DARREN MONCRIEFF
Friday, July 29, 2011
WHEN Mark Williams couldn't get through a mid-week training session, he knew his time in the AFL was up.
The sharpshooter retired this week, 115 games, 247 goals, one premiership, and a reputation as one of the game's most natural kicks on goal.
In fact, it's his goal-kicking qualities that Williams, 28, wants to use to mentor young footballers coming through the ranks.
In an interview with BomberTV yesterday, Williams (pictured) reflected on his time at Windy Hill and what could have been.
He said post-football he'd like to lend his kicking skills to others.
A recurring knee injury prevented Williams from adding to the four games he played for Essendon in two seasons after a convoluted three-way trade from Hawthorn at the end of the 2009 season that saw another Indigenous player, Shaun Burgoyne, land at the Hawks.
An AFL Indigenous All-Star (2003), Williams said it was a tough decision to retire.
"I like to look back on my time with the Essendon Football Club as myself being happy to make the change and if everything went the way I wanted it to I could've played more," he said in the interview.
"Being struck down by injury hasn't been easy to live with.
"I came here for all the right reasons. I couldn't do anything about the injuries; if you're not 100 per cent (fit), you get left behind.
"Just with training during the week I was very limited to what I can do and that was reflected in the way I've played (in the VFL) on the weekends; with little training during the week, you just can't perform."
There was no more a fluent kick on goal in the AFL than Williams.
His action was once described by Hawthorn legend Jason Dunstall as the most beautiful kick on goal he had ever seen -- this from a man who kicked over 1000 career goals.
It was Williams' time as a Hawk that made him.
He played a lone hand as Hawthorn's specialist goal-kicker when his side was rooted in the bottom half of the league ladder.
When twin towers Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead joined the club and developed into the lethal combination they are now, it relieved the pressure Williams had had to carry.
Apart from the 2008 grand final, perhaps Williams' most satisfying day in league football came when he booted six goals against an array of Brisbane Lions defenders in mid-2005.
His positioning and poise in that match stands out, not so much for the quantity of goals (6.2 is a fair return), but against who. Remember, the Lions were one of the premier teams of the competition, with a hard-nosed backline feared by many. They had won three premierships in a row and had played in a fourth consecutive grand final.
"I'd like to do something with the AFL, maybe a mentor role with goal-kicking, pass on my knowledge to others," Williams said of his post-AFL options.
Maybe there's a career as a punter in American football?
"With my knee at the moment, another injury wouldn't be the best thing," he said.
Williams, originally from Western Australia, couldn't go past Hawthorn's 2008 AFL premiership as the highlight of his career.
Few can forget the desperate, scrambling give-and-get between Williams and team-mate Stewart Dew in the third quarter of the grand final. It ended with Williams slotting through a difficult shot under pressure. It's a highlight Hawks and football fans in general readily recall.
"It was my greatest moment in football," Williams said of the Hawks' 26-point win in front of 100,012 spectators at the MCG.
"I was at the club for nine seasons and I made a good bunch of mates. Another highlight was playing with (club legend) Shane Crawford and seeing him finishing off (his AFL career) on the note that he did was something special."
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Last Modified on 29/07/2011 21:43