An overnight sensation, in just four years

[Dark Beanie]

Martin Blake
31/08/2010 The Age

COLLINGWOOD v W BULLDOGS MCG, SATURDAY, 7.20pm
Brent Macaffer joined the Pies in 2006, and is now making his name, writes Martin Blake.

AFL clubs are spending more money by the day on recruiting and scouring the names of players who nominated for the national draft, but gold nuggets continue to emerge from the so-called leftovers of the rookie draft.

This weekend, for instance, the finals teams will have a host of rookies in important positions, and a glance at the 2006 rookie draft will tell you that. The Western Bulldogs plucked Jarrod Harbrow, one of the competition's best small defenders, on that day. Carlton extracted a ruckman in Sam Jacobs and a key defender in Michael Jamison.

Sydney would be rapt to have found Nick Smith, a defensive stopper of the highest order along with St Kilda, which picked Clint Jones in the same draft and made him its primary tagger. Top-of-the-table Collingwood pulled Sharrod Wellingham and Brent Macaffer out of the hat on that same day and will carry both of them into the finals series.

As for the 22-year-old Macaffer, he is the overnight sensation who took four years to emerge. That's how long he has been at Collingwood, the first two seasons on the rookie list, the last two on the primary list. He had played for Gippsland Falcons with distinction as a teenager, was the TAC Cup's leading goalkicker in his last year at under-18 level and made the competition's team of the year, but was not drafted for reasons that are not immediately clear. "It's something I always wanted to," he said. "But whether I thought I could actually make it, probably not. It wasn't until my last year in the under 18s I started to play some decent footy."

He was training with the VFL's Casey Scorpions and pondering a career at a lower level when Collingwood came calling at the end of 2006 and asked him to come to the club to undertake physical testing. Having survived the dreaded beep test and some vertical leaps, he disappeared back home to Phillip Island and waited. It only took a day for recruiter Derek Hine to call with the news: "Welcome to Collingwood."

Macaffer played a season for Williamstown when that club was the Collingwood VFL affiliate, then was judged best player for the Magpies' VFL team in 2008, but he was taking time to settle. "We've had a strong list since I've been here," he said yesterday. "But a big thing with me has been finding my feet. I've taken a bit longer than most guys to settle into the full-on AFL lifestyle. I've come to grips with that in the last couple of years and my footy's improved at the same time.

"It's just getting used to everything. It's full-on five or six days a week. I was thrown into a group with guys I didn't know and that takes time as well."

Part of the development is the need to change habits. "You can't do the things that your mates do. You have to eat the right food, follow the lifestyle. You can't be out partying it up every weekend."

Macaffer is a role-player at Collingwood, the type who is asked to fulfil a particular task and has no intention of bucking at it. In his own words, he does "whatever they ask me to do". Mostly, this has been to tackle any opposition player within sight as a forward, Collingwood being a devotee of the modern way of defensive pressure in the forward 50-metre zone. But three times this season, including the pivotal win over St Kilda in round 16, he has embellished his game with three goals.

It has earned him a small piece of fame, especially back home at Phillip Island. "I don't think you actually realise how big the club is until you come here. The amount of people you meet who are actually Collingwood supporters, the expectation that comes from being at a club as big as this. It's huge but at the same time it's great to have that much support out there."

Macaffer took another step in his career last weekend when he slid into the midfield to run with Shaun Burgoyne, Hawthorn's stoppage master. It was an education, to say the least, although Macaffer fared reasonably well. "He [Burgoyne] is probably the best player I've played on, I reckon. His explosiveness around the ball, the way he gets away from those stoppages. He's just a smooth mover and a clean ball-user.

"That was something new. It was good to get an up-close view of someone like Dane Swan and how he goes about his business and good to play on someone of Shaun Burgoyne's calibre as well."

As forward coach, Nathan Buckley has been his guide. Macaffer has learned from Buckley's professionalism, and thinks the future Collingwood coach could still play. "Even joining in training, you can tell he hasn't lost the passion one bit. He'd be out there with a click of the fingers, I reckon."

The Western Bulldogs await. In the outside world, the Dogs are injury-riddled and without hope. At Collingwood, they are more cautious, as they need to be. "They've finished top-four for a reason," said Macaffer. "They've got injuries to [Adam] Cooney and [Dale] Morris and guys like that but they've got depth. We're not going to take the foot off the pedal just for that reason.


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[stui magpie]

Very nice. Good work the Caff.

[5150]

Go Caff