IT'S HARD to believe Max Gawn was at the crossroads early in his career, given everything that has transpired since things finally clicked in 2015.

Six All-Australian blazers. Two Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Trophies. And, most importantly, leading Melbourne as captain to its first premiership triumph in 57 years. 

But he was once at the crossroads. 

Gawn played only four games in his first three years in the AFL. He arrived at the Demons while recovering from the torn anterior cruciate ligament that ruined his draft year and didn’t make his debut until halfway through his second season. Then he underwent a second knee reconstruction ahead of his third season. 

Being caught by then skipper James McDonald smoking a cigarette while driving to training on the Monash Freeway is a well told, famous part of Gawn’s rise from gifted but unproven teenager to one of the greatest ruckmen the game has ever produced. 

But it wasn’t the only wakeup call Gawn received. Back when Melbourne was based out of the Junction Oval in St Kilda, where the changerooms were crumbling and the football department operated out of makeshift rooms, the ruckman was called in for a meeting that was the catalyst behind an attitude shift that has led to Gawn becoming the benchmark of standards at Melbourne. 

Away from prying eyes, the meeting was held in the back corner of a café on Fitzroy Street where all Melbourne’s key football staff – the late Dean Bailey, football manager Chris Connolly and recruiting boss Barry Prendergast – sat down with Gawn, his father Rob and his manager, Anthony McConville. 

Now more than a decade on, Gawn will play his 200th game when Melbourne faces Hawthorn at the MCG on Sunday ahead of another September campaign. It is the little things that stand out in the journey from those who have been there along the way. And it was there in St Kilda where McConville believes the penny finally dropped for a client who become more like a son.

“Melbourne used to go to this café and we sat down at the back of it and that was generally where they had their meetings, because the facilities back then were shocking at the club. It was ensuring that Max knew that we were there to support him. That was key, we weren’t there to hit him over the head, we were there for him. The coach was there reinforcing that he could be the future of the club,” McConville tells AFL.com.au. 

“Some guys need some guidance at different times. They don’t all come in professional, they learn along the way, depending on who is there at the time. It was more about not wasting the opportunity.

"‘We’ve got your back, but you’ve got to lift your game mate. Don’t use doing a knee as an excuse to say I didn’t make it. Don’t waste your potential. You are more important to this club than you even realise, but only you can do it.’ I have no doubt that meeting hit home for him.”

Mark Jamar was the No.1 ruckman at Melbourne at the time. He reached the pinnacle of his 160-game career in 2010 when he was named in the All-Australian team after establishing himself as one of the premier ruckmen in the AFL. 

But the South Australian knew his spot wasn’t going to be secure for long, even though Gawn had injury and professionalism issues in the early days. By 2014, Gawn was breathing down his neck, piling up dominant displays at Casey. Then midway through the next season, the spot was the 208cm ruckman’s. Jamar’s run as the main man at Melbourne was over.

“It makes me feel better about being tapped on the shoulder. Look who I’ve stepped aside for? That makes you feel pretty proud really. The fact we got to work together for four or five years was a real highlight for me,” Jamar recalled.

“Early few years I was in my prime and my spot was cemented. He was young and coming off a knee, but it got to a state when he was playing so well at VFL level and coming in and playing some AFL, that it was clear this kid was going to be something. 

“It got to a point in my career where I was on the way out and Max was probably thinking ‘if I’m not going to be the No.1 ruckman I’m probably going to leave.’ That saw me play in the twos the rest of 2015 and he played out that year and then bang, next year he was All-Australian and hasn’t looked back since.”

Greg Stafford has been in Gawn’s corner for most of the journey. They have pored over thousands of hours of vision together, tinkered and fine-tuned the dark art of ruck craft, designed game plans to stop the best of the rest week-in, week-out for a long time. 

After playing 204 games across more than a decade at Sydney and Richmond, the former ruckman joined Melbourne initially as a part-time ruck coach in 2013 before Demons GM Alan Richardson appointed Stafford as the club’s forwards coach at the end of 2020. 

“It has been quite incredible really, reflecting on it. Clearly he was a bit rough around the edges, even before I was there. When I got there, I don’t think he had the most productive attitude going around,” Stafford said over the phone this week.

“But now when I think of him, I think of this incredible work ethic that stretches from the gym to the track to the playing field and everything that you could conceive in between. He is just a student of the game, he loves the game and loves the role that ruckmen play. He is a bit of a flag bearer for ruckmen, he likes to think he is the chairmen of the ruck brigade and in some respects he has earned that title. 

“You have to love the work, and in order to do so, you have to love the game. He has an intense desire to be the best that he can be. I think that’s what drives his work ethic. He wants to continue to see where he can take his game. That comes back to his ability to learn and execute. He is totally committed both from a physical sense but also from an intellectual sense.”

On the eve of the 2020 season, Melbourne made the decision to appoint Gawn as sole captain, replacing co-captains Nathan Jones and Jack Viney, after the ruckman had won back-to-back best and fairests and was named All-Australian for a third time. 

Jones had opted to stand down from the role ahead of the last season of his decorated career, while Viney became vice-captain after a leadership process decided that Gawn was the best man to help lead the club towards the promised land. 

“When he was announced captain, I had complete confidence he would be the captain we now know him to be,” Stafford said.

“I know at the time it raised eyebrows, even internally it did with a few. I knew straight away it was right because post game, late at night, he’d be driving home still ruminating and think about the game and want to talk about it. And it wasn’t about his performance, it was about others and us as a club. When you start to have those conversations that extend past you as an individual, you know there is something special about the individual. 

“To see him develop and grow into the player he is, is wonderful, but more importantly the man he has become – he is a great teammate, a great leader – but I think the thing he hangs his hat on is he is a great mate, a great man, a terrific husband and father and that rounds him out. When you talk about the leader of your club, I think we’re pretty lucky.”

Jamar spent a season playing for Essendon in 2016 as a top-up player due to the supplements saga and has remained working at the club as a ruck coach. Now his job is teaching Sam Draper how to be the next Max Gawn.

“I’ve kept a close eye on Max since I left,” Jamar said.

“I often touch base about different players he has played against when I need some info for my guys. It has been a great relationship with Maxy ever since I’ve left Melbourne. It has been a pleasure to watch him grow into probably the best ever next to maybe Dean Cox.”

McConville has been in this business for longer than most. He built Mac’s Sports Promotions in 1997 in the bungalow out the back of his house. Now it is a boutique agency based in Carlton where along with former client turned accredited agent Brett Deledio and his son Tom McConville, they service more than 40 clients around the AFL. 

Ruckmen have always been part of McConville’s stable. Shane Mumford, Mark Blake and Trent West all won premierships at the highest level. Reilly O’Brien has risen from the rookie list to a best and fairest winner at Adelaide. But none have ascended the same heights as Gawn.

McConville has been there every step of the AFL journey after first spotting Gawn playing for the Sandringham Dragons and tracking him for months, before signing him at the start of his top-age season when he kicked four goals against the Eastern Ranges. 

“I look at him as family,” McConville said. “When you see them as raw as what they were as a kid and you look back on their transition into adulthood, you go to weddings and see them have children and evolve in life, through ups and downs along the way, and to see the successes they are able to get as a player on the field and also off the field, helping guide them with business plans and going into wine bars and so forth, you take great pride in seeing them succeed. It is a great feeling. That’s why you do it.”