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View Full Version : Ray grabs his chance with St.Kilda - Peter Hanlon



Mantis
03-04-2009, 08:49 AM
Yeah I know he has changed the blue for black in his jumper, but the article contains many Bulldog references and I am sure we're all interested in seeing how Farren goes at his new club.

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Ray grabs his chance with St.Kilda (http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/rfnews/ray-grabs-his-chance-with-st-kilda/2009/04/02/1238261725537.html)

BALL in hand, Farren Ray has always been a good mover. The end of last season showed him there are tougher decisions in football than what to do with it; sometimes, you have to leave behind more than just the opponent who is nipping at your heels.

Moving from Mandurah to Melbourne at 17 wasn't easy. Walking away from the only club you've known, with all its familiar faces, and into a new workplace full of new colleagues who might not even think you belong is something any traded footballer knows can't be rehearsed at training.

"The most daunting thing is trying to gain the respect of everyone there — the whole club," Ray says. He knows exactly what playing well in last Saturday night's win over Sydney means: one down, plenty to go.

On a football level, Ray's move appears angst-free all round. The Saints gave up selection 31 for 48, and in Nick Heyne got a player they would have happily used the lower pick on anyway; effectively, Ray cost them nothing. The Dogs lost what they already had in spades (a running player), and got Jordan Roughead, an 18-year-old cousin-of, who has what they need most — a big, strong, mobile body.

Doubtless, Bulldog devotees would argue they expected more from a No.4 draft pick, but Ray still played 75 games in five seasons, a decent ratio if you dismiss those missed through injury or the cautious early days when he was skinny enough to be snapped in two. He wasn't the star they had hoped for, yet in the Rodney Eade way, learned to be valuable in multiple guises.

"He was just about best-on-ground in the 2006 (elimination) final against Collingwood, playing as an attacking winger," says St Kilda's football manager Matthew Drain. "Some of his better games, even last year, were tagging — Chance Bateman down in Launceston, and Travis Johnstone late in the year. He can also go to half-back at times. I think 'Rocket', in lots of ways, was good for his development."

Moving house is said to be one of the most stressful of life's tasks; remove footy from the equation, and Ray's change of colours might have been more troublesome. Shane Birss's delisting by the Saints left former Bulldog assistant Drain the only person he knew at Moorabbin. Behind him, across the West Gate bridge, were people he considers friends for life.

"Adam Cooney, Ryan Griffen, Tom Williams, Shaun Higgins — they're my best mates," says Ray, who lived for a time with Williams and Griffen, who called him "Dad" because he was always cooking, tidying up and bossing them around.

There is nothing exceptional in this story: teenager is drafted to the other side of the country, grows up surrounded by his new family, then finds himself waving goodbye at 23 and starting all over again. Yet the volume of traffic from one football club door to the next means there are many to report that life will never be the same.

"I was surrounded by mates at Essendon, but you go to another club and it's amazing how quickly they drop off," says Rick Olarenshaw, Ray's manager who was a Magpie and Kangaroo after six years as a Bomber. "You're mates because you're around them every day, and once you move clubs you've gotta make the effort to call them, find time to catch up, and you drift apart pretty quickly."

Ray has already noticed the change — the talk over catch-up dinners about what happened at "work" that day, the in-jokes he can no longer share. But he shrugs shoulders much broader than they once were and moves on; he feels blessed to be looking look up to Justin Koschitzke and Nick Riewoldt, and around the midfield group at Brendan Goddard, Lenny Hayes, Nick Dal Santo, Luke Ball, Leigh Montagna.

At the Bulldogs, he butted heads with Griffen and Cooney — "there's always competitiveness among mates" — but now can simply enjoy watching them play.

The most painful cut came with his axing from the team thumped by Hawthorn in the qualifying final; a fortnight later Ray had "a stinker" for Williamstown in the VFL prelim as his teammates drowned their end-of-season sorrows on the Port Melbourne hill. He had discussed a move with Olarenshaw a year earlier, now he knew it was time.

There were several opportunities for closure — "Mad Monday", which spilled into Tuesday via a taxi convoy from a Newport pub to Crown after Cooney won the Brownlow; Higgins' birthday; the wedding of Robert Murphy. And the footy trip, where Olarenshaw's phone call told him he had become a Saint.

"We'd all had a few and everyone started singing the St Kilda theme song. They were all so good about it, nothing was said by any of them," he said.

He'll remember that, but also that his new teammates were straight on the phone too.

When he made his first big move, it was cushioned to a degree by his parents moving over too, although he lived in Werribee while they ran a coffee shop in Northcote. "Most of all they wanted to see some footy," he says.

Now he lives in St Kilda with two mates from Perth, but loves Melbourne and calls it home. He's never lacked independence — "as a young kid I cooked for myself, was never home" — but is grateful to the Bulldogs for helping make him a better person.

He starts again knowing it's not a matter of where he is that will define him, but what he does.

The Coon Dog
03-04-2009, 09:07 AM
Nice article & I really do wish Farren all the very best. He was always polite & happy to have a chat & TCP just adored him.

LostDoggy
03-04-2009, 09:16 AM
Good luck Faz, I was disapointed when he left.

Sockeye Salmon
03-04-2009, 11:50 AM
Compare the way he handled himself to the way Jordy handled it.

bulldogsman
03-04-2009, 03:16 PM
Nice article and good luck to Farren. Could be a win win for both clubs, just hope Roughead lives up to his potential.

AndrewP6
03-04-2009, 08:40 PM
Wasn't that surprised when he asked for a trade...didn't mind him as a player but writing was on the wall...was VERY surprised he was BOG in the Saints first game...did he buy some consistency over summer? Not sure he can back it up...

AndrewP6
03-04-2009, 08:41 PM
But I agree with Sockeye... McMahon got the knives out when he'd barely cleaned out the locker...big sook...thrilled he got dropped this week...

Go_Dogs
04-04-2009, 11:41 AM
Compare the way he handled himself to the way Jordy handled it.

He still nearly hung us out to dry though, and was a required player. But at the end of the day, I don't think anyone is too bitter about it.

He looked ok last night again, a few of those floating handballs, but took at couple of nice grabs up forward.

AndrewP6
04-04-2009, 02:07 PM
Required by name maybe... I guess Willy had to have numbers!

mighty_west
04-04-2009, 02:26 PM
He did do alright again for the Saints again, although the Crows first goal was from a Farren Ray kick on the full...

What are the chances that Matthew Drain got Farren to tank his performance last season for the Dogs for a guaranteed place in the Saints line up with a nice little pay rise???

C'mon conspiracy theorist's...:p

With Scotty Clayton rating him so high in the 2003 draft, i wonder if he might target him in next years trade period.

LostDoggy
04-04-2009, 04:36 PM
I think the game style of the saints might suit Farren, they are a very slow moving & low scoring team.

Remi Moses
04-04-2009, 11:01 PM
Personally glad to see him going well,but the jury is out on Farren's disposal under pressure.Handled himself well unlike that sooky sooky la la Lady Sonia Mcmahon.