them develop and trying things that you’ve told them and seeing if they work or not.
“I’ve been working with Brandon (Ellis) ... he’s a similar type player to what I was when he came in. A really good outside, ball-winning, carrying player who needed to develop their inside.
“So we’ve been doing quite a lot of that with Choco (assistant coach Mark Williams) through the pre-season. It’s been bloody tough, but enjoyable.”
Last year’s finals capitulation to Carlton still cuts deep. Deledio hasn’t watched the game.
“I recorded it on Foxtel. I just wanted to see what happened, but I haven’t got there because I started to get too angry. I turned it off,” Deledio said.
“It was such a blur playing out there. The first half just went like that. I remember getting a couple of kicks and then just fading out. The third quarter came and went and Carlton got on top.
“But we’ve dealt with it and we’ve talked about it and a lot of blokes have watched it.
“And that was the exciting part, we’ve had that taste now of playing in front of a big finals crowd. It was unreal and I want so much more of it.
“That is the thing that has kept us all going through the summer.”
Brett Deledio’s Nissan SuperCoach averages 2005-132005 - 75
2006 - 79
2007 - 91
2008 - 102
2009 - 103
2010 - 101
2011 - 104
2012 - 116
2013 - 104
http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/the-time-to-shine-is-now-for-richmond-elder-statesman-brett-deledio/story-fndv8t7m-1226834093377
