The Tall Poppy Who Couldn't Be Cut Down To Size

Sun Herald

Sunday September 9, 2007

By Martin Blake

"NOBODY roots for Goliath." So said the great American basketballer Wilt Chamberlain 40 years ago, and it is a line that should resonate with Brad Ottens, Geelong's 202-centimetre, 108-kilogram Easter Island statue.

Brad Ottens has suffered from excessively high expectations from the time he walked into Richmond from Adelaide as a teenager at the end of 1997. He was the No.2 draft pick, an All-Australian under-18 and the son of a South Australian football star, Dean Ottens.

He had the pedigree and he looked a big-time player. No one was particularly surprised when the goalscorer and occasional ruckman sauntered into the All-Australian team in 2001, after snaring 46 goals with picture-perfect drop punts.

Then, in 2002, Ottens injured his back, requiring surgery to remove part of a vertebrae. Around the same time, his then coach Danny Frawley recalls, he matured physically.

"Brad grew into a big man," Frawley says. "And he lost that agility he had because of his back injury. He was leading in straight lines. The better defenders could just pick him off."

So began a downward spiral that would see him walk out of Punt Road three years later. For the first time, Ottens drew the public heat familiar to all but the best of players. He was on big money as a result of his 2000-2001 performance, but his output did not justify the wages.

Frawley recalls a telephone call from his prized player near the end. "I didn't want to do the wrong thing by the club," Frawley says. "But he'd made up his mind. He was going to leave."

Ottens told his coach that Sydney and Geelong were interested. "What's [Paul] 'Roosy' want?" was Frawley's first question, and Ottens said that the Swans wanted a ruckman. But Ottens told Frawley that Mark Thompson wanted to use him primarily as a forward.

"He was keen on Geelong because of the lifestyle," Frawley says. "But I pretty much told him he should be looking at Sydney. I said: 'That [rucking] is where you're at, Brad'.

"I thought it [Geelong] was fraught with danger because he was going to be the great white hope. They hadn't had the forwards since [Gary] Ablett and [Bill] Brownless and he's such a good guy, those things can eat at him at times."

Ironically, the 27-year-old who will lead Geelong's ruck division into the finals was earmarked by the Cats to solve their problems in the front half of the ground.

It is only the continuing injuries to Steven King, and the emergence of Cameron Mooney and Nathan Ablett as key forwards, that have allowed Ottens to take ownership of the position he has occupied in 2007. In a sense, it has happened by accident.

Brad Ottens was always a ruckman, as far back as his teenage years, when he led Warrnambool's Emmanuel College to a premiership in public school football while he boarded. "It's been my natural position," he says.

Ottens is about to play finals again, for the first time since his days as a spindly lad under Frawley.

"I think he'll have a terrific finals series and put all those doubters at bay finally," Frawley says.

The man himself is excited.

"I've only played three finals [in 2001]," he says.

"I didn't appreciate it as much as what I will now. That's what you play for."

© 2007 Sun Herald

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