On 7 July 2018, Russia and Ukraine happily shared a long-standing public holiday. It was ‘Kapula Night’, traditionally celebrated in the Slavic countries on the shortest day of the year.
It was also World Chocolate Day, held globally since 2009 to commemorate the introduction of chocolate to Europe in 1550. Donald Trump was United States President, Theresa May was the British Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull was Australian Prime Minister.
And it was Round 16 of the 2018 AFL season. Sydney hosted Geelong at the SCG, going down by 12 points, and a 22-year-old Paddy McCartin played his 35th AFL game for St Kilda against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.
Fast forward more than three-and-a-half years and it is a vastly different world that is set to welcome the return of a now 25-year-old McCartin.
The three world leaders have been deposed and Russia and Ukraine are at war in a world in which recent times have been anything but sweet and tasty. And McCartin, having put behind him a horrific run with concussion, is living in a different state and is set to play for a different club.
Enjoying a fresh start in Sydney, he is poised to become just the second No.1 draft pick behind Darren Gaspar to wear the red and white.
So much has changed in the 1351 days that it will have been since McCartin last played in the AFL.
From the Sydney side that played Geelong that weekend, in what marked Paddy’s younger brother Tom McCartin’s seventh AFL game, Jarrad McVeigh, Kieren Jack and Heath Grundy have retired, Aliir Aliir, George Hewett, Dan Hannebery and Zak Jones have moved clubs, and Dean Towers and Dan Robinson were de-listed.
Since then, no less than 20 players have joined the all-time Swans playing list – Colin O’Riordan, Darcy Cameron, Nick Blakey, Ryan Clarke, Jackson Thurlow, Justin McInerney, James Rowbottom, Daniel Menzel, Hayden McLean, James Bell, Kaiden Brand, Sam Gray, Lewis Taylor, Dylan Stephens, Chad Warner, Elijah Taylor, Matt Ling, Sam Wicks, Zac Foot, Joel Amartey, Braeden Campbell, Errol Gulden, Tom Hickey and Logan McDonald.
If the 2022 pre-season is any sort of guide, the McCartin brothers will soon find themselves playing together in defence for the Swans. But instead of being 28 games behind his older brother, young Tom will be 35 games ahead of him.
It’s a story the likes of which have been common in a Paddy McCartin AFL journey that began when he was drafted by St Kilda with the #1 pick in the 2014 AFL Draft.
It was the draft in which Melbourne took Christian Petracca and Angus Brayshaw at #2 and #3, and Sydney claimed Isaac Heeney at #18, James Rose at #37, Jack Hiscox at #38 and Abe Davis at #70. Plus three rookie picks – Nic Newman at #35, Lewis Melican #52 and Jordan Foote #76.
Heeney has played 129 games to sit sixth on the games list from the Draft Class of 2014, behind Gold Coast’s Touk Miller (138), Collingwood’s Brayden Maynard (138), Brisbane’s Harris Andrews (136), Western Bulldogs’ Caleb Daniel (134) and Carlton three-club journeyman Adam Saad (131).
McCartin Sr, born in Hobart but a product of Geelong Grammar and the Geelong Flacons, joined the AFL with an external complication after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age eight. When first diagnosed he needed four needles a day and checked his blood sugar levels before every meal.
Still, he did enough in 2014 to win the coveted #1 spot in the AFL Draft. And in the 2015 AFL Guide he was described as ‘an imposing 194cm and 94kg’ and ‘competitive, tough and aggressive’. He was tipped to make an immediate impact before succeeding champion Nick Riewoldt as the club spearhead.
He played six games in 2015, 11 games in 2016, five in 2017 and 13 games in 2018, including a Round 12 clash with Sydney at Docklands in which he played against McCartin Jr for the first and only time
He had 10 possessions and kicked 1-3 in a St Kilda side that included now Sydney ruckman Tom Hickey and was beaten by 71 points. And McCartin Jr had eight possessions and a goal in his 4th game in a Swans side that included Hannebery and Jones, now with the Saints.
Wearing a helmet after recurring head knocks, McCartin Sr had finally got a run at it in his fourth season, playing 13 of a possible 16 games before a season-ending foot injury.
The off-season was promising and in early March he was overwhelmingly positive, content he had his diabetes under control and had put his concussion problems behind him.
“At the moment, it’s the best I’ve ever managed it, so I think it all makes a big difference in the scheme of things not just how I’m travelling in footy but just to day-to-day life,” he told Melbourne’s SEN radio in March 2019.
“My quality of life is a lot better than potentially what it was three or four years ago when my diabetes wasn’t as good. It has its challenges, but I think you’ll find that if you ask anyone across any form of life, everyone’s got their challenges and things they have to deal with. It’s just something that I’ve got to do and I’m pretty lucky I’ve got a great support system around me at home and at the footy club as well.”
But shortly after, in a pre-season game, he suffered his eighth concussion. His career was put on hold. Again. He didn’t play at all that year and following an agreement with St Kilda was de-listed in October.
It would have been easy to give it away. Not McCartin. He took 2020 off and in 2021 moved north to join Sydney’s East Coast VFL side, showing his unquestioned talent in limited opportunities.
He also used his profile and experience to give back to the diabetes community, setting up a not-for-profit group called Helping Hands to support people with type 1 diabetes.
Diabetes is not a new issue for the Swans, with Brandon Jack, a 28-gamer from 2013-17, also a type 1 diabetic. And just like Jack, former Adelaide defender Nathan Bassett, ex-Bulldogs and GWS utility Sam Reid, and current West Coast forward Jamie Cripps, among others, he’s learned to live with it.
These days, under a revolutionary diabetes management plan, McCartin can check his blood sugars on his phone and does so 13 times a day.
At training and on match days he wears a sensor that sits on his armband and allows a trainer to run out, scan it and check blood sugar levels on the track. He carries lollies and carbohydrates at all times to manage highs and lows.
If ever he had any doubts there have been countless sporting stars world-wide who have excelled despite having the same condition. Like American tennis superstars Billy-Jean King and Arthur Ashe, Pakistani Test cricket great Wasim Akram, five-time UK Olympic rowing gold medallist Sir Steven Redgrave, five-time US Olympic swimming gold medallist Gary Hall Jr, Queensland and Australian rugby league star Steve Renouf, Australian motor racing great Jack Perkins and current NZ women’s cricket captain Sophie Devine.
Waiting anxiously for a comeback that will warm the hearts of all AFL fans, McCartin has been allocated the #39 Sydney jumper worn most often by Grundy and spectacularly by Warwick Capper.
With the Swans to play Round 1 at the Olympic Stadium against GWS and Round 2 at the SCG against Geelong, he will face something new also – he’s never played at AFL level at either ground.
Regardless, if he plays just one game for the Swans this year, McCartin will join a most exclusive group of AFL players to sit out three or more years between games.
Among 2359 100-gamers in AFL history since 1897 only 37 have played after a three-year hiatus. A further 22 played after four years out of the game, three played after having five years off, and two played after six years off.
Ironically, the two players with the longest mid-career ‘sabbatical’ are both part of Swans history.
The great Bob Pratt, the club’s all-time leading goal-kicker, had six years off after his 157th game in 1939 while he served in the Australian Air Force during World War Two. But in his Round 1 comeback in 1958 aged 33 he suffered a career-ending leg injury.
Charlie Ricketts, an 82-game South Melbourne player from 1906-12 and premiership captain-coach in 1909, was the other. After leaving South he played 16 games with Richmond from 1913-14, served in the WW2 from 1917-19, coached St Kilda in 1920 and was playing coach in five games in 1921 aged 35.
In more recent times, Carlton, North and Collingwood star Craig Davis, father of Swans premiership star Nick Davis, returned to the AFL with the Swans in 1988 after four years out of the game. He played nine games at 33 under Tom Hafey after previously serving as a development coach and runner.
