Shy Teen Becomes Shining Star

The Age

Saturday June 7, 2008

Marika Dobbin

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 that 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. ". . . To do what he's done is fantastic."

While Davis was criticised in the past for inconsistency, and infamously finished without a 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.

"A young Aboriginal boy sometimes attracts a little bit more attention because he . . . 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."

He said his happiest times in football were as a young player with St Kilda.

"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

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