The Power of three
The Age
February 11, 2006
RICHARD Tambling finally had something to say. He just didn't have anyone to tell.
For much of his first year in Melbourne, Tambling would wander towards his teammates … and simply keep walking. It is only in the past few months that he has stopped, jumped in on conversations and realised only later that he actually did have something to say.
On this November morning, however, Tambling was sitting in the middle of Adelaide airport. His fingers were wrapped tightly around his mobile phone and he watched people move past him through the terminal, wishing he knew at least one person well enough to stop for a second.
A week and a bit earlier, the teenager had made the same trip, having heard word that his girlfriend, Amy, had gone into labour at home in Darwin. Tambling slept most of the way from Adelaide, which he never does. He can't ever remember feeling so content, but got back to find things weren't really happening, after all.
The next call came two days after he decided he probably should get back to training, and arrived too late for him to find a flight out of Melbourne. When he stopped over in Adelaide the next morning, Tambling checked his messages and called Amy's phone.
He couldn't work out if she was laughing, or sobbing, but worked out that his son, Tyler, would have been born just as his plane took off. He missed it, but he only just missed it, and he still can't decide whether that was better or a worse thing.
"I remember I hung up the phone and I was just sitting there wondering what had happened," Tambling said. "I was so happy and I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn't. It made me a bit anxious. I couldn't sit still on the plane, that time. I couldn't sleep or do anything. I just wanted to get there."
Tyler Tambling is not the only new thing in his father's life, but has grown quickly enough in his first few months to make Richard see how fast his own life moved last year. Amy moved back to Melbourne, with Tyler, about a month ago, and each day he has seemed a little older. "Everything he does is new," Tambling said.
Before Tyler, Tambling had plenty going on. He waited to hear his named called on draft day a little over a year ago; since that instant, he has moved to Melbourne, found out what a real pre-season is, and had to work out where, in this strange new city, he wanted to live.
He had a toe injury, then a hamstring injury, then another hamstring injury. As soon as he could play, he couldn't play, and through it all he watched Brett Deledio take the universe by storm. "That was difficult at times. It was pretty hard for me," Tambling said.
"He got a head start, but watching Brett, it wasn't too bad in the end. It sort of gave me itchy feet. In the beginning I would think, 'He's playing some pretty good footy here'. Then I thought, 'That doesn't mean no one else can'."
Then, there was Amy, who met Richard as a 15-year-old. Although her mother, Jacki, had helped out as a trainer for his under-18 side, Amy didn't realise he was any good at the game he loved so much until she had travelled with him, her mother and her partner, on a junior tour of Ireland.
Amy moved to Melbourne only after asking Richard whether he would rather embark on his big adventure alone, although she had plans of her own, and had started an occupational therapy course at LaTrobe University when she fell pregnant early last year.
As difficult as it was for Richard, it was tough for her, too. Everything Tambling negotiated for the first time, Amy did, too, without huge loads of footy training to cope with, but without 40 instant friends, too.
Richard worried, for a while, about how tough it was for her. "I had footy, but she had to decide what she wanted to do," he said. "She had a lot on her mind, I suppose. We just relied on each other, really."
Amy moved down a few months after Richard, and found him already more open and confident around people than he had been when he left.
The club helped teach both of them how to cook, and she began to feel less intimidated by the other players' wives and girlfriends, but struggled with the weather and with having to decide, for the first time, who she wanted to know.
"You don't really do that as you get older," she said. "You grow up around people and they're the ones in your life and you don't worry about it.
"To come down here, everyone was so wrapped up in what they were doing, and that was hard. It was hard to make friends, but once I got into the football group they welcomed me and I found friendly people.
"I made a lot of good friends at uni, too, so it only took a little bit of time. After a while this whole new little family just grows up around you."
Tyler is sleeping through enough nights to keep his dad bright-eyed at training. How Richard handles fatherhood will intrigue some people, because he is known for taking much on. Tambling expected a lot before the draft, and after it, and will do the same this year.
He wants to play 22 games, in the forward line and on a wing; his coach, in the meantime, would be happy just to graph his improvement, having seen enough "little snapshots" to believe a more complete picture is developing.
"His first seven games were winning games," said Terry Wallace. "That can be coincidence, but it's a nice little coincidence. There's no doubt that when he's up and playing he adds a bit of speed and vibrancy to the side."
He is certain to take his changing life seriously. Former AIS-AFL Academy coach Terry Wheeler took Tambling's group on the Ireland tour, and knew even before then that he had a deep appreciation of family.
"To even get together with Amy would have been a decision Richie didn't take lightly," Wheeler said. "He would have thought about it and known all the responsibilities that came with it. When he was 15, there was this level of understanding about all sorts of relationships."
No one knew Amy was Richard's girlfriend before the Irish trip, and her presence caused some concern. But if it distracted anyone, said Wheeler, it wasn't Tambling. "We'd go on a tour and Richie would come up and in his quiet manner ask if Amy could come along. I was selective with that because there were times where he had to be just a teammate," he said.
"It became a test, I think, of Richie's ability to move between the environments — to be a teammate … and then be a boyfriend to Amy. He was able to do that, and he played those games at the highest level.
"Richie has a maturity beyond his years, and that's of value to him and it benefits him. Whether in the long run it wears him down, I don't know. He takes things very seriously and he takes on responsibility, but an AFL season, and an AFL career, is a long and arduous task. Let's keep an eye on him."
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