MAKING THE GRADE

Q Who had the biggest influence on your early career as a footballer? A For me Tony Britton, the former Mackay Magpies director of coaching who unfortunately passed away a few years ago, had a big influence in my development as a footballer. Being a physically underdeveloped teenager where you’re easily shoved off the ball, he taught me that if you had a good first touch, speed and vision, no one could touch you. Essentially I’ve embedded these attributes into my game and they have never left me. Obviously I can’t neglect to mention the sacrifices my mum and dad made. They put a lot of money into my soccer growing up, sending me away representing my zone and my state every year. Without the development and money spent, I don’t think I would be the player I am today. Q Where did you go from there? You have worked with a cou- ple of big-name coaches and players I hear. A From there we went to Brisbane. Mum and Dad got job transfers. I hooked up with Alan Marley, who was a mate of Tony Britton’s and my uncle Noel was one of the reserve grade coaches at Pine Rivers so I went down there and started progressing as a teenager. Alan’s been a mentor since I was 16. I trained with Robbie Kruse. But after five years in Brisbane, I decided to move back to Mareeba and started a refrigeration apprenticeship and didn’t really have any intentions of taking football seriously. I played one year for Mareeba Bulls and next year I was full-time and Peter Tokesi (right) would come and watch our games before the state league on the weekend and he had a chat to me and asked if I wanted to sit on the bench. I ended up coming off the bench a few times, scoring a few goals and I got tied MVP in the league, so it wasn’t a bad debut season.