Me and Tank jog out onto the oval to join the boys for training. It’s a Thursday before our Sunday arvo home game against Gold Coast at Optus Stadium, so it’s a bit of position-specific skills work and match simulation.
It’s cool but sunny and it’s a cardio-heavy training so we build up a sweat fast. Our new forward assistant coach – Barry ‘Mosey’ Mosman – takes us for the first half of the sesh.
Mosey’s gone dark on me lately. He’s made clipped comments about my attitude being too hollow and how I should be maturing into more of a leader. With all due respect to Mosey, his experience as a player was very different to mine. For one thing, he was a small forward lurking in the pocket and picking up crumbs; for another, he was never a superstar – only played thirty AFL games. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be the main target of both inside fifties from the midfielders and the oppo’s defensive pressure; to try to shake a tag and still perform for the sake of the team. When you’re in that white-hot heat in a game, your only focus is to get the footy and fucken send it, which is what they pay me the big bucks for.
Basically, I’m not gonna take advice from someone who’s shitter at footy than me.
And I can’t focus on ‘becoming a leader’ when I’m preoccupied with how make-or-break this season is for me. Last year was a massive changing of the guard for the club: Roo came in as head coach, and our veteran key forward Steve Polak retired. Polak was a generational talent, a megastar: I was always second banana with him around. Polak always beat me to the club’s leading goalkicker award, and he won the Coleman twice.
I know I’m meant to be a team player. And I swear I am, every day. I do what Roo tells me. I focus on my skills and match-ups and each weekend’s game with an eye on how I can be a cog in the machine to help the team win. I know the goal is the flag. I know the goal is the team winning, not Hammer being the best boy ever.
But when you’re this good, is it that bad to want some reco? I’m allowed to have my own goals, even if Mosey makes me feel selfish for it. I always wanted to be the star forward for anAFL team. Not just the up-and-coming son of WAFL star John ‘The Jackhammer’ Hammersmith, the once semi-famous East Fremantle leading goalkicker. Not the young gun nipping at Steve Polak’s heels. I wanted to be the Big Dog in my own right. And this season, I finally am. I’m the key target in our forward line. I’m the leading goalkicker so far. This season is when I’ll go from being a good young player to a great player in his prime. Where I win leading goalkicker, where I could even get the Coleman.
2025: the Year of Hammer.
Which is why it’s pissing me off how much Mosey is hyping up Oisin Byrne instead of me. Just cos the sports editor ofThe Westhas a creepy hard-on for our draft pick doesn’t mean Mosey has to. Everyone’s carrying on like Oshy is God’s gift; like he’s personally gonna save us from being wooden-spooners this season (unlikely). People carry on like until Oshy rocked up we didn’t have a forward line. It’s insulting to me and Tank and Kingy and the rest of the forwards.
And orright, Oshy is a weapon in front of goal. He’s had less scoring shots than me but his accuracy is a bit better. And cos I fucked my hammy in the pre-season, he’s hot on my tail for leading goalkicker. I’m on forty-one goals for the season so far and he’s on thirty-four. Close enough to make me edgy. Dunno what I’ll do if he overtakes me. I didn’t come this far to be Polak’s underdog and Oshy’s over-the-hill veteran.
I want my trophy.
So, Mosey keeps making these cracks at me. Like if Oshy takes a good contested mark he’ll hype it up, but if I take the same sorta mark he’ll critique it. It’s getting my back up.
When it’s time for match sim to finish the sesh, our senior coach – Rudy ‘Roo’ McLean – takes charge. Roo loves me and I love him. He was a bona fide AFL legend in his day and he understands when you’re great, you’re great, and haters are gonna hate. When I did my hammy he was on the phone to me in theevenings checking in – he’s that sorta bloke. I have a lot of time for Roo.
Roo throws some of us into different positions: I’m key forward and Oshy is full-back playing on me, which is comical since he’s too young to have any real meat on his bones.
We get ready for the match sim – I head into the forward fifty, with Oshy lurking beside me like a mosquito but not having the guts to push into me.
‘You packin’ your dacks?’ I goad him. ‘Never taken a real contested mark in your life, have ya? Not gonna start today, either. You know I’ll out-body you.’
‘You’re slower than you think you are, though,’ Oshy says coolly.
Fuck, I hate upstarts.
By the end of the match sim, I come out on top with three goals and one behind. I ran rings around that skinny little Irishman except for one intercept mark.
‘Oshy, nice work given you were out of your depth,’ Roo says. ‘Hammer, looking dangerous, but don’t underestimate him – he shouldn’t’ve been able to take that intercept.’
We’re ushered back towards the locker rooms, but the club’s curly-haired social media manager, Tessa, bails me and Oshy up on the way. She wants some Insta and TikTok content of us trying a trick shot from the boundary line at an insanely tight angle. Kids love this shit.
I handball the Sherrin to Oshy. ‘You first.’
Oshy lines up from the pocket and boots the footy. Tessa’s camera is on both of us, so I try not to look like too much of a gloating dick when he misses and gets a behind.
‘Amateur hour’s over – lemme show ya how a pro does it, champ,’ I say.
I hope me calling him champ repeatedly hurts him as much as I want it to. It’s the ultimate ego bruise from one bloke toanother: a way to tell him,You’re inferior to me and I want you to know it.
Oshy riles up. ‘Okay – show me,chief.’
He didn’t just call me chief, did he? The fucken nerve, thinking he’s a contender to challenge the Big Dog.
I take a step back, line up and boot the Sherrin as hard as I can, grunting with the effort. I feel my lower back seize up as my fluoro yellow Nike boot makes contact with the footy, but I’m on camera so I can’t show it. Instead, I make a show of watching the footy’s arc towards the posts: it’s dead straight, sails clean through the sticks with plenty of gas on it. I keep my back to the camera so the pain on my face doesn’t give away how much my back has locked up, and show off my guns, flexing them in a double biceps pose.
Tessa does a bit of a ‘woo’ for me. ‘This will go off on social – thank you, fellas!’
Oshy turns his face away from me, which means I showed him up good. Cop that,chief.
