When Jeff Garlett chests the banner for game No.100 he’ll do so cradling his two year-old boy Nason. “He’s the greatest influence on me,” Garlett said this week. “I want to set him up for life from now until I’m finished.”
There’s a glorious synergy in Garlett’s much-anticipated 100th senior appearance for Carlton against Richmond at the MCG on Thursday. For it was there against the yellow and black in the opening round of 2009 that he completed a stunning senior debut - and who could forget last year’s First Elimination Final (same opponent, same venue) when the kid from Swan Districts sealed the deal with that exhilarating running goal.
But the milestone match (at which his father Jeffrey sen., mother Veronica and partner Jessica will be watching on from the stands) also carries a great historical significance for Garlett and his club.
In earning the right of every 100-game Carlton player to get his name etched on the locker, he becomes the one and only No.38 so honoured in the 60 years since the late Frank Munro was handed the jumper.
Garlett’s moniker on the door also means that for the first time in the 103 years since guernsey numbers were introduced, Carlton’s “Top 40” – the locker numbers 1-40 – each carry the names of at least one 100-gamer.
“I didn’t know about that,” said Garlett when told the news. “I’m even more proud about playing my 100th game now. To get my name on the locker reminds me how far I’ve come and to get this far is a huge honour for me.
“I never thought I’d make 100 games. Having been picked up as a rookie you think you may be in the AFL system for two or three years – and you think it’s going to be hard to break into the team because there are that many blokes ahead of you.”
It’s a well-told tale that Garlett’s scintillating turn of speed and canny goal sense caught the attention of National Recruiting Manager Shane Rogers in a local match between Swan Districts and West Perth in early 2008.
Jeff Garlett in his debut year. (Photo: AFL Photos)
Garlett’s slight frame was of some concern, but as Rogers remembered: “big blokes kept hitting him, and he kept bouncing back up – a bit like the rubber man”.
Not surprisingly, J. Garlett’s name found its way into the recruiter’s notebook and at the 2009 AFL Rookie Draft he was taken with Carlton’s first round selection (No.6 overall).
How well Rogers remembered first dealings with his new recruit in Melbourne town.
“I remember picking him up at the airport when he flew in from Perth for the first time,” Rogers recalled, in a previous interview with this reporter.
“I gave him the spiel about the club, and the importance of knuckling down and biding his time to earn elevation to the senior list later in the season. But he said to me; ‘Oh no, I’ll play round one, don’t worry about that’. So I said to him; ‘You’ve got to be elevated prior to round one,’ and he said, ‘I will be,’ and he was.”
For Garlett, Round 1, 2009 seems so long ago now.
“There’s been a big change in my life,” he conceded. “For the first three or four years I was sharing a house with ‘Yazz’ (Chris Yarran), but then I met my partner Jessica and Nason came along, and he always puts a smile on my face.”
Jeff Garlett on the training track earlier this week. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)
Garlett was just 19 when he was handed the No.38 – a beautiful set of numbers for the boy whose birthday just happens to fall on the third day of the eight month.
Now at 24, he has a rare opportunity to make more history in the No. 38 guernsey worn but once by a Carlton Premiership player, Shane Robertson, into the Grand Final of 1987.
As he said: “I still believe I have heaps to give and I’m happy at Carlton because I like the coaches and the boys”.
Carlton’s keepers of the No.38
Frank Munro - 5 games (1954)
Colin Holt - 1 game (1955)
Alan White - 23 games (1957-59)
Brian Holcombe - 1 game (1961)
Brian Henderson - 2 games (1964)
Jeff Trotman - 3 games (1965)
Bob Edmond - 10 games (1967-68)
Mark Amos - 6 games (1970-71)
Shane Robertson - 80 games (1983-91)
Rohan Welsh - 30 games (1992-93)
Ryan Jackson - 9 games (2006-08)
Jeff Garlett - 99 games* (2009 - )
