Buzz

BURKE'S LAW – NATHAN BURKE

Why did we recruit you ... exactly?

The days are gone when draftees could take a couple of years focusing on themselves.

"I USED to watch these guys on tele and now I am training alongside them, it's unbelievable."
How many times have we heard and read similar quotes to this over the past month?
It seems as though every young man who had his dream to be an AFL footballer realised at the 2011 draft was experiencing the same thoughts.
"I can't believe I am getting a lift to training with Josh Gibson," "I used to have posters of this guy on my wall and yesterday he bought me lunch."
These reactions, while fast becoming cliché responses are in fact natural and I think a little bit refreshing.
We want our young men to be humble and to fully realise the extraordinary chance they have been given.
Certainly it is far better to be thankful and respectful than be a young man who thinks he knows it all. I can tell you that those who enter a club with that sort of attitude have it knocked out of them pretty quickly.
It is in fact a wise move for a player to show wonderment and excitement about his opportunity, as it is the best way to ingratiate himself with his new best mates.
While the state of wonder is good early and as stated above has its benefits, it tends to move on pretty quickly.
The attention and focus soon goes from "I am amazed to be here" to "I hope I get a game and see what happens from there". Again these reactions are natural and we all accept them as standard responses.
God knows players have been saying them forever and a day. I said exactly the same thing as a 17-year-old in my first interview, with Peter Donegan, when he came to my high school.
However while these reactions show humility and should be applauded, they need to be eradicated as soon as possible.
The sooner you can stop a player from thinking as an individual, the better the team will become; even if that player has been in the door for only a handful of days.
You may think it harsh, and that a rookie player shouldn't be expected to be a "team man" right from the outset.
The fact is we expect senior players to think that the only thing that matters is team success so why shouldn't the rookies be thinking the same way?
Some may say they shouldn't have the burden of team success placed on them, let them do their individual weights program for a season or two, find their feet and then they can have an influence on the team.
Well sorry, football is an extremely competitive sport and players who mosey along thinking they can concentrate on themselves often find that two or three years have flown by and all they have to show is 40 VFL games.
There is a way to ensure the players' focus moves from themselves to the team. It is by asking one simple question: "Why do you think you were drafted?"
Answers generally range from "because I am hard at it", "because I have good skills", to "because I played well in the State Carnival" and even "because I am tall".
Note that all of the answers are internally based.
The answer that you are looking for is simply "to help this club win a Grand Final". Nothing more, nothing less. Just to help win the Grand Final.
Think about it, why else would you draft a player to your club? So they can look good in the brochures, to keep fans happy or because they barracked for the club as a kid and it would be nice for them to play for the club they supported?
No, the one and only reason you would draft a kid to your club would be because they can take you closer to winning a premiership.
And this is what needs to be drummed into the players from day one.
They are not there to forge out a long career or earn lots of money.
They aren't there to make their parents proud or to prove that you can make something of yourself from an underprivileged background.
To be honest clubs don't care about these secondary motivations, they want you there so you can help win a Grand Final.
As soon as it becomes evident that you no longer fit into that category then you won't be there much longer.
This is the reality of professional sport.
There is no room on the list for the player who has any aspirations other than striving to make the team successful.
This may entail becoming the best player they possibly can be, and to do that you do need to be selfish in some aspects of your life. However the underlying reason you exist as a player is to help your club win a premiership.
When a player has this attitude they strive not only to make themselves the best player they can be but also strive to make their teammates the best players they can be.
And to me this is the difference between good teams and great teams.
The sooner you can get players in this mindset the sooner you can become a great team. GWS has a big challenge as the consensus in football circles is that the Giants will be ordinary for a few years.
If the players believe this is due to the fact they are young and developing then they will be ordinary for longer than two years.
Whether it is realistic in the coming years or not, GWS must be talking Grand Finals otherwise they will just be a big bunch of talented individuals who lose every week.
Their biggest worry will be holding onto players who desire team success over individual glory.
Show me a coach or player who says it is too early to focus on Grand Finals and I will show you a loser.
Show me a player who says my aim is "just to get a game" and I will show you a player who has a very limited career in a very moderate team.