Simon Katich, Aussie Rules Football '12th man'

February 7, 2014, was a Friday. At the WACA Ground that Friday, Simon Katich led Perth Scorchers to the Big Bash League title. On the following Monday, February the 10th, Katich began preparing to do what a 12th man does in cricket. He joined the new AFL club Great Western Sydney Giants as a message runner for the head coach. He is now on his way to becoming the operations manager at the Giants, but for one full season he ran as hard as he could with messages from the coaches to the players, running around 20 kilometres every weekend. It is not a job that calls for much loyalty. Runners just come and work weekends. And here was a former Test cricketer, 4188 runs to his name, a BBL winner, acting as the messenger boy for the other sport he equally loved, Aussie Rules Football.

Katich agrees it is like being the 12th man, but without the drinks, and with messages that are much more crucial to the game than those in cricket. "I was happy to do that," Katich says, "because I thought I am starting from scratch with my learning. I am not the same level as these guys with my knowledge of the game, so I thought I had to do that to learn the game.

"Look it's tough physically but I am glad I did it. Because it allowed me to gain a bit of respect with the boys because I was out there with them, and understand what they go through on game day, which helps me with my work during the week."

Around 2013-2014 the strain of being away from family was beginning to tell on Katich. He didn't tell everybody, but he had decided that he would call it a day if he won the BBL. Around a month or so before the BBL finished he happened to get talking to his future CEO at a function. They spoke about what Katich's plans after cricket were, and Katich said he didn't plan on using his degree in commerce after having spent nearly 20 years as an elite sportsperson. He was told he could join the Giants if he wanted to, and Katich leapt at the opportunity.

Katich had always loved footy. "I probably had a football in my hand more than a cricket bat growing up." He was obviously more talented at playing cricket, but the passion was the same for both sports. Footy would let him balance time better between work and his young family.

"I was more nervous when I ran out in our intra-club match than I was when I played the Boxing Day Test," Katich says. "Because I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea. Whereas in cricket you know what you have to do. I was well and truly out of my comfort zone."

Giants are a young club so they didn't have big crowds to notice a former Test cricketer was running messages for them. Katich's players, though, knew him well. "The boys know about cricket," he says. "Quite a few of them like it. That has probably helped as well. To know that they understand that I've been in similar situations that they have been in. Under pressure and all that."

The game hurtles along at a pace much faster than cricket. There is less structure to it. There are no gaps between overs where 12th men can practically stroll along with messages. The positions are dynamic. Players get injured. The job of a runner in footy is far more important than that of a 12th man in cricket.

"They are about positioning," Katich says, describing what the messages are usually about. "They will be about what the opponents are doing. Maybe about what the players are not doing themselves. It might be positive. About stuff they are doing really well. Because there are so many players out there at any given time, a lot of it is about the spaces they fill, the routes they run, what the opposition are trying to do, holes on the field.

"A lot more complicated than cricket, that's for sure. At least in cricket you have got 30 seconds between each ball. It's happening all the time, there is repeat stoppages. The game is moving all the time. And so unpredictable. Because players can move in so many different areas. Whereas in cricket it is so very standard. It's been a real eye opener."

Most of the messages, though, have to be about what might be going wrong, and it is not the easiest thing to tell a bloke who is 6'6" and 110 kilos when he is running high on adrenalin. "There have been a few times when I have been told to go forth and multiply," Katich says. "But then because I am with them during the week as well, that helps. So if there is a message they don't take too well, generally they don't take it out on me. Sometimes they tell me. But they know I am just relaying the messages from the coaches. I know they are trying their best, so I always try to deliver in a calm and relaxed manner rather than an aggressive confronting manner. You can't do that anyway because they will probably knock you out."

Once in a while Katich adds the soft touch we didn't quite see in him when he played cricket. "I might have kind of changed a few messages slightly just to take it easy on one of the boys who I knew was trying hard. But I didn't want to give him the full barrel from the coaches."

Katich is highly impressed with the work that goes on behind the scenes. Ask Katich if the messages are as complicated as the ones John Buchanan used to send out, and he laughs before saying: "No, no. A lot easier than his messages. I shouldn't say it because John did a great job when he was the coach. To be fair a lot of stuff that he brought into cricket worked particularly from an analysis point of view. It's something that football does very well. What they do has blown me away the last season, seeing the level of analysis that goes into not only the players' point of view, but also the opposition and selection.

"Our selection meetings - they call them the match-committee meetings - can go for anywhere for three to four hours over a number of days. We discuss stats. Opposition match-ups. We have got an opposition analysis coach. His full-time role is to study the opposition. He comes in every Wednesday and presents to the players before the game. His presentation to the players will go on only for 40 minutes, but his presentation to the coaches might go on for two hours. So it is fairly in-depth."

There are other aspects of the sport that have impressed Katich. Just the sheer physicality of the sport means players have to be much more professional with their diets and preparations than cricketers are. "I am not saying cricketers aren't professional, but because it such a different sport physically, their attention to detail with their preparation physically is unbelievable," Katich says. "What they eat, what they put in their body. That sort of stuff. Whereas cricket is a lot more laidback in that respect. No disrespect to Boof [Darren] Lehmann. He was carrying a few extra kilos than these blokes. Boof was a fantastic player. That's why I am using him as an example."

The pressures, Katich says, are much higher. "Pressures are huge here," Katich says. "It is a very elite competition. This is the best of the best of football in Australia, and it's probably one of Australia's biggest sports. Probably got cricket covered in terms of the revenue it generates. The pressure on these young guys is huge. Coaches get sacked every year. It's big business. Players get sacked. The average career span is only six years. They start at 18, which is very young, and a lot of them might get cut off after two years. So it's a pretty ruthless industry in that respect."

It helps to have dressing-room pests such as Shane Mumford in the side, whom Katich equates to Brad Hogg in terms of being able to keep the spirits up in the dressing room. Footy can do with such characters because of the pressures, the physical demands of the game and the short career span. Quite a few young players have to fight depression, especially forced by injury-related absence. They go through a physical and mental check-up every week.

To hear Katich talk about the cut-throat nature of the sport, for a moment cricket comes across as a little wimpy. But then Katich provides the other side, like only a batsman can. "Cricket is a ruthless game," he says. "You have one mistake, and that's it. You make one mistake as a batsman and you're sitting there watching your team-mates pile it on. That can affect many guys mentally. I don't think it's a matter of being wimpy but it's a ruthless game with one mistake. Whereas this, you make a mistake and two minutes later you're back in the game."

Katich, now in a leadership role with the Giants, might compare the two sports but can't pick between them. His son currently favours the mini-bat to the football but that might be just because the ball is too big right now. Ask Katich to pick between the chance of playing the World Cup at MCG or the AFL grand final at MCG, and he says: "I always said I would trade a few one-dayers for Australia to play an AFL game at the MCG on a Friday night in front of 90,000. Gee, I think I have to sit on the fence there. I don't think I can choose."