O'Loughlin to retire at season's endSYDNEY's Michael O'Loughlin may not have made it past his first AFL season in the Harbour City were it not for his mum -- and the fact she gave his bed away. The mercurial forward yesterday announced his 15th season would be his last and is likely to leave the club as its first 300-game player in August.
O'Loughlin (pictured) yesterday recounted the conversation he had had with his mum when he was feeling homesick and was ready to leave Sydney, the Swans and his AFL dream. In an emotional address, the man they call 'Magic' and 'Mickey O', or both, said his mother's strength gave him the will to make a success of his move from his comfort zone to Australia's biggest city.
"Coming in, I didn't think I'd stay here for that long. I'd ring mum and say, 'I want to come home, I want to come home'," O'Loughlin recalled. "But she said to me, 'There’s nothing here for you. Stay there', and I said, 'No, I'm getting on a plane', and she said, 'Well, you haven't got a bed. I gave it to your cousin'. I had no bed to go back to, so I had to stay."
It's a funny yarn that O'Loughlin often tells. Like many young Aboriginal men with a chance to better themselves in sport or elsewhere, it was his family's plight that gave him further motivation to succeed. He said his mother'’s strength had spurred him on.
"She's so strong and tough. We didn't have much but she made sure we were clothed and fed, and loved," O'Loughlin said. "That was probably one of the main things (to have an AFL career), was to make her proud. Some guys come to play to be recognised and some guys play for money but I came, with the opportunity that the Swans gave me, to play and help my family to live a better life and I think, hopefully, I've done that."
O'Loughlin, having played 293 AFL matches with Sydney will, barring injury, become the club's first 300-game player. Should the 12th-placed Swans miss the finals for the first time since 2002, O'Loughlin will play his 300th match in Round 20, against Geelong at the SCG.
It was while undergoing post-operative rehabilitation in the pre-season that it began to dawn on O'Loughlin that this season would be his last.
His numbers this season tell a story of a player struggling to make an impact. In his past five games, O'Loughlin has booted a paltry three goals. In Saturday night's match against Collingwood, the Swans' forward target managed just five kicks.
"I knew in the back of my mind in pre-season, when I was coming back from my ankle operation and started running, that it was going to be tough to go on next year," O'Loughlin said. "I probably knew then that this was going to be my last year. It is hard to admit to people that you have lost a step or two and it is even harder when you can't do the things you were always able to do that just came naturally. I think that is called old age.
"Even though people would say, 'You look sharp and you look good', deep down I knew I was struggling. It has taken its toll on my body. I am very honest with myself about how I am going and I would rather go out and not battle away."
Twice Sydney's leading goal kicker (2000, 2001), O'Loughlin was the Swans' fairest-and-best winner in 1998 and runner-up in 2000. He won AFL All-Australian honours in 1997 and 2000 and was the Fos Williams Medal winner, as South Australia's best player in the AFL, in 1998.
Raw recruitMICHAEL O'LOUGHLIN was a raw recruit when selected by Sydney, 40th overall in the 1994 AFL draft, plucked from SANFL club Central District.
The journey from obscurity to the big time hit a high point when in 2005, O'Loughlin, alongside long-time team-mate, and cousin, Adam Goodes, was selected in the AFL's Indigenous Team of the Century.
That same years, the 32-year-old O'Loughlin has tasted football's ultimate, becoming an AFL premiership player in the Swans' four-point triumph over West Coast in the 2005 AFL Grand Final. He's also experienced the opposite, twice -- when the Swans lost to the Eagles by one point in the 2006 decider, and to North Melbourne in the 1996 grand final.
Having looked after his family, O'Loughlin is keen to busy himself with Indigenous issues post-AFL, and that means also staying in Sydney.
"I've got a few things that I've got going on away from footy, some stuff that I've already been doing for 10 or 12 years with Indigenous communities," he said. "It's something that I'm very, very passionate about and I'll definitely head that way. That's my duty and that's my role and that's what I have to do -- to help the Indigenous people of this country lead better lives."
DARREN MONCRIEFF
Darren@AboriginalFootball.com.au
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Last Modified on 25/06/2009 00:00