MAC ANDREW is ready for his 'Next Big Thing' status. Gold Coast's hugely exciting talent is back from injury to face Melbourne on Saturday and enters his fourth AFL season as one of the most promising players in the competition. 

The 21-year-old, 41-gamer joins Cal's Q&A to discuss his plans for 2025, the pressure of a mega contract, being an entertainer and role model, kicking a goal after the siren, the Suns' finals hopes, why Damien Hardwick wanted the opposition to see ghosts and his daily locker reminder.

It's been a weird start to the year for you. An injury in the first minute of a practice game, then a cyclone, then a bye. Are you ready to go?

I'm ready now. It's been a bit interrupted but I'm ready to go now and excited for this week. I had a bit of a sternum injury so we were being pretty cautious. I didn't really want to cop another whack and have something put me out for longer. It's all good now and I'm ready to go. It was a bit annoying getting the injury in the first 10 seconds. I was really keen for that game and Riak (Andrew's brother at Sydney) was playing that game, so I was keen to play against him and they were going to chuck me forward in the second half to do that. I was lucky the bye came at a good time for me and we didn't play Opening Round, so there were two games less that I would've missed.  

You missed the win over West Coast but also the Bad Boys t-shirts and theming… did you get one anyway? What's been your favourite Damien Hardwick theme?

Nah, you have to play in the team that week to get one. I think I might steal one off the boys actually, I've been asking Charlie Ballard and Benny Long for theirs. I might have to wait until I get to their house one day and grab one. The theming is something all the boys look forward to and it's usually the day before at our captain's run that he shows us what the theme is, and straight after the meeting the boys run to their lockers to see what 'Dimma' (Hardwick) has gotten us. It's like opening a Christmas present. There's been a few good ones. For Longy's 100th game last year there were t-shirts for his milestone, which was pretty cool. That was one I really liked. There's been a few different ones. We had a theme of making the opposition see ghosts last year and he got us these Freddy Krueger masks which was pretty funny as well. A lot of the shirts we wear around and every week it's something the boys feed off, so it's a good tradition he's brought in.

Is this the year finally for finals?

Yeah definitely. Like Noah (Anderson) has said, I don't really think there's any more excuses for us. We've had a year under Dimma and I won't say it was an excuse, but we were learning a new game plan. But now everyone has their head wrapped around it and everyone is really primed and ready to go for this year and that has to be the expectation for us.

Do you sense a weight of history to be the first Gold Coast team to break through for that?

This is the best team the club's ever had and from what a lot of people say around the club – I've only been here four years – they say it's the best the club's ever been. There's really no more excuses, the list is great, we have all the talent and all the pieces put together so we just have to come together as a team and perform on-field.

It's your fourth season coming up but it feels a very different profile to your footy now after the end of last year. The goal after the siren. The nine-year mega contract. The ambassadorial promotion you've had. Being the face of the new Suns branding. What do you want to show everyone this year as a player?

Not too much different to last year. Just go out there and play my role for the team, whether that is forward or down back. I want to play to my strengths and also be an entertainer for the crowd as well. The crowd comes to watch us play so the more entertaining I can be then the more bums we can put on seats. That's not really a big thing, but the way I play hopefully I can try to attract more Suns fans to come to the games. Then off-field just trying to be a good role model and grow the game, not only for multicultural kids but kids in general.

What does an entertainer look like for you?

I dunno… kicking goals after the siren? (Laughs) I feel the way I play can attract people.

Where do you expect Dimma to be using you this season and where do you feel most comfortable positionally?

Through the backline. With 'Chucky' (Ballard) going down with injury, I think I'll settle down back and probably for most of the year. The forward line went really well against the Eagles so I don't think Dimma will want to change something that's working. I feel comfortable playing both. Swinging forward late last year I thought I'd find it a bit more challenging than I did but I felt really comfortable, especially with guys like Ben King helping me out. I love playing down back and I love playing up forward. It's hard to say what my favourite position is now. If you asked me before the end of last season I would have said 'Just leave me down back', but now I don't really know. I spent the summer down back and Dimma has already said 'If we do need you up forward, always be ready for it'.

The switch to the forward line saw you have a career-best game of four goals against Essendon in round 22, including the match-winner after the siren. Tell me about the effect that game had on your footy life.

The moment was pretty special and is something every kid dreams of doing, growing up playing in the backyard pretending you're kicking goals after the siren, so to do it in real life was pretty crazy. Afterwards it all went away pretty quick. I got flooded with a bunch of messages and you have all your family and friends excited and they probably carry on a bit longer than I did. Dimma just said 'It's a new week, you have to move forward and you're not going to be able to do that every game'. I didn't leave it in the past but I moved on. In that kick you don't want to miss and at the same time if you know my brothers or cousins, they wouldn't have felt sorry for me if I had have missed it, they'd have just bagged me, so I was just hoping I didn't miss because I would have copped it from them.

In signing one of the biggest deals in the AFL last year, what did you weigh up? Are you ready for the differing pressures that will kick in once you hit that top category of the competition's best paid players?

You weigh up everything. I had to talk to my family and the people around me to see what was best for me, and my family is in Melbourne so that temptation is always there about trying to reunite with them. But I don’t really feel too tempted to leave. My family are really happy with me up here, I'm really happy here and I love it up here. If you asked me now, post-footy I don't think I'd ever go back to Melbourne anyway. It's really nice up here and I love it up here. I want to be a part of the first team to win a premiership on the coast and I feel the list we have now is the list that can take us there. It's something where we not only can challenge for one but for multiple premierships. The list and where the club's heading was a big part of it, and the lifestyle up here is really great. You're out of the limelight and out of everything, so that was another big factor. I'd rather be up here and go about my business and do what I want and not get bothered by people rather than be in the spotlight in Melbourne.

Does the focus of a mega deal sit well with you?

At the end of the day the only person who can put pressure on myself is myself, so I don't worry about what Joe Blow says about whatever. I'm not going to not work as hard because of it. The environment that Dimma has created, you can't really cruise around. Even if I wanted to it's not something I'd be able to do. You want to play good footy always and be in a good position to help your team out, so I don't think it adds any pressure on me. I just want to go out and do it consistently.

Have you only scratched the surface?

Everybody strives to be the best. I want to be one of those players who are not only remembered for being a good player, I want to be one of those players who were known as a great player when they retire. I'm a really competitive and confident person so I'm always going to go out there and be the best I can.

In your first couple of years there were some lessons you had around professionalism at the club. What was the biggest change you made about chasing your AFL ambitions?

Dimma was huge for me. He sat me down when he first came in and told me how valuable I could be to this team if I put my head down and worked hard. No coach has ever really come up and said that to me, so he gave me the confidence and belief in my own abilities that I can go out there and try to be a game-changer for the team. He kept implementing it into my head that how good I want to be comes down to how hard I want to work. That's something I've carried with me and hung up in my locker. When I open my locker I look at that every day so I know what's pushing me that one per cent harder – 'How good you want to be is how hard you want to work'. Dimma printed it out and gave it to me and it's stuck in my locker. It's the first thing I see every morning and it pushes me to get that one per cent better every day.

Your whole career has been a whirlwind of sorts. The 2021 draft season saw you quickly rise at the start of the year and end up a top-five pick to the Suns. At the time did you believe in yourself as much as recruiters were believing in your talent?

I still remember being at school when I got the call from Tarkyn Lockyer that I had been added into the AFL Academy and I was like 'What the heck?!' I was a bit shocked. It was after round two or three at the start of the under-18 season. I went from trying to get a game with the Stingrays to trying to do good enough for hopefully Melbourne to recognise me and it changed really quick. By the time the draft came I knew I was going interstate. I never really thought about going as high as I can, it was just about trying to get on a list.

Have you thought about how the NGA rules have since changed now so you could have actually got to Melbourne?

I thought about it early days and what could have been – they came off a premiership that year and I thought that would be something cool to be a part of, but as soon as you get drafted you forget about all of that stuff and you're only there for your team, and as soon as I got drafted I just stopped thinking about them. I was fully committed to playing here and trying to achieve that goal here.

It's a pretty special top end of that 2021 draft. Horne-Francis, Daicos, Darcy, Callaghan, Rachele, Amiss, Wanganeen-Milera, Wilmot, Lohmann. How competitive are you with them?

It was a pretty good draft and guys like Nick Daicos and Jason Horne-Francis are a couple of the best players in the AFL. You keep tabs on how everyone else in your draft year is going. I've been thinking about it and talking to guys like Kai Lohmann and seeing how they've already won a premiership. You get a bit jealous that they're this young and done that and you guys came together in the same draft.

Your brother Riak joined Sydney last year as a draft pick, a year after being overlooked originally. What did that mean to you?

I was going to fly down to Melbourne for it but we had pre-season the day after so I wouldn't have had enough time, but it was crazy. I was spewing we didn't take him, but it was pretty crazy and an incredible achievement for him. He's had his own hiccups throughout his journey with injury and stuff like that, but to see him come out the other side bigger, better and stronger I couldn't be any more proud of him. It's just how proud he's made my mum and dad as well, and how happy he's made the rest of the family. I was probably more happy for him than when I got drafted because for him it was a bit more 50-50 whereas I knew it was going to happen by the time of my draft.

Your story is pretty well known now having been born in Egypt with South Sudanese parents and then moving to Australia. Do you recognise your status in the African community?

Definitely. Every off-season we play these tournaments of Next Gen United games, where it's east vs west side in the South Sudanese teams. Seeing the whole community get together is great and seeing a lot of the kids come up to me for photos and tips is sometimes a bit overwhelming. I saw myself as a role model but I didn't really expect what came with it until you see the kids in the flesh. It's pretty crazy and I'm still trying to work on my leadership skills to be able to help them. We have a lot of good leaders in the South Sudanese community so the more we can come together the better we can be for the wider community.

Does the next big thing tag sit well with you?

It's not a bad thing. It's hard to answer… I want to be the best player I can be and that's not only for myself but my family and the club. I have a lot of traits not many people in the AFL have and I think I am a different player to a lot of people. At the same time, there are a lot of great players in the AFL and a lot of up-and-coming young stars as well. To be in that bracket is really cool, but at the end of the day you want to live up to all the expectations and the way I can do that is working hard and doing everything I can off the field to make sure I'm performing on the field.