Roar by Samantha Lane

Author:Samantha Lane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780143788751
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Craig Starcevich talks about ‘blokes and light-bulb moments’ with women’s footy.

He has had two such illuminations, both of which occurred when he saw women do things he never imagined possible. These ultimately changed the course of his life.

Head fitness coach of the Brisbane Lions for the landmark three consecutive premierships they won under Australian Rules legend Leigh Matthews, Craig left the club in 2005. There were a few reasons for that: Brisbane’s glory run ended with a Grand Final loss in 2004, and the Lions proceeded to fall off the footy cliff. And though it only became clear in the aftermath, the man who’d helped push a group of champions beyond brilliance was actually burnt out himself.

Peerless in the fishbowl of his sport, Craig was a gun for hire. He was lured to St Kilda as fitness boss and the Saints played finals in 2006, but after just one season he realised he was fried. To do the job he was living a parallel existence to his wife and their two teenage kids. Sonia stayed in Queensland and Craig was in Melbourne when it dawned on him that this was not how he wanted life to be. ‘The whole thing was starting to disintegrate a bit at the end with the Lions. We had all had enough of each other, players were retiring, just the usual stuff that happens,’ he recalls. ‘I took the St Kilda job almost to say, “Stuff you, Brisbane.” I wasn’t in a great frame of mind.’

Pulling up stumps at the Saints marked the first time Craig had stepped outside the football bubble in his adult life. It was exactly 20 years since he’d joined footy’s most famous club of all, Collingwood, where he arrived as a wiry, 19-year-old recruit from East Perth. He left deified for life as a Pies premiership player.

It was a breath of fresh air to step into a foreign football code, running strength and conditioning for Brisbane Roar in Australian soccer’s national A-League competition. Working with players from Croatia, Brazil, Korea, and Socceroo Craig Moore who was just back from playing with the crème de la crème in Britain, altered his perspective profoundly. ‘It highlighted how I’d been living in a small, Aussie bubble of AFL,’ Craig remembers. ‘I think I was that jaded I’d forgotten what I was into in life. That was where I was at when I left what I’d always known.’

Not missing his old footy world one bit, Craig began thinking of exploring opportunities in European soccer. Fate, however, spun him back from whence he came.

The West Australian Football Commission was hiring. Craig had never tried his hand at sports administration, and spotting a job opening coincided with a personal epiphany that he didn’t want to be typecast as a fitness coach. To feel fresh, Craig thought, he was going to have to find something new.

When he accepted the position of talent manager at the AFL’s West Australian branch he envisaged it eventually leading to a re-entry at club land, maybe as a footy operations boss, maybe recruiting.

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