Daniel Cross reflects on his football career at Western Bulldogs, Melbourne and Albury

ST: We last saw you play for the Tigers in August 2022; have you officially hung the boots up now?

DC: I have, unfortunately. I turned 40 in March, I've got busy weekends with two kids and a matchday role with North Melbourne, plus the joints are getting very sore now so it all added up. I would love to have played again but I'm definitely retired.

ST: So what does life look like post-playing?

DC: I'm a strength and conditioning coach, I run the rehab program at North Melbourne so all the injured players come under my care with one of our physios. That's my full-time job during the week and on match days, I do the running, getting messages out there for the coaches. I did the same thing at Melbourne for four or five years and it's the next best thing, I reckon, because you're still out on the ground. You can have a very small influence on the game with structures and so forth. You can feel the testosterone building in the rooms when the boys are getting pumped up and ready to go to battle. It's good to be involved in that environment and help those boys achieve what they want to. I've got a young boy, Tyler, who's 12, he's very busy with his sport and he started high school this year and our little girl, Charlie, she's eight and she's heavily involved in dancing, she does athletics and basketball as well so there's not too many quiet weekdays and then the weekend is very full-on. We're very busy, Sam and I, my wife, but it's good fun. That's what I put my Mum and Dad through when I was a kid, we were very busy, me and my brother and my little sister so it's a bit of payback for me, that's for sure.

ST: If your son said he wanted to pursue a career in the AFL, what would you say to him?

DC: Well, I know that's what he wants to do, so it's funny you ask. The thing Sam and I always say to him is not to put any extra pressure on himself, to just enjoy his footy and you've got to be passionate about what you do. When it becomes a chore and it feels like a job, that's when I think your performance suffers. You'll gain improvement naturally when you enjoy things because you always want to work hard and get the best out of yourself. We'll be very heavy on no social media and not worrying about what other people say, it's all about listening to your coaches and the people who matter.

ST: What are your earliest memories of footy?

DC: When Dad was playing at Albury - and he went out to Bethanga for a couple of years - I remember the Albury change rooms vividly. They're still basically the same now and any time I smell Deep Heat, I think of the Albury change rooms. It brings back good memories of watching some of my heroes when Dad was playing and running out on the ground during the breaks and spending an hour or two out on the ground after the game playing games with the other kids, inside the 50-metre arc, until it was dark and we literally couldn't see the footy any more, that's when we'd come inside and all the parents that had been playing and the Mums, they were upstairs having fun, having a couple of drinks and us kids would come up all muddy. They were my first memories of footy and then I guess going home, you might have your fish and chips on Saturday night and then watch the footy when you got home as well. I've got great memories of growing up at footy, particularly at the Albury footy club.

ST: Aside from your Dad, of course, who were the players you looked up to?

DC: I don't remember a lot of the guys Dad played with but I remember in that strong era, 1995-97, Dad used to take me and my brother down to watch those guys play and they had a phenomenal team. Stuey Hodgson, Timmy Scott, Travis McLean, they had so many stars in those teams, Jeremy Masterson, really tough, hard players and that's what country footy was all about. I loved watching those types of guys play and they were winning most weeks so we were always happy leaving the ground. It was a good time to be growing up, watching my local team.

ST: What did your path through junior footy look like?

DC: I started at St Patrick's. I played in the Lavington Little League when I was 7-10 and then started playing in the U13s when I was 10 or 11 and played three years there and we were lucky enough to win three flags in a row in the U13s. At 14-15 I played in the U15s team at St Patrick's and when I was 16, I went to play thirds at Albury so I skipped the U17s at St Patrick's and went straight to Albury when I was 16. I played the first four or five games there in the thirds and the seconds were short one week so they brought me up to play in the seconds. I went alright and stayed in the seconds for the rest of the year when I was 16. I got close to playing in the seniors, I was emergency a few times towards the back end of the year and both sides, the firsts and seconds played in the grand final that year but unfortunately we both. That was 1999 and then in 2000, I played with the Murray Bushrangers when I was 17.

ST: What are your memories of being drafted to the Western Bulldogs at the end of that season?

DC: It was what I always wanted to do. I was lucky enough to play in all the NSW sides coming through, at the National Championships, I played in the U18s in 2000 and we won the Division 2 title that year. We had a very strong Murray Bushrangers side, I think we had eight or nine guys drafted out of that team and a couple more rookie-listed as well. I think we finished on top of the ladder that year, we won our first final against the Falcons and then we played the prelim against Eastern Ranges. We kicked something like 7.22 in the prelim and we lost by seven points. Geelong ended up going on to win it. I was lucky enough to play in some successful sides that year and had a decent season. I knew I had another year at the Bushrangers if it didn't work out but I got invited to the Draft camp and tested well there, so I put myself in a good position to be picked up but it wasn't going to be the end of the world if I didn't. I was lucky enough to get my name read out on the day. I remember watching it at home with my family and seeing my name called out was amazing. Our coach that year at the Bushrangers, Kelly O'Donnell, he ended up going to Fremantle as an assistant coach and he rang me, it was about pick 50, and he said that if I wanted to, they were going to pick me at 63 to go to Fremantle but luckily enough, the Bulldogs picked me up at pick 53. I would have gone to Perth but Footscray is much closer, obviously, to Albury, so it was an exciting day. I still had to finish Year 12 so I went to St Bernard's, in Essendon, the following year to finish Year 12 while I was down in Melbourne and then we went from there.

ST: Even if it wasn't WA, it was still a big move; how did you find that?

DC: It was really difficult. Any time I left, Mum would start bawling her eyes out. My brother Josh is two years older than me and he was leaving for university that year as well so two of their kids, at 17 and 19, left home and left my little sister there with them. That left the nest a bit bare for Mum and Dad so it was really hard on them. Mum would always get me going as well, I'd start to tear up as well. I'd only just finished Year 11 and all my mates were doing Year 12 together so I was missing out on things with them; 18^th birthday parties and all that sort of stuff. I was really close with my friends back then and they came down occasionally to see me or I'd go back home any chance I got. I definitely did miss my family. I've still got three grandparents alive to this day, which I'm very thankful for, and most of my family still live up there so it was tough but that's what I wanted to do. I was hell-bent on playing AFL footy and that's what it took. There's no team in Albury so I had to make the move.

ST: How did you break through into the Bulldogs team?

DC: In my first year, I was very young and hadn't played a whole heap against men. They were all big guys back then, proper VFL players. The VFL nowadays, there's a lot of young guys coming through but you were playing against big, burly men back then so she was tough going the first year. But I played really consistent footy in my second and third years at Werribee, our affiliate club, finished in the top couple in their best and fairest in those years, so it was just a matter of getting an opportunity at senior level. You're competing against a lot of guys in similar positions and it was just a matter of me finding my niche in the team. Chris Bond, the coach at Werribee, was a massive influence on me. He had me doing tagging roles for Werribee, shutdown roles, learning off some of the best midfielders in the VFL and guys that were dropping back from the AFL teams, shutting them down and then winning the ball myself. Once I came into the AFL team, that's what I was doing, but the AFL is another world compared to the VFL so learning to do that again at a higher level was much harder. It took me a little while to adjust and feel comfortable at that level. At the lower level, I was very comfortable competing with those guys and matching it with them, it was just a matter of developing and continuing to get bigger and stronger and being able to play at that intensity for 120 minutes of footy. I was lucky the Bulldogs persevered with me. I only played 10 games in my first three years and in my fourth year, I played the first two games but then didn't play for the next 10 after that.

ST: Do you doubt yourself at times like that?

DC: Yeah, a little bit. It was really frustrating at the time because I was emergency a lot but just couldn't quite crack in. The coach at the time (Peter Rohde) always seemed to look at the things I couldn't do rather than the things I could do and that became a little frustrating for me. But I always believed in myself. I'm a highly self-motivated person and proving people wrong was something I really thrived on. I definitely had a point to prove and in the back half of my fourth year, I played every game and started to build some real confidence from that continuity, playing at that level, rather than going in and out all the time. I'd played 24 games in my first four years and in my fifth year, that's when Rodney Eade came to coach the team and he was an amazing influence on me and backed me in right from the start.

ST: How did he get the best out of you?

DC: I could motivate myself, no worries, but he was an unbelievable motivator of players. I really thrived under his coaching just because you always played on the edge. It didn't matter whether you were the No.44 player on the list or the No.1 on the list, he always had you playing on the edge. He was a coach that I never wanted to let down. He backed me in from the start so I was willing to do anything for him as a coach. He was the old 'fire and brimstone' type of coach, some would say he was almost a psychopath, the way he'd address us during a game and at the breaks but I actually loved that side to him. Some guys might not have enjoyed that as much but I certainly loved the way that he coached.

ST: As you became a better AFL player, how did you deal with the level of fame which comes along with that?

DC: I purposefully never read the papers, you could ask my wife that, and even if Dad bought the paper in the morning I wouldn't read it because I never wanted to get too high or too low or believe anything that anyone was saying about me. All I really cared about was what the coaches were saying and what my team-mates thought of me and I didn't want to let them down. It fascinates me now why athletes get involved in it, because a lot of journalists haven't been through what you've been through. It's the old 'man in the arena' scenario. There's different situations in games they don't understand as well as they should but they still comment on it. They don't know the game plan and they don't know what's going on in your life. I made that a focus from the start, not to listen to outside influences, I tried to remain true to myself and remember where I came from, always tried to stay level-headed and respect the game and everyone around me. I didn't consider myself special at all. I played a game that I loved, I enjoyed doing it, was lucky enough to get paid to do it and I took pride in that and never took it for granted.

ST: Who was the most exciting player you played with?

DC: The one who influenced games the most was Brad Johnson. He was amazing. He was our centre half-forward and he's only 6ft 1in. What he could do for such a sustained period of time was just incredible and he was the one bloke I looked up to the most when I first got to the Bulldogs. It's a bit left-field but some of the things 'Aker' could do, watching him from afar at Brisbane and then getting to play with him for a couple of years, he was a pretty special player, what he could do on his left and right side. For a big guy, Chris Grant was amazing as well, what he could do below his knees, above his head, he was amazing as well.

ST: Who was your toughest opponent?

DC: When we played the amazing Brisbane side, I'd always get the assignment of Simon Black. He doesn't get the plaudits which a lot of the other guys do but he's done everything in the game except win a Coleman Medal. He's won a Norm Smith, Brownlow, All-Australians, best and fairests and played over 300 games. He was an amazing player and he'd just run at the same pace the whole game. He wasn't overly quick but he was big and strong and was amazing around the stoppage. If you gave him half a second, he's clearing that ball for Brisbane and he was always one I highly respected.

ST: You were 30 when you changed clubs, moving from the Bulldogs to Melbourne; how was that?

DC: It was a really tough period. When players say they bleed a certain colour, I actually did. I was red, white and blue through and through, I absolutely loved the place and certainly didn't want to leave. I was very keen to keep playing so when I was told my time was finished, it was a very hard thing to hear after spending 13 years there. When you sit back and look at it now, you understand what clubs are doing with their lists and setting themselves up for premiership glory and that's what they were doing, so they were doing the right thing by the club but it's hard when you're the individual. To get another opportunity at Melbourne was amazing. I was very close to going up to GWS. Leon Cameron was given the coaching job up there, he was our midfield coach at the time and I was very close with him. Both the Giants and Melbourne were keen to get me for my professionalism and setting an example for the young players. The only thing which kept us in Melbourne was the fact we'd just had Tyler, plus all of Sam's family was in Melbourne, and it ended up being a great choice. I only won 11 games out of 39 at Melbourne but we had some special wins in that time, made some really good friends and connections in the high-performance area there. It was the right choice in the end and I loved my time at Melbourne.

ST: Why did you retire at the end of 2015?

DC: I wanted to play on but Melbourne were looking to bring in a lot younger guys and build for their premiership tilt so I was put in the same scenario again. It was a little bit easier to take second time around because I'd been through it before but I knew that was the end of my AFL career so that was the hard part of it. I took great pride in being a professional athlete so when that was coming to an end, it was hard but I fully understood what the club was trying to do. A lot of those guys they blooded ended up being the premiership players of 2021.

ST: How and why did you end up back at Albury the following year?

DC: It was late November or early December and I was talking to Dad about what he thought of me playing at Albury. I still wanted to play at AFL level in 2016 so I stayed in good shape because that's what I was used to doing. Dad gave Stuey (Hodgson) a call to see if they wouldn't mind me coming back to play a few games. We'd looked at the draw, I was the runner at Melbourne so whenever they were playing on a Sunday, I could come up and play on the Saturday. It ended up being eight or nine games that year, a couple of finals and we won the flag in that first year, which was amazing. I played reserves there when I was 16 but never cracked a senior game and it was always something I wanted to do, follow in Dad's footsteps. I played in the Ovens and Murray side that year as well, which is something else Dad did. Originally it was just going to be one or two years, max, but I ended up staying for about six or seven.

ST: Having played in the AFL for as long as you did, where did you find the motivation after stepping down to the O and M?

DC: We played in three preliminary finals in a row at the Bulldogs and never made a grand final, which was heartbreaking for me and my team-mates. That's why we play, to win, I consider myself a very competitive person so to win a premiership was something I craved. That meant it was very easy to get motivated playing for Albury. I was super keen to win a premiership with the club, Dad had won a couple during the 80s so I wanted to join him on that list. I was very lucky because we had an amazing side, particularly in 2016. We went undefeated that year and they were fantastic boys to play with. A lot of people around the club were still the same; the trainers, people in the back room, Ross Ried and these types of people were still there. When I was three or four years old, running around the Albury rooms, those were there at that time so it brought back good memories and I just loved being around the place.

ST: When you retired as an AFL player, you were quoted as saying 'it is a privileged existence that we live as footballers... but unfortunately fairytales don't happen that often in this game' - so did winning with the Tigers change how you viewed the ending to your story?

DC: Yes. To be part of a premiership team, it doesn't matter what level, is something you and the players you achieved it with will always cherish. I consider Ovens and Murray football a really high standard so it was very special to be able to do that. The footy club had been a big part of my family's lives so to be added to that list of premiership players, I took a lot of pride in that and it's something which has a special place in my heart and will do until the day I die.

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