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Funny things can happen at weddings. It was mid-October 2009 and Adam McPhee was in Sydney to see Mark McVeigh marry his long-time girlfriend Leanne. McPhee was stuck in a rut. Less than six weeks earlier he had kicked four goals in a final but even though it was his first September appearance in five years, it hadn’t been a satisfying year. McPhee had become Essendon coach Matthew Knights’ bits-and-pieces man. He played 21 games for the season, but didn’t have "stability" in his football, nor was he enjoying the game.
Furthermore he had just turned 27. That the club had ushered Damien Peverill, Mark Johnson, Jason Johnson and Matthew Lloyd to relatively early retirements gave McPhee cause to think his time might be limited should he remain under the Knights' regime.
Weddings bring people together. This one not only formally joined Leanne and Mark, but precipitated McPhee joining Mark Harvey and Fremantle. Harvey, a mentor and confidant of McPhee’s during the former’s time as an assistant coach under Kevin Sheedy, noted that McPhee was yet to re-sign with the Bombers. It was just a chance meeting between the pair that led to a phone call, and soon a career re-born. Things escalated quickly, and not long after there was a three-year contract on the table for a man who had already made the switch between Fremantle and Essendon once before.
It was a little bit different for Kepler Bradley. He’d been delisted by the Bombers at the end of 2007, having in his own words "underachieved" after being taken at pick six in the 2003 draft.
Harvey had just been given the Dockers’ coaching gig full-time though, and knew of Bradley’s hitherto untapped ability and spirit. He gave the spindly West Australian a chance to return home, and continue his AFL journey. Bradley will be forever grateful.
"I owe [Harvey] basically my whole Fremantle career," Bradley said this week.
A very strange thing happened at the Dockers between 2006 and 2009. Harvey, having arrived at the club after more than two decades of uninterrupted service at Windy Hill, the three-time premiership player decided to bring part of Windy Hill with him across the Nullarbor. At the end of 2006, he traded for veteran Bomber Dean Solomon. A year later, Harvey used successive late selections to draft the delisted Essendon pair of Bradley and Mark Johnson. Two seasons on, it was McPhee’s turn, the third pick in the 2010 pre-season draft.
It’s hard to find another modern example of one club plucking such a large group of another club’s players in such quick succession. The strategy was criticised heavily at the time, especially when the fancied Dockers bombed out spectacularly to finish 14th in 2008.
McPhee sees it differently.
"The rapport and the level of influence that Mark Harvey had on all of our careers...it was a good fit for everybody at the time," he said.
Now out of the AFL system for more than two years, father-of-two McPhee is playing local football for St Mary’s in Geelong, while also paving his way in the corporate sector.
While he can’t pigeonhole himself as just an Essendon or Fremantle man, it’s clear that Harvey stands atop the list of his greatest football influences.
"He had a genuine interest in what I was doing outside of football, really helping me create a bit of life balance," McPhee said.
Bradley, his final years at the Dockers having been plagued by injury, retired at the end of last season. He remains in football though, accepting a dual role as a player/player development officer at Claremont. Unlike his former teammate McPhee, however, Bradley is now purple through and through.
"I love the club, I love the players, I love the coaches, I love the administration staff," he said.
"I don’t have a bad word to say about Freo, they’ve been so good to me when I was down and out. They brought me in and made me the person I am now. They made me love footy again. I owe everything to them. That’s why I stayed in footy."
Both men speak glowingly of what Ross Lyon has brought to the club, with Bradley confident the Dockers can crack a maiden premiership in 2015. But without taking away from the current-day coach, he "absolutely" believes the hardness of Harvey and his band of Bombers helped shape what the Dockers are today.
"The players he did get from Essendon definitely didn't let Fremantle down,” Bradley said.