AFL forwards reaching for the top
Key forwards are feted as matchwinners, but the path to individual success can be littered with challenges on and off the field, as Michelangelo Rucci reports.
Stephen Kernahan kicked 260 goals in his first 100 VFL-AFL games with Carlton.
He topped the Victorian club’s goalkicking list in his first season in the big league in 1986, while playing in every senior game.
It was some debut season.
Kernahan was 22 years old, having served his apprenticeship in Adelaide at the Glenelg Football Club when the gap in game styles and standards between the two rival State leagues – the SANFL and the VFL – was not as wide as the growing chasm between the SANFL and AFL today.
Today, Kernahan would have been swept away to the AFL at 18 – just as Todd Marshall was to Port Adelaide in 2017 and Darcy Fogarty the following season.
Folkore has it that Kernahan took Magarey and Brownlow Medallist Malcolm Blight’s advice on avoiding the AFL until he had played 100 games in the SANFL, as Blight had done with his six senior seasons at Woodville from 1968-1973 before joining North Melbourne.
“No,” Kernahan told InDaily, “that wasn’t it. I used that as an excuse to stop having to leave Glenelg. I was having fun playing alongside my mates. The VFL didn’t mean much to me – it was something we watched at the weekend with ‘The Winners’ on Channel 2.
“So, I kept saying I would not leave until I had played the 100 in the SANFL. Then it was I would not go until Glenelg won a premiership. And when we did in 1985, I had to go, it was my last chance. I had run out of reasons to avoid the move.”
The rest is history. Kernahan, by a sound grounding in the SANFL, had given himself the best chance to succeed in the VFL-AFL. He played 251 league games with Carlton, scored a club record 738 goals and was premiership captain in 1987 in just his second year at Princes Park.
But what if – as played out with Marshall and Fogarty – Kernahan had been swept away from Brighton Road to the Carlton Football Club as an 18-year-old in the big league’s national draft?
“It’s an interesting question,” says Kernahan.
“They were different times. (Inaugural Crows captain) Chris McDermott and I started as 16-17-year-olds playing against men, against big bodies.
“At 16, I was playing a reserves match for Glenelg against Norwood and faced John Wynne (the West Australian who became the image of Norwood’s 1975 and 1978 premiership triumphs as a strong man on the football field).
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“You grow up quicker when you have ‘2-8’ on your shoulders.
“Don’t forget just how much stronger SANFL football was then – results in those State-of-Origin games against Victoria went more our way than against us during the 1980s,” adds Kernahan who announced himself on the national stage in the 1984 Origin match at Football Park.
He kicked 10 goals in South Australia’s four-point loss to the Big V in the first Origin match played under lights at West Lakes.
“At 22,” recalls Kernahan, “I had played State footy. I had toured with the Australian team to Ireland. I had a fair bit behind me before I reached Carlton to start by VFL career.”
Very little is said in a critical way of Kernahan’s start in the SANFL reserves ranks in 1979 and 1980. Everyone took note of the talent and the pedigree, with his father Harry being a 176-game hero at Glenelg from the 1960s and the club’s administrative boss during the 1970s and 1980s. There was a more patient script with teenage footballers.
Everyone understood, as Kernahan says today, “big blokes take time … they don’t dominate the game straight away.”
“Look at Tom Hawkins,” adds Kernahan of the Geelong goalkicking star who has passed the 700-goal, 300-game marker after a difficult start in 2007. “He took time – and look at him now.”
Everyone understood Kernahan was an extraordinary player in the making, as former Carlton recruiting chief Shane O’Sullivan recalls of seeing Kernahan as a 16-year-old in 1979.
“I was on my way to Perth for that year’s (national) schoolboy championships when our chairman of selectors Wes Lofts said to me, ‘Shane, find me another Royce Hart’,” O’Sullivan recalls. “A few days later I called back saying, ‘I think I’ve found him.’”
And everyone – in particular Carlton – had to wait seven years before they saw Kernahan in the big league after a sound 136-game, 290-goal apprenticeship in the SANFL.
Imagine if Marshall and Fogarty were given a seven-year grace period. Neither has had such a sound build-up to the opening chapters of their AFL careers. From their arrival at Alberton and West Lakes in 2016 and 2017 respectively they have had to swim … or sink with intense public reviews of each performance. And both have carried heavy anchors at times.
Today, this duo makes a fascinating study in how teenager footballers walk the make-or-break road of AFL football, particularly when they carry high expectations.
“The hardest thing to learn,” says Fogarty, “is footy is on Saturday, but it is what you do during the week that separates players.”
Marshall grew up in Denilquin, New South Wales. He was a successful junior cricketer, touring England with New South Wales representative teams. He was destined to join Greater Western Sydney as an academy player until the AFL ruled Marshall had to nominate for the AFL national draft pool in 2016 when he was Port Adelaide’s first call at No. 16.
Port Adelaide senor coach Ken Hinkley controversially opted to back Marshall at the end of the 2017 season – in particular in the home elimination final lost in extra time to West Coast at Adelaide Oval – at the expense of the experienced and versatile Jackson Trengove (who was on his way to the Western Bulldogs as a free agent).
Fogarty grew up at Lucindale in South Australia’s south-east district. He moved to Adelaide as a boarder at Rostrevor College at 15.
“Country football is pretty laid back,” says Fogarty. “Being chucked into the stronger leagues (the SANFL and AFL) forces you to improve. You need to be better in preparation, and away from footy.”
After impressing with his strong physique and booming kick at Glenelg, Fogarty joined Adelaide as its 12th pick (and first call) at the 2017 AFL national draft. Expectation was underlined by Adelaide handing Fogarty the No. 32 guernsey of club great and Brownlow Medallist, Mark Ricciuto, another country recruit from the Riverland.
Fogarty was immediately in AFL ranks, playing in the 2018 season-opener against Essendon at the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne where he kicked two goals in the team’s 12-point loss.
The AFL storylines of these two footballers, who are still short of their 100-game milestone in the national competition – a point Crows senior coach Matthew Nicks emphasises – are a contrast even if they lead to the same crossroads.
Marshall was the skinny kid who was seen by his team-mates, in particular Charlie Dixon and Robbie Gray, as the “special one”. He did not have much of the ball, but when he did – even if it was with a deft tap of stab of the Sherrin off the ground or in mid-air – the game would change to Port Adelaide’s favour.
Family tragedy across 2017 and 2018, when Marshall at 19 lost both his parents, brought into question if Marshall would continue as an AFL player. He did step away from the game for a short time. “No 19-year-old old kid has to go through what Todd’s gone through,” said Port Adelaide vice-captain Ollie Wines.
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Fogarty was the big kid who until recently had a questionable future as a forward. Critics described Fogarty as a “tease”. Nicks tried him in the midfield and defence in SANFL ranks before restoring him to the Adelaide attack in a meaningful pairing with former captain Taylor Walker in round nine against Brisbane.
“Both have been slow starters,” says former Crows reruiting chief Matt Rendell.
By the numbers, there is one staggering similarity with Fogarty and Marshall; almost the same goal average. Marshall has kicked 89 goals in 70 AFL matches with an average of 1.27; Fogarty has 64 goals from his 51 matches – a 1.25 average.
Season by season, Marshall’s numbers are: 2017: Three games, one goal; 2018: 7 (11); 2019: 10 (10); 2020: 14 (11); 2021: 21 (24) and this year, 15 games and 32 goals. He is currently in his longest continuous run of matches, 27 since last year.
Fogarty’s figures are: 2018: Ten games (nine goals); 2019: 4 (9); 2020: 10 (8); 2021: 17 (24) and this season, 11 games and 15 goals. His longest run of consecutive matches is 11 from last season.
“Family circumstances for Marshall cut a year or two out of the start of his career,” says Rendell. “He was a big, skinny kid with not a lot of confidence.
“Fogarty was nowhere near fit enough with nowhere near the workrate to be a key forward. The blessing for Fogarty is (fitness coach) Darren Burgess going to the Crows this year, and we saw what he did with (midfielder-forward) Christian Petracca at Melbourne. He turned Petracca from a great player to a super star, and he has turned Fogarty from an average player to a good player at the moment. That is all he is, a good player at the moment.
“Fogarty has had a good little patch and you can see his confidence is up and he can do a lot of things because he has the frame to outbody people. I did not realise how quick he was. And he is quick. The beauty of what Fogarty is doing is he is getting up to the wing and half-back running back – he would have never done that before Burgess got there. His fitness has improved heaps.”
“Marshall still has a massive upside to him and he can play as a key back and you know he can do part-time ruck. He has more versatility than Fogarty and he is a really hard match-up.”
The critical moments for each player came this season.
Hinkley kept Marshall in the AFL line-up for the Showdown with Adelaide after the key forward had managed just four disposals in each of the opening two matches against Brisbane and Hawthorn, and scored just one goal. Marshall paid back Hinkley’s vote of faith with a career-best five goals in the derby – a feat repeated three weeks later against West Coast and followed up with four-goal returns against Sydney and Gold Coast in back-to-back games last month.
“Some people look silly, don’t they?” said Hinkley while Marshall became Port Adelaide’s most-potent forward in a team that has struggled for high scores this season.
“I’ve got to enjoy that moment because I’ve felt a bit of heat for Todd for a good period of time. He’s a young forward who’s taken a bit of time to get where he can be. He’s still got a lot to go. He’s got too much more growth still. He’s still very young. I’ve said it a number of times and people don’t like to listen. The reality is he’s had some challenges early, but he’s kept at it and we’ve stuck with him.”
Fogarty had – as the narrative became – “the penny drop” in Hobart a fortnight ago when he had career-best figures of 20 disposals and four goals while reaching his 50-game milestone in the AFL. His follow-up match at the weekend against AFL premier Melbourne was made difficult by a compound dislocation of a finger suffered early in the match, and the intercept work of Melbourne’s key defenders Steven May and Jake Lever.
“Has the penny dropped? It is a big question,” says Crows midfielder Rory Laird. “You do see the progression Darcy has made in the past four or five weeks and credit to him – he has put in a lot of work.
“Darcy has been a whipping boy. His body of work is not what people have made it out to be, he still has been hitting the scoreboard. There have been some quieter games, but you can see when he has confidence and continuity in his games – and he is still working out the speed of the game – just how powerful and damaging he can be.
“His work rate to move across the ground, his speed to get into space, dangerous space, is there now. If you watch from behind the goals, you will see Darcy all over the shop. He is running out to the wings and back to goal. He has the fitness for that now.”
“Darcy is obviously super strong, so if he can get himself into those positions to work one-on-one with defenders, you will see how dangerous he is. He is getting there more than not now.”
Nicks insists Fogarty – and the same would apply with Marshall – are on a critical learning curve in their first 100 AFL games.
“Being out there, you have to learn – you learn a lot through failure; you learn a lot through struggling,” Nicks said. “It is part of becoming brilliant. For how long are you going to be in that position? Well, they are early in their footy careers.
“Experience brings class. The more you play, like 100 games, the game becomes more predictable. You have been there, you have done that.
“Your body becomes more sound, stronger. You are more consistent. You do more work in the gym. You get stronger. These things take time.”
Kernahan did his time in a very different SANFL than the one Fogarty and Marshall have known across the past six years. This theme might ultimately re-invigorate the debate for the AFL to establish its D-League, a reserves competition with a focus on player development – D for development.
It also might bring into question again the merit of lifting the draft age from 18 to 19 or even 21. But the AFL is reluctant to endorse such, particularly when second-tier competitions are no longer of the standard of the SANFL during the 1980s when Kernahan significantly gained from his 100-game apprenticeship outside the big league.
For now, Marshall and Fogarty are prime examples of first-round draftees who have worked under the weight of enormous expectation and scrutiny in the AFL. The step from juniors to the big league is more demanding than ever.
