Roo Beauty
"When you think about that game at the SCG to where he is now and the way he carries himself, there's no one who's going to stand over Brady Rawlings ever again." – Dennis Pagan
The increasingly popular trend of AFL players announcing their 'intention to retire' is one that doesn't necessarily sit well with me.
But this week I'm willing to make an exception.
Outstanding Tasmanian Brady Rawlings will conclude his career at the end of the 2011 season – possibly as soon as next weekend.
The announcement from Arden Street came with little fanfare and no sign of a superfluous press conference, much unlike some of the more stage managed retirements of recent times.
Geelong's Cameron Mooney was wheeled in front of the press to make his announcement mid-week. Mooney had finally made a decision on his playing future, something that cynical types might suggest was an obvious one given his much-publicised 'one month or bust' mantra a few weeks back.
Rawlings will bow out of the game with his colours flying high, the three-time best and fairest getting out at somewhere near his best.
The same can't quite be said for Mooney, the big Cat's body ravaged by the rigours of league football over 221 games and his place in any premiership tilt the club may make far from guaranteed.
Aside from announcing their retirements in the same week, there is a stunning symmetry between the length of their respective careers.
Both played senior AFL football for the first time in 1999. Rawlings in Round 2, having been taken at pick 15 in the 1998 national draft and Mooney in Round 7, having been selected with pick 56 in 1996.
That first season yielded a premiership for the Roos and a look at the selected side for that 35-point victory over Carlton provides an unquantifiable but seemingly neat snapshot of careers that would run the same journey but reap quite different dividends.
Mooney was named on the interchange bench and spent most of the his day on the pine, picking up precisely zero touches during the match. Rawlings had to settle for a seat in the stands having been named an emergency.
The very next year Mooney was shipped down the road to Kardinia Park to start his career as a Cat. Leigh Colbert headed in the other direction, but Mooney’s arrival at the Cattery was not the only one of note that summer.
A man named Mark Thompson also arrived on the scene and the rest, as they say, is history.
For those in the dark, Mooney added two premierships and All-Australian honours to his CV under Thompson’s tutelage.
Whether he gets his hands on more silverware on Grand Final day this year remains to be seen. It certainly can’t be ruled out – and any four-time premiership player can be sure of their place in footy folklore.
Rawlings probably won’t win a premiership.
It seems almost perverse that his best chance came so early in his career and that he must have been very close to selection for that 1999 team.
Then Kangas coach Denis Pagan wasn’t in the habit of making tactical errors during those halcyon days, but the fact he didn’t much need Mooney in the ’99 decider allows plenty of room for the hypothesis that the sinewy kid from Devonport must have been very close to bolting his way into the side at the Thursday night selection meeting prior to the big dance.
No doubt Pagan was a big influence on Rawlings’ development as a footballer. The dual-premiership coach has labelled Rawlings a club great this week and reminisced on a tough lesson learned by the youngster early in his second AFL season.
Rawlings had been snotted by another uncompromising Tasmanian on-baller in Daryn Creswell during a match against the gritty Swans. Blood poured from the most recognisable proboscis on the AFL landscape.
The youngster reportedly did nothing in retaliation and Pagan told him in no uncertain terms it was never to happen like that again.
If word of perceived weakness got around, it could be a career-killer.
It probably never did as Rawlings took up Pagan's message and went on to be coached by renowned hard-nut Dean Laidley, becoming one of the league’s most reliable and dogged shutdown merchants in the process.
He outlived the Laidley era and showed under Brad Scott in 2010 that there was more in his arsenal than close marking and discipline.
Having busted the 200 game barrier in 2009, Rawlings revitalised his game and became a match-winner in his own right.
Good judges might suggest this claim is a stretch, but watch the tape from the final moments of the 2010 Anzac Day match in Launceston and it cannot be denied.
The 30-year-old veteran grew an extra leg to charge the length of Aurora Stadium, sneaking in behind the Hawthorn defence to kick the winning goal.
He’d been best on ground all night and no-doubt celebrated hard having won on ‘home’ turf in front of family and friends.
Roos' victories in both his 100th and 200th games suggest Rawlings was the type of player team-mates would rally for.
Brent Harvey has spoken on behalf of the North Melbourne playing group as to the impact Rawlings has had as part of the club’s leadership group.
Harvey has also lauded Rawlings as ‘one of, if not the best bloke in footy’.
And that seems a fitting legacy for a guy who has remained as unassuming and inconspicuous as could be imagined for a 243-game, multiple club best-and-fairest winning AFL footballer.
Who knows what direction Brady Rawlings' life will take once the siren sounds on a great career.
The media seems doubtful. So does a one way ticket south to the island state, though family ties might prove tempting.
Regardless, Rawlings can look forward to a summer free of gut-wrenching time trials for the first time since the late-1990s.
The number of ice baths he has left to endure can now probably be counted without taking his socks off.
I'll be watching closely when the Roos run out against the Saints this Saturday in a match that looms as pivotal in any chance Rawlings has to taste finals football one last time.
In the interest of kicking that most brutal of aphorisms, 'nice guys finish last', let's hope the Roos channel that famous 'Shinboner spirit' and get themselves over the line this week and next and sneak into the finals to truly honour one of the greats.
