Rowell ignores the hype
He just wants to get on with the game
ASK Matt Rowell a question and he approaches it with the same unswerving attitude as a must-win ground ball against an opposition midfield star.
Both are executed without fuss, to the best of his ability and without ever shirking the issue.
So if the football world has pondered this question at times since Brandan Parfitt wrecked his shoulder in round 5, 2020, why not just fire it at Rowell?
Was that brilliant burst in which he was awarded nine Brownlow votes in three consecutive games the best thing to happen to him or a poisoned chalice?
Did it set expectations so high that he could only crash to earth in the two years as a shoulder reconstruction, PCL strain and osteitis pubis brought him back to the chasing pack.
Rowell ponders for a moment and then fires back with his usual candour.
“I loved those first few games and getting out there and mixing it with the best. It was my dream come true. I wouldn’t have changed the start if I could go back,” he reflects.
“The whole thing is a journey and you learn from everything. The injuries aren’t great but it moulds you into a person and player. I have learned a lot with injuries and I hadn’t had many before that.
“The media is always an interesting one. You can’t not see it. But I just love playing footy, to be honest. I am very competitive and I try to win. So I don’t listen too much to it, but I know it’s there as a No. 1 draft pick. There is always going to be hype so you have just got to listen to it and concentrate on playing the best footy you can.”
For a player so obsessed with football he once had a collection of 52 Sherrins, last year’s bounce-back season playing every game was a heck of a lot of fun. And yet Rowell is definitely far from the finished article.
Last year as his bull-at-agate approach was lauded in several reckless hardball gets he kicked only 2.4 in a year where he finished a good-butnot-incredible seventh in the best-and-fairest.
So for Rowell after a year where great mate Noah Anderson’s perfect inside-outside blend showed him the way forward the message is this: the best is yet to come. If the Gold Coast midfield had potency with the Jarrod Witts-Touk Miller-Anderson-Rowell quartet last year it did lack in depth.
Rowell could not be more impressed by No.6 overall draft pick Bailey Humphrey as a ready-to-play mid forward, with Elijah Hollands and Sam Flanders ready to take the next step.
And yet Rowell admits Gold Coast’s decision to move on pick seven in a salary dump along with Jack Bowes took some explaining from the powers that be.
“It was a bit of a strange one but I think it worked out best for the club for that to happen. Geelong were keen on him. I really enjoyed playing with Bowesy and got along well with him so I was sad to see him go. For us as players it’s all about being really connected as a group and being really close with each other so it’s hard to put your business cap on when the staff tell you, ‘This is why we have done it’. You have got to think about it in that way, which we don’t do as much. It was interesting to see that as a player.”