Create a free account to read this article
or signup to continue reading
When Paul Puopolo decided in his post-premiership afterglow of last year to get a dog, to fill the backyard in the house he had just bought, the main criteria was that it had to complement his personality. His selection of an American staffy, Hugo, got a tick not just for that but also for his stature.
"All the boys always say he reminds them of myself. He's always going full tongs and is full of energy ... and is that stocky-looking [type of] dog," Puopolo said, with a sense of parent-like pride that was only missing him thrusting out a photo from his wallet.
"Some of the boys are scared of him - he's pretty strong. He's got that look about him where he just [always] wants to play and run around. He doesn't know how strong he is and he just barges through everyone."
When Puopolo arrived at the Hawks in late 2010, just before his 23rd birthday, he pushed himself so hard in pre-season training that development coach Damian Carroll thought it was a case of a mature-age player desperate to prove his worth within his first four or five weeks at the club. Instead, it was simply Puopolo acting instinctively, as part of a wider goal to not fall into the category of a late-starter who falls out of the AFL within one or two years.
After his first practice match for Hawthorn, in February 2011, Fairfax Media draft expert Emma Quayle noted in her report that Puopolo had "played a feisty, competitive game in the back pocket". The only part of that which no longer holds true is the position on the ground he occupies.
Carroll said the drafting of Puopolo, with pick 66, from Norwood in the SANFL, was partly done with an eye to him filling the defensive flanker role vacated by Gold Coast-bound Campbell Brown. That is where he began his senior career in round seven of 2011 - a match in which the Hawks also unveiled another unheralded older draftee in Isaac Smith - until the coaches started experimenting with him in a position now considered essential: a defensive-minded small forward.
"Initially, it was talked about that he'd be a good replacement for Campbell Brown, but pretty soon we worked out his hunt around the ball and his ability to win contested footy and put pressure on with tackling is obviously pretty important around the forward line," Carroll said.
Once Puopolo kicked three goals in that year's semi-final against Sydney, it sealed his spot at that end of the ground. Since his debut he has averaged just under a goal a game and only once played in the VFL, at the start of 2012 as part of his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury.
That year was the toughest of Puopolo's four seasons at Hawthorn - and not just because the club lost the grand final. He played most of the season with his Adelaide-based mother, Gina, struggling with a golf ball-sized brain tumour.
"That's where I went through a bit of a rough patch, where my mum was really sick and I nearly tore my hammy off the bone. It wasn't the best start to 2012," Puopolo said.
"I battled through the year a little bit. I managed to put a couple of good games together, but I wasn't consistent. They [parents] were pretty hesitant to tell me [what was going on] because they didn't want to distract me from my footy."
Thankfully, by the time the 2012 finals campaign began, the complications from the successful surgery - fluid on the brain - were solved, and his mother's health improved markedly. By the time the Hawks' successful 2013 finals campaign began, Gina and Frank, his father, had moved from Adelaide to Melbourne to be with their son. With Puopolo's girlfriend of six years, Carmel, also having moved to Melbourne by that stage and his older sister already being here, it made a big positive difference to someone who, in line with stereotypes of people with Italian heritage, is very close to his family.
"That kind of support you don't think about too much when you're out there [playing football], but when you look back and you go through it ... I'm very thankful for the people I've had around me," he said. "I just feel like I'm in a comfortable spot."
Given Puopolo has played his entire 86-match career with the same level of vigour - "my chases and all that" - he is unsure why, but still appreciative that this year the public level of recognition of that has increased markedly.
"It's just the way I am. It's a way of winning. I've just got that want to win. If they've got the ball, I'm getting it back, and I'll do whatever I can to get it back," he said.
What has most pleased him this year, and even more so his coaches, is his consistency. Hawthorn's qualifying-final win against Geelong was the first game this year in which Puopolo, one of only two Hawks to play every match, had failed to reach 10 possessions. While he was not happy with the performance - he only had two tackles - he took solace in the fact he still kicked two goals.
"You want to have a standard where [when] you're having a bad game it's still not a 'bad' bad game. That's what I've been trying to be, a really consistent player this year, trying not to fluctuate too much," he said. "I think I've got a few more strings to my bow than just a little guy who runs around."
Puopolo's coach Alastair Clarkson made his name as a tenacious small player who relished the opportunity to put opponents off their game by sledging. Puopolo, however, rarely has much to say - be it out on the ground or even off the field among his teammates, where he prefers to flit from group to group and is one to be laughing at jokes rather than telling them.
"I'm a pretty unsociable footballer, I guess. I'm just the type of person who's really focused. I don't give too much," he said. "I've always been like that. Even as a junior, when I was the captain I wouldn't do a massive speech. I just led by example."
Carroll, now the Hawks' head of development, commended Puopolo as the type of person who "is about 'doing' more than 'saying' ".
As such a single-minded person on the field and a humble, inoffensive person off it, Puopolo is not the type to attract anything other than praise and respect within the club. Arguably, the closest he came otherwise was when he was showing off Hugo late last year, only to discover later his puppy had discreetly defecated indoors.
"I didn't even notice he did it, so obviously, I walked out not knowing about it," he said. "They [teammates] gave me a bit of crap after, that I'd just left a bit of poo on the floor [for someone else to pick up]. But obviously, I didn't know about it because I'm not that type of person. I've got a little bit of respect!"
Between that instance and an enduring first-year incident where Issac Smith fooled him into believing each of the 13 tolling gantries he passed on the length of EastLink would cost him $5 and a fine (because he did not yet have an e-tag) - which morphed into him habitually demanding passengers chip in for tolls and being dubbed the Hawks' stingiest with money - he discovered "you've got to have a thick skin at a footy club". But to hold your place on the list every year, you also have to contribute. Given Puopolo was given a three-year contract extension in March, it is clear he is successfully doing both.
