End of career, but it's a relief for Tiger
The Age
December 17, 2005
Rory Hilton is building a life for himself after an injury-plagued journey through the AFL, writes Rohan Connolly.
THE AFL yearbook didn't mince words about the prospects of the 17-year-old junior prodigy taken at No. 3 by Brisbane in the 1996 national draft.
"Exciting newcomer from the Murray Bushrangers. Rated by some well-respected judges as the best talent in the draft," was the glowing reference. That was Rory Hilton's AFL birth notice. And now, at just 26, this is his epitaph.
At senior level, anyway. Hilton will be playing football in 2006, but it will be about an hour-and-a-half's drive north of Melbourne in Euroa, where he grew up and where several of his closest mates still play. And, after nine seasons of continual struggle against injury and thwarted ambition, it's a blessed relief.
"I was a bit reluctant to play (in Euroa) because of all the injuries I've had," he says, "but in the end it was just the chance to play with my mates. I've been frustrated by my experiences and I actually want to enjoy it, basically just hanging with my mates and relaxing a bit."
Hilton had begun to mentally check out of the AFL football world some time before Richmond coach Terry Wallace gave him the "don't come Monday" talk a couple of days after the Tigers' final home-and-away game. By then, it was hardly a shattering blow.
"To tell you the truth — and this is not sour grapes by any means — I'm sort of glad it's finished. My footy career always promised a lot and delivered little." It's a remarkably blunt self-assessment and, sadly, probably spot on. But Hilton has more on his mind these days than football.
"I got married early October, but I was already chasing down employment with about a month of the season to go," he says. "I was able to get a verbal agreement from my now employer (Hilton is a property valuer with Landlink), so football became even less important." Hilton is also finishing off a degree in property by correspondence.
"I reckon what I'm doing now with my work and what I'm setting up for the future is going to be in the long term beneficial," he says. "You can get caught up in the whole AFL scene and forget some of your friends. I don't think I ever did, but I know I lost lots of opportunities to go to friends' weddings and things like that because of football. I suppose now I've got time to make it up."
The legacy the one-time "best pick in the draft" leaves AFL football is nearly a decade's toil for 91 games — and, of course, a list of injuries to fill chapters.
They began even before he was drafted by the newly merged Brisbane Lions, Hilton selected despite having had a knee reconstruction playing in the under-18 competition. The season before that he'd had a ball kicked at full force into his eye, for a brief period endangering his vision. Injury became a way of footballing life.
"I had eight or nine operations, two knee reconstructions and a shoulder reconstruction," he says. "I played half the games I should have, and the other half I was always injured, so for me it was always a battle, mentally and physically.
"The reason my career ended earlier than what I planned was purely because of injury, and I really I believe that, because I think I lost the ability to perform the things I could do as a junior because of the impact injuries had on my body. I did one pre-season out of nine and didn't even get close to that in the others. It's been a frustrating career that, in one way, I'm glad is over."
Hilton still grimaces when recalling his shoulder operation. "I missed the rest of that year, but I don't think I recovered for another 12 months after that," he says. "I had a bit of nerve damage, too, and I could hardly move at all for about three months.
"I've just been unfortunate at the end of the day. Footy's good while you can do it, but like everything, it doesn't last forever. I knew that, and I knew that going into it having had a knee reconstruction as a 17-year-old, I was probably always going to struggle with injury. That's the way it turned out, and I've just got to move on."
Hilton believes his AFL experience has hardened him both as a player and as a person. He was far from the only "disappointment" of the 1996 national draft; fellow top-10 picks from that year Mark Kinnear, Daniel McAlister, Leigh Brockman and Mark Harwood were all far less successful at the highest level than he. But Hilton certainly wore his share of flak during his time with the Tigers, most memorably in 2000 when Age columnist Robert Walls brandished a very big stick, accusing Hilton of wanting to be physical only on his terms and when opponents weren't looking.
"I certainly got used to it with the stigma of being injured all the time, then obviously what Robert Walls wrote," Hilton says. "You can't control it. I suppose I got a bit upset, but you've just got to keep telling yourself that's just how they see it, and no matter what you say you can't beat them, because they can always have the last say."
Not any more. The former prodigy is back home. And with enough time left to recapture what for so long has eluded him. After Hilton's rocky AFL path, simply finding enjoyment playing football again with a group of close mates will be an achievement in itself.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/articles/2005/12/16/1134703611933.html
