Richmond fans love him; Robert Walls and Michael Voss were glowing in their praise. In the language supporters speak, Jake King has a crack every week – a throwback to his football upbringing.

Richmond has found another hard-at-it, cheeky plumber who plays in defence. He turned 24 on Wednesday and has played just 20 games, not missing since making his debut in round four, 2007. His name is Jake King.

At 174cm, he is among the shortest dozen players in the game. Expressing a fanatic’s zeal for winning the football, King beavers into packs, sticks his nose into marking contests and refuses to be ignored.

His game last week against Carlton was one of his best, his liveliness around the packs giving Richmond run out of defence and creating fast counter-attacks that suited Matthew Richardson.

When King speaks, he looks you in the eye. His words tumble out. His love of the game is pure: the contests and the mateship driving him forward.

He took time to mature. As an 18-year-old, he couldn’t be told. On the field his emotions would sometimes take over. His stepfather Craig Brandt enticed him to North Heidelberg when AFL football was not on the horizon. King played alongside his brother, Jarrod, and his uncle, Cristian Brandt, in the 2005 premiership. He was best on ground in the Grand Final.

“The boys pulled me up every time I mucked up and I couldn’t even look the wrong way without them coming down on me,”
King said.

He then did a pre-season with Essendon before playing a season with the Coburg Tigers. He completed his plumbing apprenticeship. Life settled down. He had more responsibility at work and a bunch of good football-related influences. Richmond was impressed.

Coach Terry Wallace said he was willing to put his faith in King as long as he kept his cool. King was placed on the Tigers’ 2007 rookie list aged 22. Once he arrived at Richmond, another product of the VFL, assistant coach David King (he played for Port Melbourne before winning two premierships with North Melbourne), went to work on King to make him an AFL player.

“My style of football is because of him,” says King of his namesake. “Positioning is a key factor and he encourages me to run. He has taught me that much in the last 18 months, it’s not funny. I owe everything to him.” 

King is the classic tough nut. Footage of him doing 300 push-ups (shown at the AFL’s season launch) bears that out. By his reckoning, he’s become even tougher since undergoing a pre-season led by Victoria Police’s special operations group.

“They put us through hell,” he said.

“On a training camp, we had to find our own sleeping arrangements when we went out into the bush. We were in the same clothes for four days. We hiked 42km in one day to make the destination they set us. They tried to break us but they couldn’t.” 

Peter Ryan is a senior writer at the AFL Record.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL

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