Former Geelong star Cameron Mooney vividly remembers the sinking feeling in his stomach whenever the caliper was produced to assess his level of fitness at the start of each pre-season.
An adverse skinfolds reading – namely one above 60 – was an indication the three-time premiership forward had enjoyed too good an off-season and would lead to additional training sessions in the pre-season.
It was a case of too much pleasure leading to an additional level of pain. But Mooney was far from alone among his teammates in being sent to the “fat club” to shed the extra kilograms.
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“It all depended on how big you were. If your skinfolds were 60, you were in the ‘fat club’,” Mooney told foxsports.com.au.
“When we were playing, they would like our skinfolds to sit at around that 50 mark. Most players would get well under that. I always sat between 50 and 50, probably closer to 55.
“Now it wasn’t officially called the ‘fat club’, but that was always what it was known as, so you always had to do extra sessions, and rightly so. You’re in a professional environment and if you were not being as professional as 80 to 90 per cent of your teammates, then you had to do the extra work.
“It wasn’t so much of a ‘name and shame’ situation. But (there was the point that) the rest of the boys have done the work and you need to pull your weight. And I had no problem with that.
“If I came back overweight, or if anyone came back overweight and had to do extras, then so be it. That was your job.”
As the Fox Footy analyst said following the revelations this week that skinfold measurements for players in AFL pathway programs had been banned, “things have changed a hell of a lot”.
JUDGE A PLAYER ON THEIR KICKS, HANDBALLS AND TACKLES … BUT DON’T MENTION SKINFOLDS
At Craigieburn’s Highgate Recreation Reserve on Sunday, some of the nation’s most promising young footballers will feature in a match between The Young Guns and Victoria Country.
The Young Guns are represented by leading VFL or overage footballers in the Talent League Boys competition, all aged 19 or under who are eligible to be selected in the AFL’s mid-season rookie draft held at the end of May.
The Victoria Country team will feature prospects likely to play in the national under-18 carnival in the middle of the year.
The match, similarly to The Young Guns win over a Victoria Metro side last weekend, will be closely assessed by AFL club recruiters with a view to next month’s rookie draft and the national drafts held in late November.
The past two No. 1 selections in the mid-season rookie draft, Ryan Maric and Jai Culley, along with Gold Coast recruit Sam Clohesy and Hawk Massimo D’Ambrosio, are among those to have represented The Young Guns in recent years.
Every disposal, mark and tackle will be analysed, so too the ability of players to sprint from contests, find open space and create moments of magic that separate them from their junior peers. A potential star might be unearthed.
What will not be known, at least publicly, is the weight and skinfolds of the players courtesy of an edict the AFL delivered to clubs, without prior consultation, last week.
The AFL confirmed with clubs that it will not publish the weights of players and that body composition assessments, or skinfold testing, will be banned in elite junior competitions.
The league had previously removed skinfold tests for potential draftees at the draft combine in 2021 and the furore this week has mirrored the uproar that occurred with that decision, so too the decision not to print current players weights in the AFL Record.
Footballers in the national under-18 carnival will not have their weights published this year either, though recruiters will still be able to access the weight of prospective draftees.
The decision stems from the recommendations of a group working under the AFL’s mental health and wellbeing unit led by Dr Kate Hall considering the impact of disordered eating.
“Body composition assessments (excluding height and weight) will not be conducted in any Talent Pathways programs or any athletes that are eligible to compete in the Pathways programs,” the edict read.
“Body weights will only be measured by qualified High Performance/Sport Scientists, Sports Dietitians, or Medical Practitioners, in a safe and private setting. All data collected must be kept private.”
A RIDICULOUS MOVE OR ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS PROFESSIONALISM?
Not surprisingly, the move has sparked vigorous debate in footy circles over the past week.
Dual-North Melbourne premiership coach Denis Pagan said it was the most ridiculous thing he had heard. Essendon great Matthew Lloyd said on Footy Classified “the world has gone mad”.
Similarly to Mooney, former Hawk and Blue Daniel Harford, who also coached Carlton’s AFLW team for four seasons, said it was not uncommon for a player to end up in ‘fat club’ during his playing days.
Harford, who won the Larke Medal as the best under-18 at the national carnival in 1994, said he is concerned about the impact the edict could have on young hopefuls.
“These are opportunities for young people, if we are talking pathway programs, to understand the levels required and I think they are really important parts of the recipe,” he said on RSN 927 this week.
“I just think we are giving these kids … not the blocks of success to get to the level where there’s pressure day in and day out, let alone a lifestyle you are demanded to live to excel at the level.
“This could be at football, this could be at hockey, this could be at tennis, whatever it is, (but) there are expectations on you as an elite performer and the way you carry yourself and live your life and these little measuring sticks and markings along the way give young athletes the chance to understand what is required. To take them away, I think, takes away some of the great building blocks of what success can be … and also doesn’t challenge their resilience if things don’t go their way.
“As Lloydy (Matthew Lloyd) said, maybe the competition is not for them, if it gets to the point where these things affect them to a degree where they can’t perform, (because) the cut throat nature of Australian rules football … is going to eat you up and spit you out anyway, so you are better off knowing that earlier rather than later.”
But former Kangaroo and Sydney star Wayne Schwass, who played under Pagan and is a mental health advocate, told The Age it is important to acknowledge it is a decision made by experts in the field.
Eloise Gardner, who represented the Bombers in the VFLW, also backed the move when revealing an obsession of reaching an ideal weight while playing with Darebin led her to the verge of developing an eating disorder.
“I remember being celebrated for how hard I’d worked over the off-season and the praise I received. It very quickly embedded the belief that my weight determined my self worth,” she wrote in a blog.
“I have no doubt my obsession with pushing my body to its limits, while not fuelling my body appropriately and neglecting other aspects of my mental and emotional wellbeing was a key factor in my current chronic illness.”
NEVER WRITE OFF A KID WITH TALENT, NO MATTER THEIR WEIGHT
Mooney does not encourage “naming and shaming”, particularly at lower levels, though he believes it is important for AFL listed players to be kept accountable in terms of their weight.
“You get back and you work your backside off,” he said.
“But it was more if you’re not willing to put the work in during the breaks, everyone’s going to know about it. And I’ve got no problem with that, particularly now more than ever.”
The Fox Footy pundit’s son Jagger is currently playing with the Geelong Falcons in the Coates Talent League and Mooney said the teenager’s experience at the development level is vastly different to his own three decades ago.
Mooney grew up in Wagga and was drafted out of the NSW/ACT Rams by North Melbourne with pick 56 in the 1996.
He featured in 11 games for the Kangaroos, including the 1999 premiership, before joining Geelong, where he played another 210 games, which included the flags of 2007 and 2009.
“When we’re talking about pre-draft, you’ve got to understand that most kids — and I was at the top of this list, I was on the podium — have no idea what they’re doing,” Mooney said.
“I didn’t learn until I literally walked into the club at North Melbourne. You’ve got to understand that we, as 17 or 18-year-old boys, and that’s what we are, we’re boys, are really just trying to learn on the fly. It takes a lot of time to mature.
“It’s a select few, probably when I was coming through, who really knew about professionalism and diet.”
The skinfolds and weights of Jagger Mooney and other potential father-son recruits with the Geelong Falcons including Boston Riccardi, the son of Peter, and Alfie Wojcinski, the son of David, will not become publicly known unless they agree to release them.
But Mooney said the improvements in professionalism even at that level are vastly superior to anything he went through and should ensure prospective talents are fit enough, regardless of the recent edict from the AFL.
“My son is with the Falcons now and is learning now at 15, 16, what it is all about. So they are learning earlier than ever about professionalism and diet,” he said.
“If you are a young kid nowadays and you want to get drafted, I can guarantee you it is the best life you will live and it’s the greatest experience of your 20s and hopefully early 30s that you’ll ever have, so it is very much worth becoming that really professional athlete at an early age, so you can get the absolute best out of yourself.”
That said, Mooney urged any recruiters watching The Young Guns’ clash against Victoria Country this weekend, or any other juniors playing across the country, not to be put off by a kid whose skinfolds might be suspect if they believed they had elite talent.
“I would never put a line through a kid who can find the footy, just because I heard his diet isn’t great. I wouldn’t sit back and say, ‘Oh. This 18-year-old’s diet isn’t good. He can play, but we are not going to pick him because of his diet or weight’” Mooney said.
“They are the things you learn when you are (at an AFL club), that you pick up in a professional diet. So I would never judge a kid on his skinfolds, his weight or his diet if he can play but is not in a professional environment. That is my job as a club to get that right when he is inside the club’s four walls.”
