Malthouse Lauds Shy Star
The Age
Saturday June 7, 2008
COLLINGWOOD coach Mick Malthouse has paid tribute to goalsneak Leon Davis for his effort in overcoming intense homesickness and shyness as a rookie to line up for his 150th game on Monday against Melbourne.
Malthouse, who will reach a milestone of his own this round, said yesterday that Davis, 26, was playing the best football of his career."I think it's just one of the most outstanding efforts," Malthouse said. "Especially when I look at a shy young lad that came across from Northam (in Western Australia)."Malthouse described first meeting Davis at a training camp in Canberra, where the teenager was too timid to pull off his hooded jumper, and claimed to have a bad cold so he would not have to talk."(Davis) didn't want to be seen by anyone," Malthouse said. ". . . (He) hadn't been away from home, Mum and Dad, for all his life."He said Davis was typical of teenage Aboriginal players in that he was extraordinarily close to his family and reluctant to leave them for a Melbourne-based club."The bond there is something that unless you're an Aboriginal of 30,000 years genetically engineered, you don't know it. And to do what he's done is fantastic."While Davis was criticised in the past for inconsistency, and infamously finished without a single possession in the 2002 grand final, the forward had an influential 2007 season in which he gathered 300 disposals and laid 104 tackles. This season, Davis has played in all 10 games and kicked 19 goals. Malthouse said his past fluctuations in form were no different from those experienced by most developing players."There's not many players that don't have hiccups," he said. "A young Aboriginal boy sometimes attracts a little bit more attention because he can sometimes can be very good and can sometimes be very poor. That's the nature of growing up in an AFL competition."Malthouse, who was in a nostalgic mood, also reflected on what it meant to be joining Allan Jeans as the coach with the third-highest games tally, 575. Jock McHale coached 714 games with Collingwood and Kevin Sheedy was in charge for 635 games at Essendon.He said the comparison with Jeans was meaningful, given how much he admired Jeans and how much he had learnt from his former coach at St Kilda."I never really worry about numbers but this one here, given the fact that it's with Allan Jeans, is humbling. It is significant."Ninety-eight per cent in the football industry are fantastic people and they've all got their own story. I've been fortunate to work in the '70s, '80s, '90s and into this decade with young men with ambitions of realising their dreams."He said his happiest times in football were as a young player with St Kilda, where he reminisced about spending a lot of time with Jeans in a cramped coach's box as a reserve player."I think you're pretty happy when you first start playing. You haven't got any weight on your shoulders as a player."I envy supporters (too) because they don't have to worry about the blokes being injured, they don't have to worry about the next side until they run down the race, they don't have to worry about team selection, telling a bloke if he's in or out of the side, they don't have to worry at the end of the year telling a blokes that their dream is no longer."Football to me has narrowed into what I like and what I don't like."
© 2008 The Age
