Aaron Fiora - renovating heart and home
Mike Sheahan | February 21, 2009
AARON Fiora remembers his first AFL coach, Danny Frawley, telling him his choices.
The Richmond coach of 2000 told the youngster from Adelaide he could sail through to 150 games, or apply himself and play 200-plus.
"Danny used to say, 'With your talent, you'll float through to 150'," Fiora told the Herald Sun this week.
Then the coach challenged him.
"Or, you can be a really good player and play your 200-odd."
Fiora pauses, then says "he was right . . . floated through and played the 140, yeah . . ."
Frawley's warning rings in his ears now, his AFL career over at 27. After nine seasons at two clubs. Just the 140 games.
Reluctantly, Fiora is addressing life after the AFL.
He is busy renovating his Northcote house, coming to terms with the pending arrival of his first child - his wife, Elly, is due in April - and getting to know his new teammates at East Ringwood.
He is, though, disappointed, a little confused, a bit angry.
How can it be over so soon? So suddenly? Not only did he have a year to run on his contract with St Kilda, he played in a preliminary final in his last game.
How on earth does that happen? To a bloke who played all 22 games in 2007. To a No. 3 choice in a national draft.
Fact is it happened and Fiora will play in the burbs this year. With his younger brother, Scott, 23.
He doesn't know how it all fell apart, but he accepts a share of the blame.
He acknowledges the huge gap between his best and worst throughout his career, knows he struggled mentally, that he was dogged by his lack of self-belief and did little about it, that he may even have been a bit pig-headed.
"I thought when I got drafted first round, 'I'm going to play 10 years, no worries'," he said.
"Now you know it just doesn't happen if you don't work hard enough."
Yet, he's still struggling to come to terms with the impact of that fateful meeting in October, when he was called in to see club officials at Moorabbin.
"Matty Drain (general manager of football and list management) told me they wanted to catch up with me just after the season, but I was going away for a couple of weeks," Fiora said.
"I just thought it would be a meeting about the next year, how it would be make-or-break sort of thing.
"I had a year left on a contract and I was thinking, 'If I don't have a good year, I'm out'. I just never thought about getting delisted.
"Came into the room and all the big boys are in there and I thought, 'Oh, well, maybe something's going on here'."
He was confronted by coach Ross Lyon, Drain and football manager Greg Hutchison, all wearing grim faces.
"Ross thought I'd had the best pre-season I'd ever had (2008), but that I hadn't improved on the year before and there must be something wrong and I might not have any more improvement left in me," Fiora said.
"I just sort of sat there. I was just shocked more than anything. I didn't know what to say. It was afterwards when I was driving home that I started thinking about it and what my responses could have been.
"It was way too late.
"No, I didn't argue. That might be a little bit of a downfall as well. I've just always copped it, never really come back with anything.
"I haven't really spoken to anyone about it. Not even my wife. She's not really into the AFL thing.
"Lately, she's been asking how I'm feeling. There was a bit where I was pretty angry and I was trying to keep away from her.
"I had some demolition work to do before these guys (builders) came in. Maybe that helped. I think I got a bit emotional at the time. It's the mateship thing.
"You don't miss doing the hard work, it's doing it with all your mates.
"The showers (after training). I don't know how to explain it, but it's that good.
"You get in there and talk crap with the boys, you hear from the young blokes what they've been getting up to. Then you jump into the ice baths and they're all yelling and screaming and 'Milney's' (Stephen Milne) going mad. It's just good fun. You feel so good you've done it all together."
Fiora suspects he has been his own worst enemy.
"If you talked to my teammates they'd probably say it was a mental thing. When I was going well, I couldn't keep it going and when I was going poor, I was really poor. I was never in between," he said.
"One thing I never did was talk to the good players. I never went to 'Richo' (Matthew Richardson), or Wayne (Campbell), or Paul Broderick or Matthew Knights or Robert Harvey to see what they used to do when they were in a bit of a lull."
He blames shyness and even a little bit of ego.
"Maybe a little bit pig-headed as well because I was a top draft pick and sometimes when you're young, without saying it, you think, 'I don't have to, I'll be right'," Fiora said.
"Then after a while you think to yourself, 'I'm not going so well, I should talk to these blokes' or the sports psych; he's right there, all I've got to do is go and say 'I need to catch up with you'.
"We might have spoken once, but I never followed it up.
"I think that's the thing that's probably killed me in the end.
"The difference between playing well to not playing well. If I could have been in between, I'd be still going.
"I probably never worked through things. There could have been times when I could have knocked it on the head, worked hard to get through it.
"Early on, the harder stuff, I was never that good at, but the last three years, it was never really an issue.
"I still wasn't the toughest man around, but when I had to go, I'd go.
"Also being an early draft pick and then not playing well and getting dropped.
"Should have seen someone earlier about working through those things."
Fiora played just 10 games in 2008 and was a surprise inclusion in the team that played Hawthorn in a preliminary final.
"Once the season finished, I was already looking forward to next year," he said.
"To be honest, it was probably the first time I've ever started following the off-season (training) program instead of just making up my own stuff."
He shrugs his shoulders and says he has moved on.
"I have now. Knowing that the top level's finished, there's bigger things to look forward to," Fiora said.
"I did think it was the end of the world for a while," and he smiles.
He leaves with a satisfactory financial settlement with the club, a modest degree of satisfaction to have played 140 games, and fond memories of 2007.
"I was doing the things I wasn't always good at that year: more tackles, more head-over-the-footy sort of thing, plenty of shots on goal," Fiora said.
"Ross kept persisting with me that year, then I came good; this year (2008), he just slipped me straight out so I was a bit filthy about that."
It seems confidence was critical.
"When I was confident, I always thought I could jump over anyone, mark anything," Fiora said.
"Then, something like one shocking kick and it's gone. It can be as easy as that. I always had faith in my ability. I always thought I was one of the best kicks, always thought I was one of the most skilled at both clubs.
"I've never doubted that I could play, sometimes I just doubted myself out there.
"Ross said at the meeting, 'We've probably got more belief in you than you do yourself'. He's probably right but then I thought straight away, 'Why the hell are you peeing me off'?"
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25084112-19742,00.html
