Five year-old Judd Archibald and his mates Jordan Knight and Charlie Kennedy are providing plenty of side-entertainment for the sparse crowd at this top-of-the-table WDCA game…….offering them respite from the dour battle that’s being waged out on the W.J.Findlay Oval.
Judd’s old man, Yarrawonga-Mulwala’s captain-coach, seems a personable, chatty, relaxed fellah, but even so, he’s occasionally distracted from the goings-on in the middle, as he attempts, in vain, to pull the kids into line……..
“They’re busy, I tell ya……” says Kyle Archibald…..”I keep saying to Jim Irvine, one of our players, that they remind me of him and his brothers when I first started at the Lakers in 2008.”
It’s my guess that Kyle would have been similarly exuberant when he was growing up in the Central Riverina……….
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He’s from Ungarie, population 396……Daniher country…….
This tiny dot, mid-way between Lake Cargelligo, West Wyalong, and nowhere, is almost the last bastion of Aussie Rules ……the tip of the so-called ‘Barassi Line’ which delineates Rules from the Rugby League stronghold of the north.
A huge Sherrin in the local park stands as a monument to four brothers – Terry, Anthony, Neale and Chris – who all represented Essendon with distinction – and remain Ungarie’s proudest exports.
It was the ambition of all kids in the town when they were starting out, that they’d follow the Daniher’s into League ranks.
They weren’t always so keen…….
“The only way they got us into Under 10’s footy was because they promised us we could go ‘bunny-bashing’ (shooting rabbits) after training,” Kyle recalls.
His parents ran the butcher shop in the main street ( “they still do” )…… and have been there for yonks….They were rapt when their four kids became involved in local sport.
So it was cricket, footy and shooting………
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Kyle showed early football potential, and represented NSW from U.15’s through to U.18’s ….. He was enticed to re-locate to Canberra at 17, where he lived with a host family; playing with ACTFL club Belconnen and the NSW Rams.
He still had another year to spend in the VSFL Under 18’s when Richmond speculatively picked him with the final choice of the 2003 draft – pick number 81.
Commentator – and former Tiger – Rex Hunt dubbed the selection: ‘The Prize’ ( aka ‘The Archibald Prize’ )……
“It was a bit of a whirlwind, I must admit…….” Kyle says. “I was in at 17 and on the scrap-heap at 19, but I had an absolute Ball, and don’t regret one thing about my time at Richmond…..”
“You know what it’s like; a boy from the bush moving to the city at that tender age…..It was a bit of an eye-opener……I was living with a family at East Bentleigh at first, then moved in with a North Melbourne draftee David Trotter from Lockhart, to a house at Flemington…..”
“I lapped it all up……but at the end of the day I just wasn’t good enough…..”
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He headed over to West Adelaide for what was a forgettable 2006 season….
“The intention was to try and get re-drafted, but we were being smashed every week………I’d lost my passion for footy a bit, actually…..They gave the coach, Wayne Weideman, the flick at the end of the year, and I bailed out too……..up to Darwin…..”
“It was the best thing I could have done……”
He signed with Southern Districts, and the lifestyle suited him to a tee…….
“We’d go out fishing on Friday nights, and get home about 4am……..Because of the heat the games wouldn’t start until near dusk the next day……..You’d rock up, wearing a pair of board shorts and thongs…..It was a pretty laid-back atmosphere, but the footy was exhilarating ……”
“I’d become a bit too uptight about the game in Melbourne and Adelaide, but I loved it up there….learned to relax and have a bit of fun, and fell in with a lot of good people…….”
“ I’d recommend it to any young fellahs looking to experience a different lifestyle…..I was also fortunate to come under the influence of ‘Districts’ coach Michael ‘Magic’ McLean ( the former Bulldog and Brisbane Bear). He was an absolute ripper….. ”
Kyle’s season culminated in an excellent finals series…..Southern Districts toppled Waratahs by 15 points, to win their second NTFL flag…….He was awarded the Chaney Medal, as best afield, in a powerful display at centre half forward…..
Then Yarrawonga came knocking…….
“I’d never heard of the place, actually, before I came down to check it out……..It suited me okay…..Then the missus got her hooks into me,” he laughs……”and the rest is history……”
“Susie’s a Willett, of the famous Wilby clan, and has won about 7 or 8 Netball flags with Yarra……which she keeps on reminding me of…..”
“So you’re a fully-fledged Yarra boy now ?, “I query.
“Well, I dunno whether I’ve been adopted yet,” he replies….”It takes a while to become a local….”
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What probably helped was that he started to have a hit of cricket with the Yarra-Mulwala Lakers, and proved a more than handy acquisition for the Yarrawonga Football Club……
Bob Craig had taken them to their first flag in seventeen seasons, in 2006, and they remained there, or thereabouts in subsequent years.
Kyle represented the O & M in 2007 and ‘08, and won selection for the NSW team which contested the National Country Championships.
But he still shudders at the disappointment of losing three straight Grand Finals against a dominant Albury……particularly the ‘09 decider, in which the Tigers booted 14 of the first 15 goals before going on to win by 77 points.
They whittled the margins down to 10 and 9 points in the following seasons, but that certainly didn’t dull the pain of defeat for the proud Pigeons.
He’d played 103 senior games with Yarra before embarking on something of a ‘bush odyssey’ of district clubs in the area.
“I was at the stage where things were pretty flat-out with work…….We’d started a new business – Extreme Cleaning – going around a lot of schools……cleaning carpets, windows and the like….”
“That was pretty hectic, besides having kids and all that jazz……I could no longer devote the time to playing senior O & M footy, to be honest…..”
First stop was Whorouly:
“I ended up out there, because of a friendship with their coach Brendan Roche, who was a mate of my brother-in-law…..We reached the Grand Final, but North Wangaratta, who’d recruited a couple of ‘gun’ indigenous players, were too good for us….Great people at Whorouly…..”
He headed over to Mulwala in 2013, where he notched up his fifth Grand Final loss on the trot:
“We met Echuca United, who were red-hot…..The Priest brothers were like dynamite that day…..I think the margin was over 10 goals….”
That elusive premiership came the following year:
Unbeaten Tungamah stormed to a huge win over Katamatite, with a dominant Archibald nailing seven goals…..”I managed to get on the end of a couple…..It was a great year…..Really enjoyable….”
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Kyle’s first taste of premiership glory had come in 2001, at Ungarie, when he was a mere 15 year-old…..Fourteen years later, he travelled home to help out his old club……
“It was in the middle of the drought, and the town wasn’t doing all that well…..They’d been struggling on and off the field……In fact, there were people who hadn’t been to the footy since we last won it,” he says.
“A good mate of mine had moved home from Canberra to bring his family up…….Me, my two brothers, and a couple of cousins also decided to return.”
“The community got completely on board, and everybody was so happy to get together again and enjoy a day at the footy.”
“It was a four-hour trip each-way from Yarra….Mind you, we got fed pretty well…..Mum and dad were tickled pink to see us come home and play……Anyway, we’ve ended up jagging a memorable flag…..”
After another season at Ungarie, Kyle re-joined Mulwala in 2017…….Then a good mate who was playing Rugby League with the Corowa Cougars talked him into trying the rival Code.
I ask him how he handled the transition.
“Loved it…..I was usually in the centres, and played pretty much the same way as I did in Aussie Rules…….No side-stepping; just run in a straight line…..”
His company had secured a contract with Joss Constructions, which meant that they were doing plenty of work through outback NSW……It enabled him to spend a couple of years playing Rugby League with Ivanhoe, 458km from Yarrawonga.
“I love my pig-hunting, so we’d go out of a Friday night, play the next day, then come home……People are the salt-of-the-earth up there…..Because they only have a short season it enabled me to go back and have a run around with the Seconds at Yarra….”
That’s how he came to play in the 2019 Reserves flag with the Pigeons……..”Don’t think I got a bloody kick,” he says.
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After having a hiatus from cricket for a few years Kyle has thrived on getting back to the game over the last few years……..He played in Yarrawonga-Mulwala’s last A-Grade premiership, in 2020/21.
“I love the game……It helps that there’s a really good atmosphere at the Club ……..You can see the way they embrace everybody; Stan Hargreaves Oval, which incidentally, is named after Susie’s maternal grandfather, is always buzzing whenever we play there……”
And how does he enjoy his role as coach of the WDCA A-Grade pace-setters ?
“Look, it’s definitely been a challenge, because I regard myself as an A-Reserve player……Some of these fellahs have been playing together for years and have been outstanding players in the comp……..I don’t have to say too much……It’s more baby-sitting than anything….”
“The fact that I’m captain of Casey, the McCabe’s, McMillan etc, doesn’t daunt me at all………..In fact, you’d nearly say that Matt Casey’s another one of my kids, to be honest….”
“I’d be the size of a blimp if I wasn’t running around…..Having a hit of cricket, getting away for a week-end of pig-hunting and sitting down to have a few beers afterwards…….That’ll do me….”
ON REFLECTION 