Expect Mysterious Twists And Turns In A Night That Could Define The Enigmatic Fraser Identity

The Age

Friday August 1, 2008

Greg Baum

After 170 games the giant Magpie is still a puzzle, writes Greg Baum.

JOSH Fraser is in that peculiar class of footballer who causes some fans to despair when he is not playing and some to despair when he is. As Collingwood's form has dwindled, his stocks have risen exponentially. But if he does not singlehandedly turn the Magpies' season around upon his return against Hawthorn tonight, you can be certain fingers will be pointed.

Ruckman or forward? Good player or very good (no one suggests great)? Leader or led? Last year, Fraser quit Collingwood's leadership group, this year he's vice-captain. But after nine years and nearly 170 games, the jury is still out, and the equivocation is instructive.

It is not only fans who are confused. Two weeks ago, Collingwood football manager Geoff Walsh intimated that the Magpies would play Fraser as well as Chris Bryan and Cameron Wood, presumably as a forward. "He's too good a player to be out of the side for too long," Walsh said.

A week later, coach Mick Malthouse said Fraser would return only when he was ready to play in the first ruck. "Josh can play forward, but not as a permanent forward," he said. Meantime, the Magpies have been trying to patch together a winning score by kicking to rookie John Anthony. Scoffed a generally admiring observer at another club: "They're not THAT good!"

Malthouse has been Fraser's only coach, Nathan Buckley his only captain until this year. "He's probably somewhere in between a midfielder and a ruckman, a midfielder and a key position," said Buckley. "When he's fit, he competes well in the ruck. But he needs to be at his best to compete in the ruck.

"He could prepare differently and play a different position. But Mick sees him as a ruckman. And Josh sees himself as a ruckman." But there are ruckmen and ruckmen, centre-bounce crash-and-bash merchants like Jamie Charman, or all-areas accumulators, like Dean Cox. Asked to be all things to all people, Fraser sometimes finds that he can be none of them.

It was ever thus for Fraser and Collingwood. He first came into the team in 2000 the way he will tonight, as the hope of the side. The Magpies were wooden spooners; 18-year-old, 202-centimetre Fraser was their prize. Malthouse, also new to the club that year, promised to play him sparingly.

But Collingwood, being Collingwood, had to show something. Fraser played every game except one in his first season, missed only five games in his first eight seasons, a bout of osteitis pubis notwithstanding. He has carried injuries more stoically than some suppose.

It might be that he is paying the price now. At 26, when he should be at his physical peak, he has played only 12 of the Magpies' past 23. As a teenager, he impressed with his ability to win the ball below his knees, even at the bottom of packs; he was really a gigantic midfielder. Now, he is not so athletic.

His latest setback happened while playing well for Victoria in the Hall of Fame game in May. He persevered for a month because the Magpies needed him, or thought they did, but Malthouse admitted last week that might have been a mistake. It was a very Fraser sort of twist.

Fraser has never finished higher than fourth in the Copeland Trophy, never been an all-Australian. His aggregate of Brownlow Medal votes at the end of last season was 23 in eight years; Jimmy Bartel got 29 last season alone. He averages 11 hitouts a games - passable - and takes fewer contested marks than his height and reach suggests he should (the same is true of Peter Everitt).

But he gets plenty of the ball. His best excites fans to think that he could be better still. But with his pale complexion and thinning hair, on his bad days, he looks not just off, but anaemic. He was once described as a very good B-grader.

But he has never had the luxury of an equal as a partner in the ruck, though the Magpies have tried several. Malthouse's attitude has been intriguing. One day in 2003, when Fraser was paired with Steve McKee, Malthouse said he would have been as well served by two cardboard cutouts.

When beaten by North Melbourne two weeks ago, Malthouse was scathing of Wood and Bryan, saying: "We had two ruckmen, rucking against a centre half-forward, and the centre half-forward was best-on-ground." And unlike 2004, Collingwood 2008 struggles with clearances. Last week, Essendon ruckman David Hille had six, more than anyone else on the ground, not to mention a power of hitouts, and the Magpies again were smashed. No wonder Malthouse wants Fraser back - in the ruck.

Fraser was drafted by Collingwood, under Malthouse as No 1. It defines him. But imagine for a moment if it were otherwise.

As much as the draft exalts, it stigmatises. No player applies to be No. 1; others confer it.

Matthew Pavlich and Joel Corey also were in the top 10 in his draft class, but so were three others who do not even play league football any more.

Conversely, between picks 30 and 60, these names appeared: Brown J., Chapman, Giansiracusa, Davis L., Ling, Hille, Bateman and, at No. 56, O'Keefe. Would not Fraser be looked upon differently if he was taken at No. 56? The recruiters are allowed to be wrong, the players not.

Next, Collingwood, the club of perennially great expectations. Finally, Malthouse. "Mick's never got Josh right," said someone who should know, and it wasn't Buckley. This school of thought says that Malthouse's relentless ways have never worked for Fraser. It is not that he and the coach clash, just that as a good-natured son of the country, 24/7 hype and intensity are not his go. "Enjoyment is important to Josh," said Buckley. "If he wasn't enjoying his footy, he wouldn't be playing."

Fraser is fated to ifs and buts. But tonight, there can be none; it will be Friday night football, season on the line, Hawthorn's two underrated ruckmen, and Josh Fraser, back for the Pies in the nick of time? Isn't he?

© 2008 The Age

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