HARF'S HEROIC HEIST

Round Two, 1997, Fremantle versus Hawthorn, Subiaco Oval

Fremantle 13.9 (87) defeated Hawthorn 10.13 (73)

The first few weeks for an AFL draftee are like your first few weeks in high school.

As a player, you’re literally jumping out of your your skin with excitement but also petrified with fear at the same time.

The seasoned champions of your new club look like confident, chiselled, super-heroes to a 17 year old, much the same as seasoned Year Twelve beasts appear larger than life to a nervous kid on the very first day of secondary school.

But perhaps most relevant for this discussion is the fact that any new AFL draftee is acutely aware of his/her new teammates in and around their immediate age bracket in particular.

In other words, when you arrive at your new club you’ll have a wealth of information carefully stored up top with regards to the players a year or so older than you already on a list, and those a year or two younger than you, snapping at your heels in the ensuing drafts.

Take yours truly, for example. 

In my draft year of 1992 I admired, even idolised those players a fraction older than me like they were superstars - they already were in my mind - and firmly entrenched in the system on an AFL list - players like Shane Crawford, Mark Mercuri, Nick Holland, Spida Everitt, Darren Payne, Joe Misiti, Shane Watson, Scott West, Dustin Fletcher and Paul Williams.

Equally, I was well and truly aware of the yet to be listed, but future upcoming stars who were playing as bottom age jets in the Under 18s - essentially the new and improved models of my own draft year who could leapfrog you in a heartbeat in 12 months if you hadn't made inroads into your emerging senior career - players like Shannon Grant, Angelo Lekkas, Justin Murphy and you guessed it, Daniel Harford.

So where am I going with all of this gib-gob?

Well quite simply, I could have told you categorically how great an AFL player Daniel Harford would become before he was even drafted by the Hawks with selection 8 overall in the 1994 National Draft - for all the reasons I've just been banging on about.

If you were a private school kid, which I was, you missed almost half the Under 18 season playing school footy with your mates, and therefore if you wanted to be up to speed with the juggernaut of the AFL and have your finger on the pulse to be drafted, then best you keep abreast of your Under 18 teammates and opposition players - which I most certainly did - and Daniel Harford despite being two years my junior was already even back then, the pick of the bunch.

Of course not all AFL prospects are as intuitive and obsessed with their surroundings as I was - but unless you’re guaranteed as the number one pick or a complete long shot with no real chance of being selected, you are finely tuned to anything and everything around you in the world of football - and I was no exception.

Daniel Harford was a natural leader who not only dominated but obliterated his junior competitions at St. Marys, Parade College and the Northern Knights prior to being picked up by Hawthorn.

'Harf' would also have a brilliant Teal Cup Carnival as Victorian Metro Captain, leading his state to the championship and winning the Larke Medal as the best player in the entire competition despite, can you believe it, playing only two full games of football.

Harford played 162 games with Hawthorn and Carlton, the majority of course with the Hawks (153) - and not to discredit the Blues who were, and still are, an enormous part of Harford’s life, it was of course at Hawthorn that Harford would forge his career and make a name for himself on the AFL stage.

Never the quickest, strongest or angriest of former teammates, ‘Harf’ was, with respect, one of those players you might look at and ask yourself - what makes this guy so good?

'He can’t out-run me, he can’t out bench press me and he’s walking around with a smile on his face the whole damn time - I’ve reckon I've got this bloke covered.'

But that’s the first and most likely last mistake I, and many others would ever make in second guessing the player that was Daniel Harford.

What he seemingly lacked in ‘essential' AFL traits, he made up for and then some in areas that in my opinion are far more important - courage, skill, mental toughness, endurance and general football smarts.

A brilliant ball winner who could read the play backwards, Harford was a sublime inside midfielder whose hands in close were elite and whose distribution of the footy in congestion and general play by hand or foot on either side of the body, even better.

As hard as nails and courageous as they come without the huff and puff of other lunatics with the same traits, Harford could be unobtrusive in one breath but then high end Hollywood in the next.

He could be dour and defensive but then brilliant and prolific. 

He could give you 30 touches with his eyes closed but then push forward and kick timely goals in massive games and when it mattered most.

And he could also play defensive shutdown roles on the oppositions best midfielders - which was slightly unnatural to him as a naturally gifted ball winner himself - but that was type of teammate Harf was, he’d take on anything that was asked of him and execute it perfectly more often than not.

As a former teammate, there isn’t a bloke I’d rely on more when you needed coverage after running off your direct opponent with gay abandon, or a game breaking defensive play, or just a pat on the backside at half time after playing like a mongrel dog for the first hour.

He was an outstanding clubman - who wouldn’t necessarily set the example via additional training sessions, verbal rants in the gym or general insincere rubbish - Harf much preferred - consciously or not - to set the example on game day, and did so with class, brilliance and unrivalled consistency over an outstanding career with Hawthorn and Carlton.

So which of Daniel Harford’s 162 games would he TOTALLY RECALL as the greatest he ever played?

Harf himself will know, as will all of our teammates of the time, that I have the memory of an elephant - so it brings me much delight when Harf reluctantly suggests a game that I had already penciled in as perhaps his greatest - Round Two, 1997 versus the Fremantle Dockers in Perth.

After a solid pre-season and doing the job on St. Kilda star Nicky Winmar in Round One, Harford was already the flavour of the month in many people's eyes, and went into Round Two against the Dockers full of confidence and looking to consolidate on the previous week.

Fremantle were an underrated side who boasted ridiculous talent through their midfield in particular, and at home in Perth were always a very difficult assignment.

In a high standard encounter both sides had their opportunity to gain ascendancy, but with the game in the balance late in the game it would be the home side Fremantle that would get their noses in front at the final change and hold on to a narrow win on their home deck at Subiaco.

Best on Ground by the length of the Kew Boulevard however, was Daniel Harford.

26 Kicks, 8 Marks, 11 Handballs, 37 Disposals, 7 Clearances, 18 Contested Possessions, 10 Inside 50s, 8 Rebound 50s, 2 Tackles, 3 Brownlow Votes. 

Enormous.

“Freo were always hard to beat over in Perth but we had our chances to win that game if I remember correctly,” Harford says. 

“I remember having a little bit of the ball I think, but it’s so long ago I really can’t remember to be honest,” he adds humbly.

Harford would see off a number of Fremantle opponents including Ben Allan, Jason Norrish and Andrew Wills en route to a career high 37 disposals, setting a brilliant example in a losing side and despite the loss gaining enormous respect and credibility throughout the competition in a stunning individual performance.

It was only my second game for Hawthorn after transferring from Geelong at the end of 1996, but it would be one that I remember vividly, and purely for the performance of Daniel Harford.

I worked closely with Harf throughout the entire season that year and it would be fitting, in my eyes anyway, that we finished equal second in the Best and Fairest behind only club legend, Paul Salmon.

He is a brilliant football mind and I wish him well in his coaching role with Carlton’s AFLW team and of course, his ongoing successful media career.

Thank You 'Harf' for TOTALLY RECALLING one of the greatest games you ever played.

Aaron Lord