Former A-League star's jail confession in bet scandal
Ex-Macarthur Bulls team captain Ulises Davila, and midfielders Kearyn Baccus and Clayton Lewis have been accused of manipulating yellow cards during matches in 2023 and 2024.
Davila, 33, allegedly acted as the conduit between the southwest Sydney team's players and a Columbian criminal known as 'J Col', organising for the cards to occur during certain games.
Baccus, 33, and Lewis, 27, swapped jerseys for crisp shirts as they faced a Sydney Local Court on Thursday to plead guilty to engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event.
A second charge of participating in a criminal group was withdrawn for both midfielders, who will return to court in September for sentencing.
They agreed they had been paid $10,000 each by Davila to deliberately earn the referee-issued disciplinary cautions for foul play at a match in December 2023.
Davila, the alleged local ringleader of the criminal group behind the betting corruption, has not yet entered pleas to the nine charges against him. He will return to court in August.
According to the facts agreed by his former teammates, the former captain orchestrated the 50 "suspicious" bets placed on the Macarthur FC game against Sydney FC through international wagering platform Betplay.
The wagers were all placed at the same time before the match started, and all involved exactly two bets of equal amounts predicting the same outcome.
During the game at Allianz Stadium, Davila earned the first of the team's four yellow cards for delaying the start of play by kicking the ball away after the referee blew the whistle.
Twenty minutes later, Lewis received the same caution for unsporting behaviour after he pushed a Sydney FC player in the chest and caused him to fall backwards on the ground.
Baccus attracted another rebuke for tackling an opponent to the ground from behind towards the end of the game.
The successful bets resulted in a payout of more than $200,000 and caused the wagering operator a loss of an estimated $167,387, according to the facts.
There is no evidence either Baccus or Lewis had any involvement in placing the bets, but they were both paid $10,000 by Davila after the match.
Lewis was paid in three instalments, but Baccus devised a more elaborate explanation for his payment, telling Davila to describe it as a car payment for a Volkswagen Golf.
"If anyone asks, you (are) buying a car off me," he said in the WhatsApp messages quoted in the facts.
"Yes bro. Whatever you want papi," Davila responded.
After his arrest, Baccus told police the captain had not yet collected the car he sold him while maintaining he only took yellow cards for playing aggressively or in service of the team.
Lewis, meanwhile, was put in a holding cell after his arrest and confessed to the other occupant that he deliberately solicited a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin".
The conversation was recorded with a surveillance device.
Lewis was recruited to the betting corruption scheme because he was known to be a gambler and thus seen as "influenceable", according to the facts.
All three players were suspended by Macarthur FC after their arrests, and Davila and Baccus have since been released from their contracts.
National Gambling Helpline 1800 858 858
A former A-League player admitted to deliberately earning a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin" during a covertly recorded conversation in a police cell.
Ex-Macarthur Bulls team captain Ulises Davila, and midfielders Kearyn Baccus and Clayton Lewis have been accused of manipulating yellow cards during matches in 2023 and 2024.
Davila, 33, allegedly acted as the conduit between the southwest Sydney team's players and a Columbian criminal known as 'J Col', organising for the cards to occur during certain games.
Baccus, 33, and Lewis, 27, swapped jerseys for crisp shirts as they faced a Sydney Local Court on Thursday to plead guilty to engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event.
A second charge of participating in a criminal group was withdrawn for both midfielders, who will return to court in September for sentencing.
They agreed they had been paid $10,000 each by Davila to deliberately earn the referee-issued disciplinary cautions for foul play at a match in December 2023.
Davila, the alleged local ringleader of the criminal group behind the betting corruption, has not yet entered pleas to the nine charges against him. He will return to court in August.
According to the facts agreed by his former teammates, the former captain orchestrated the 50 "suspicious" bets placed on the Macarthur FC game against Sydney FC through international wagering platform Betplay.
The wagers were all placed at the same time before the match started, and all involved exactly two bets of equal amounts predicting the same outcome.
During the game at Allianz Stadium, Davila earned the first of the team's four yellow cards for delaying the start of play by kicking the ball away after the referee blew the whistle.
Twenty minutes later, Lewis received the same caution for unsporting behaviour after he pushed a Sydney FC player in the chest and caused him to fall backwards on the ground.
Baccus attracted another rebuke for tackling an opponent to the ground from behind towards the end of the game.
The successful bets resulted in a payout of more than $200,000 and caused the wagering operator a loss of an estimated $167,387, according to the facts.
There is no evidence either Baccus or Lewis had any involvement in placing the bets, but they were both paid $10,000 by Davila after the match.
Lewis was paid in three instalments, but Baccus devised a more elaborate explanation for his payment, telling Davila to describe it as a car payment for a Volkswagen Golf.
"If anyone asks, you (are) buying a car off me," he said in the WhatsApp messages quoted in the facts.
"Yes bro. Whatever you want papi," Davila responded.
After his arrest, Baccus told police the captain had not yet collected the car he sold him while maintaining he only took yellow cards for playing aggressively or in service of the team.
Lewis, meanwhile, was put in a holding cell after his arrest and confessed to the other occupant that he deliberately solicited a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin".
The conversation was recorded with a surveillance device.
Lewis was recruited to the betting corruption scheme because he was known to be a gambler and thus seen as "influenceable", according to the facts.
All three players were suspended by Macarthur FC after their arrests, and Davila and Baccus have since been released from their contracts.
National Gambling Helpline 1800 858 858
A former A-League player admitted to deliberately earning a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin" during a covertly recorded conversation in a police cell.
Ex-Macarthur Bulls team captain Ulises Davila, and midfielders Kearyn Baccus and Clayton Lewis have been accused of manipulating yellow cards during matches in 2023 and 2024.
Davila, 33, allegedly acted as the conduit between the southwest Sydney team's players and a Columbian criminal known as 'J Col', organising for the cards to occur during certain games.
Baccus, 33, and Lewis, 27, swapped jerseys for crisp shirts as they faced a Sydney Local Court on Thursday to plead guilty to engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event.
A second charge of participating in a criminal group was withdrawn for both midfielders, who will return to court in September for sentencing.
They agreed they had been paid $10,000 each by Davila to deliberately earn the referee-issued disciplinary cautions for foul play at a match in December 2023.
Davila, the alleged local ringleader of the criminal group behind the betting corruption, has not yet entered pleas to the nine charges against him. He will return to court in August.
According to the facts agreed by his former teammates, the former captain orchestrated the 50 "suspicious" bets placed on the Macarthur FC game against Sydney FC through international wagering platform Betplay.
The wagers were all placed at the same time before the match started, and all involved exactly two bets of equal amounts predicting the same outcome.
During the game at Allianz Stadium, Davila earned the first of the team's four yellow cards for delaying the start of play by kicking the ball away after the referee blew the whistle.
Twenty minutes later, Lewis received the same caution for unsporting behaviour after he pushed a Sydney FC player in the chest and caused him to fall backwards on the ground.
Baccus attracted another rebuke for tackling an opponent to the ground from behind towards the end of the game.
The successful bets resulted in a payout of more than $200,000 and caused the wagering operator a loss of an estimated $167,387, according to the facts.
There is no evidence either Baccus or Lewis had any involvement in placing the bets, but they were both paid $10,000 by Davila after the match.
Lewis was paid in three instalments, but Baccus devised a more elaborate explanation for his payment, telling Davila to describe it as a car payment for a Volkswagen Golf.
"If anyone asks, you (are) buying a car off me," he said in the WhatsApp messages quoted in the facts.
"Yes bro. Whatever you want papi," Davila responded.
After his arrest, Baccus told police the captain had not yet collected the car he sold him while maintaining he only took yellow cards for playing aggressively or in service of the team.
Lewis, meanwhile, was put in a holding cell after his arrest and confessed to the other occupant that he deliberately solicited a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin".
The conversation was recorded with a surveillance device.
Lewis was recruited to the betting corruption scheme because he was known to be a gambler and thus seen as "influenceable", according to the facts.
All three players were suspended by Macarthur FC after their arrests, and Davila and Baccus have since been released from their contracts.
National Gambling Helpline 1800 858 858
A former A-League player admitted to deliberately earning a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin" during a covertly recorded conversation in a police cell.
Ex-Macarthur Bulls team captain Ulises Davila, and midfielders Kearyn Baccus and Clayton Lewis have been accused of manipulating yellow cards during matches in 2023 and 2024.
Davila, 33, allegedly acted as the conduit between the southwest Sydney team's players and a Columbian criminal known as 'J Col', organising for the cards to occur during certain games.
Baccus, 33, and Lewis, 27, swapped jerseys for crisp shirts as they faced a Sydney Local Court on Thursday to plead guilty to engaging in conduct that corrupts the betting outcome of an event.
A second charge of participating in a criminal group was withdrawn for both midfielders, who will return to court in September for sentencing.
They agreed they had been paid $10,000 each by Davila to deliberately earn the referee-issued disciplinary cautions for foul play at a match in December 2023.
Davila, the alleged local ringleader of the criminal group behind the betting corruption, has not yet entered pleas to the nine charges against him. He will return to court in August.
According to the facts agreed by his former teammates, the former captain orchestrated the 50 "suspicious" bets placed on the Macarthur FC game against Sydney FC through international wagering platform Betplay.
The wagers were all placed at the same time before the match started, and all involved exactly two bets of equal amounts predicting the same outcome.
During the game at Allianz Stadium, Davila earned the first of the team's four yellow cards for delaying the start of play by kicking the ball away after the referee blew the whistle.
Twenty minutes later, Lewis received the same caution for unsporting behaviour after he pushed a Sydney FC player in the chest and caused him to fall backwards on the ground.
Baccus attracted another rebuke for tackling an opponent to the ground from behind towards the end of the game.
The successful bets resulted in a payout of more than $200,000 and caused the wagering operator a loss of an estimated $167,387, according to the facts.
There is no evidence either Baccus or Lewis had any involvement in placing the bets, but they were both paid $10,000 by Davila after the match.
Lewis was paid in three instalments, but Baccus devised a more elaborate explanation for his payment, telling Davila to describe it as a car payment for a Volkswagen Golf.
"If anyone asks, you (are) buying a car off me," he said in the WhatsApp messages quoted in the facts.
"Yes bro. Whatever you want papi," Davila responded.
After his arrest, Baccus told police the captain had not yet collected the car he sold him while maintaining he only took yellow cards for playing aggressively or in service of the team.
Lewis, meanwhile, was put in a holding cell after his arrest and confessed to the other occupant that he deliberately solicited a yellow card "to earn a little bit of coin".
The conversation was recorded with a surveillance device.
Lewis was recruited to the betting corruption scheme because he was known to be a gambler and thus seen as "influenceable", according to the facts.
All three players were suspended by Macarthur FC after their arrests, and Davila and Baccus have since been released from their contracts.
National Gambling Helpline 1800 858 858
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Funnier and more disturbing than 28, Pissants follows a gang of these players, at an unnamed Sydney AFL club (ahem), paving their particular roads to hell in a series of escapades that are both exactly the sorts of things you might imagine from a gang of disaffected young men (taking loads of drugs; downing unbelievable amounts of alcohol; drinking human urine) and also things you wouldn't predict (accidentally killing sausage dogs; seeking solace in the art museums of Europe; making delicate gestures of friendship via games involving fridge magnets and penis-sightings). This is the world Brandon Jack inhabited for five seasons, as he tried to make his particular football dream come true. This dream was at once totally mad and completely realistic: he wanted to be a footy legend. He imagined this legend status with great specificity: when he joined the Swans, he wrote down on a piece of paper that he planned to play 200 games, kick 150 goals and captain the team. As an indicator of how often players reach even one of these milestones: less than 5 per cent of AFL players ever reach the 200-game mark, and about 5 per cent of all AFL players end up captaining their team. The problem for Jack, however, was that he came from a family of 5 per-centers. Garry Jack, Brandon's father, played 244 games for Balmain Tigers, 17 State of Origin games for NSW, 22 Test matches for Australia, and won a Golden Boot as the best rugby league player in the world. Kieren Jack, Brandon's oldest brother, played 256 games for the Swans, kicked 166 goals and co-captained the team from 2013 (the year Brandon arrived) until 2016. Careers like these are like lightning strikes in any family – vanishingly unlikely once, let alone twice. Brandon Jack, seven years younger than Kieren, spent five seasons on the brink of breaking through at the Swans: playing reserves, or acting as the emergency player (an injury substitute) for the senior team. Occasionally, the door to the main game would crack open. But he never managed to cement his spot before it slammed shut again. In the end, he played his 28 games, kicked 16 goals and (though they lost both) captained the reserves to back-to-back grand finals. This record is better than more than half of all AFL professionals: the median number of games played by an AFL player is 19. But to Jack, it felt like total failure. 'It certainly was not through lack of effort that he didn't have an extended career,' recalls Rob Spurrs, the ex-head of physical performance at the Sydney Swans. 'He did every training session, and every part of every session, which is rare. And then he would be doing extra stuff, extra sessions, or texting me to ask for clarification or more stuff to do. He gave it absolutely everything.' The reasons it wasn't enough, of course, are as simple or as complicated as you care to make them. 'Brandon only started playing AFL when he was 15 years old,' explains his brother Kieren, to whom Brandon has always been close. 'He never played as a five-, six-, seven-year-old. So there were probably technical skills of footy in that elite environment that he lacked. But he was never a B-list player by any stretch. I mean, the fact that he played 28 games in a Swans team that was consistently playing in grand finals: that tells you a lot.' When Kieren read 28, 'I just called him and told him I loved him. I was actually in tears reading it as I didn't know how bad it had been. I mean, I'd been on the phone with him when he'd been dropped and he'd be in tears and we'd sort of work our way through it. But I was the older brother and captain of the team, and I think he also wanted to be strong and 'I'll be right.' But it was really raw.' 'He just cared so much,' agrees close friend and retired Swans player Rhyce Shaw (now coach of the Gold Coast Suns AFLW team). 'I remember, in his early games, he'd sacrifice himself – this skinny little kid, running around, putting his body on the line – he'd just do all the things that a lot of others wouldn't probably do. And maybe he wasn't as talented as many other kids, but he had that determination. But because of his name, there was an expectation that, 'Oh no, you've got to be able to succeed here. We expect you to come in and do this and do that.' And it doesn't work like that.' Shaw himself, like Jack, hails from a famous footballing dynasty: his father, brother and uncles were all stars for Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne. 'I think we're quite similar in a way: these families that we're so proud of, but we don't really like being compared to,' Shaw says. 'I didn't deal with that well in my life, and I don't think Brandon – in many ways – probably dealt with it particularly well at stages. He thinks differently from a lot of footballers, he cared a lot about his teammates and he's such a beautiful person. He tried to conform, but I think that was sometimes uncomfortable for him.' Kieren agrees. 'Growing up, he naturally liked music, was naturally interested in reading and books, and did very well at school – much, much better than I did. We could see pretty clearly, pretty early on, he was an academic who was weaved and moulded into an athlete.' Jack seems to have always been ambivalent about this moulding. He was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes as a 13-year-old, which did make playing footy more complex, but it wasn't that. 'The last time football was innocent for me was at 15, 16,' he says now. 'I loved it then – it didn't weigh me down. But then everything after that was like, 'This is your entire existence.' ' Becoming an author was, perhaps, Jack's way of reclaiming himself. 'When he wrote the memoir,' says Shaw, 'I was like, 'That is just amazing.' He's been able to express himself in a way that he never got the chance to when he was playing.' Family feud Unless you are a serious football fan – and, more specifically, a serious Swans fan – it's unlikely you really remember Brandon Jack playing football. But you might remember the off-field feud he and Kieren had with their parents, Donna and Garry, in 2016. This feud, which convulsed the sports pages, became public when Donna wrote a tweet expressing disappointment that she and Garry had not been invited to Kieren's 200th game. In 2019, the conflict was thrust into public view again, when Kieren retired from professional AFL and Rhys Jack, the middle brother of the Jack boys (he played both league and AFL at a high level but never professionally), had a letter published in a Sunday paper questioning Kieren's treatment of his parents. None of the family has ever spoken publicly about the feud – or its causes – until now. 'I felt I was not given the path to explore on my own what I wanted to do. There was a lot of anger.' Looking back on it now, Brandon Jack can assess his own feelings with surprising clarity. He grew up in a family, he explains, where success at football seemed – at least to him – like a major ingredient for happiness, and a major means of making the family proud. 'For a while, I resented football, and my family, for that – big time,' he says. 'I think I felt I was not given the path to explore on my own what I wanted to do. There was a lot of anger and negative emotions, and it was really heavy on me for a long time.' He pauses. 'But at the same time, the older I get, the more I understand families. Parents are just fumbling their way through things, doing their best. My mum would've been about my age – a year younger – when she had me, and they already had two kids. And it's like, footy's just an easy way to bring the family together. And Dad had every right to be proud of his achievements – he had a f---ing incredible career.' In fact, he says, his parents never put pressure on him to be a professional footballer. 'When I wanted to swap from league to AFL, Dad told me I could do it if I beat him in a golf chip-off. He had no short game, and I did beat him, and he was like, 'You can do whatever you want.' And he would have said that anyway.' These days, though Brandon's still not in touch with Rhys ('That's the longest estrangement, and one that I just don't really have any thoughts on at the moment'), the weight he carried about his parents has lifted. 'A while ago there just came this day, and I was like, 'All right, I'm ready for this.' ' He went to see his mum and dad; his dad opened the door, 'and we both cried straight away. Mum had made a platter,' he smiles, 'because that's Mum, and we just sat in the kitchen, and I didn't say anything for half an hour. It was my first time being back at my family home in six years.' Kieren Jack and wife Charlotte are also back in touch with Donna and Garry. 'For Brandon, I think the books have certainly helped him in being comfortable with the person that he is,' says Kieren. '[Writing's] helped him reconcile himself to his footy career – that it didn't have to be a 300-game career to be a success; that he didn't have to do that to be a family member. I think being an uncle has also helped.' Kieren and Charlotte have a two-year-old son, Alfie, and are now expecting twins. '[Alfie] was part of the reason we wanted to reconnect, too.' Mending the rift, Kieren adds, 'has helped all of us. It's small steps, but we're in a much better place now, which is great.' As it happens, Brandon Jack actually FaceTimed his parents the night before our interview. 'They've got no idea what Pissants is about,' he admits. Well, surely your dad will have some clue, I say. Jack laughs. 'Oh yeah. He'll be like, 'This isn't raunchy enough. You should have seen the shit in the '80s.' ' He shakes his head. 'Oddly, I think Dad's thinking about a book himself – a ghost-written book. He was like, 'Are you interested?' And I was like, 'You couldn't afford me!' ' Helen Garner endorsement In one respect, writing is a lot like football. When it's done well, it looks effortless. But in fact, producing anything that's readable and original is actually ridiculously difficult. There are at least as many unsuccessful writers in the world as there are unsuccessful footballers; it's just that most of us never witness their failure. 'I sucked as a writer for a long time,' says Jack matter-of-factly. 'But the one thing I hang my hat on from my footy career is that even when I wasn't playing [in the senior team], I was still a really hard trainer. I think there's a work ethic and a stubbornness, I don't know, bullishness that I got from football that didn't serve me there, but when it comes to book writing, it's been helpful.' He pauses. 'Also, you deal with a lot of rejection as a writer. And in footy, I had that feedback every week of, 'You're not good enough this week. You're not good enough this week.' So when I started submitting op-eds and stuff – I mean, the rejection stings – but it would never stop me. I just kept going because I was used to it.' He grins. 'It's funny – that turned out to be a valuable skill.' While he was at the Swans, Jack also began studying at the University of NSW, and after his delisting he completed his arts degree while working for a creative agency, Quip Brands. 'Brandon was actually the first writer I ever hired,' recalls Quip founder Keeva Stratton. 'He was recommended to me as this sort of poet guy, ex-AFL player, and I was, 'Oh god, no! I need a high-quality writer.' It's terribly judgmental, but I had worked with former AFL players before, and they hadn't really struck me as creative types.' Loading But she decided to trial him writing pieces for fundraising campaigns. 'He more than surprised me. He was brilliant; an absolute asset. The campaigns he wrote did exceptionally, exceptionally well. He had his own voice and natural ability – and he just got better and better.' 'I love that it's a craft, a trade,' says Jack of why he was drawn to writing. 'You can see yourself getting better – that mastery thing. And it scratches a certain itch in my brain that I think creatives have, where you have to make this certain thing, you just want it in the world.' He looks momentarily worried. 'But I also grew up in a very successful household, and success has always been a really important thing to me. So, even though sometimes I wish it wasn't, and I wish I could do things without relying on external validation, part of the reason I love writing is that I love people reading my work. I genuinely loved writing Pissants, but I didn't write it to put it in a frigging drawer. I want loads of people to read it.' While he was at Quip, Jack also began writing op-ed pieces for newspapers and online news sites. By the time he got in touch with publisher Jane Palfreyman about writing a book, she knew who he was – and not only because she's a Swans fan. 'We met for coffee, and we talked about a book of personal essays,' she recalls. 'At that meeting he said there's no way he wanted to write about football – he was done with that world. But then he found his football diaries.' 'I was moving house and I found them,' recalls Jack. 'I hadn't looked at them since I was delisted, and I was like, 'this is good writing; this is much more powerful than what I've got.' So we ripped up the essays – which was a 90,000-word book – and Jane had to repitch the memoir to the publishers, and there were a few weeks where I was like, 'I might not have a book deal anymore.' But I wrote 28 pretty quickly, in a few months.' It was a similar process with Pissants. Once again, Jack was trying not to write about football. 'When I started writing, I hated, f---ing hated football,' he confesses, lifting both hands. 'But then, it's what I know, right? I know that world. And that group in Pissants, that core group, I would say they exist at every club. And you would have no idea who they are because they're not playing. It's like at any workplace: there's a group of disgruntled people who aren't having success. But I understand that group – and it's more interesting to me than the chemistry of the successful team. You need characters who you can sympathise, empathise with, and who are kind of shit-kickers.' Loading Pissants is the story of these characters, told in their own words. It's not a novel for everyone, maybe, but it has something: no less an Australian literary star than Helen Garner wrote an endorsement of it. 'The footballer language knocked me around with its fantastical crudity and wildness,' she confessed. 'Yet under its foul-mouthed, laughing bravado lies deep wounds, a humble and endearing loneliness that moved me.' 'I wouldn't have used the word lonely, but I love that it was used,' says Jack. 'And when I look at it, actually it kind of hit me: 'Oh yeah, when I was at the club, it was my lonely time.' Every character in the book is lonely. Every character is scared of something: of not being part of the group or not being part of the footy club. That loneliness is why they seek comfort in each other.' Could Jack have written this novel, I wonder, if he hadn't had the experience he did at the Swans? 'No,' he says after a pause. 'It wouldn't have felt as authentic.' He shrugs, smiling apologetically. 'I just don't want to have any bullshit: I just want to try and tell the truth about things. And this feels very authentic to me.' Solitary life These days, when Brandon Jack's not doing his own writing, he's working for Transport for NSW writing and designing web pages. He works mostly from home. 'I live a pretty solitary life,' he explains. 'I live alone; I pretty much work alone. I'm not part of a footy team any more.' To prove that writers can in fact be wild and crazy socialisers, we go to Jack's favourite pub for lunch: the Shakespeare, a 19th-century, reassuringly unreconstructed pub just off the light rail route in Surry Hills. Wandering in among the ornate tiles and hallucinatory carpet, Jack orders steak with the offhand expertise of a man who knows the menu by heart. There's something self-sufficient about him in this context: a kind of observant detachment. 'I'm a wallflower,' he acknowledges: 'In a group setting, I will say nothing. I just feel like the things people say in real life are so much better than anything I could make up in my head, and I want to hear them.' This is a valuable skill in a writer, but not always a comfortable one – for others, or yourself. Now that Pissants is about to be released, he's trying hard to maintain the borders between life and art. 'When I did 28, I wrote it for other people to recognise themselves in, and to help people. Pissants, I wrote because I genuinely enjoyed writing. It was f---ing fun to write. But I'm not trying to educate people, or show up issues, or tell people what they should think. I just want a lot of people to read the book, and enjoy it.' In some ways this is a shame. Pissants is full of issues that affect young men, and Jack is that rare thing: a young man who understands the worlds of professional sport and modern masculinity, has written about both, but is not beholden to either. As such, he has interesting things to say – for example – on the issue of AFL clubs' efforts to encourage life after football for the men in their charge. 'I reckon the buy-in [for planning post-football careers] is f---ing small,' says Jack baldly. 'I was one of only a couple of guys who went to uni when I was at the Swans. I did one subject a semester, and every time footy got too serious I'd drop the subject.' What does he think of putting an age limit on the draft of young players, then? 'Do we go towards the US college system?' he asks rhetorically. [In the US, players must be three years out of high school – and are often college graduates – to be eligible for the professional draft]. 'I think it's too hard. There are so many people who are 18 and are genuinely ready for AFL. The main thing they'll do in their life in a highly-paid field is play AFL for a few short years. Can we deprive them of part of that chance?' 'You gather any group of young men and there's going to be issues with mental health.' So how does he feel, finally, about how to address the mental-health challenges facing players, many of them young, with no experience of life beyond the football bubble? The sudden death in May of Adam Selwood, only three months after the suicide of his twin brother and ex-Brisbane Lions player, Troy, has rocked all codes of football, and reignited the debate about what more can be done. Jack looks genuinely pained. 'I mean, a mental-health round, great. As long as it's not just 'Speak up.' [An official AFL phrase used to encourage mental-health awareness.] We know you should f---ing speak up: I've known it since I was 15. But I wonder about CTE injuries [chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma]. I don't know the ins and outs of that, but if your brain can't function, then putting your hand up is not going to fix anything. Although, to the AFL's credit, they're doing a lot more to protect the head these days.' He looks down. 'I also think that the problems involving young men and mental health are not confined to the AFL. You gather any group of young men and there's going to be issues with mental health.' Jack himself sees a psychologist, and takes antidepressants. 'Yeah, yeah, for sure,' he says easily. 'I've been going to a psych once a month for eight years – the AFL Players Association still pays for it, actually, which is great. And I take antidepressants, which I started about a year-and-a-half ago.' Interestingly, despite the years of counselling, the possibility of antidepressants was never raised: it was only when Jack asked his GP specifically about them that the conversation began. 'No one suggested it,' he explains. 'I've really thought about this: why hadn't it come up before? Maybe it's just, it's a stigma, and we don't talk about it. Maybe I was waiting for someone to say you need them. And when I got them, the first month was dreadful – I felt really screwed up. But I got really lucky in that the first one I tried worked, and since then, it's really helped. Really helped.' No escape from anxiety Years ago, after he'd stopped playing football, someone asked Brandon Jack how he felt about footy. That, it seems, remains a relevant question. Jack still has anxiety dreams about football. 'I have this one heaps: I'm going back to play footy at the Swans on the first day of the preseason. And I haven't trained, or I don't want to be there or something, but I've got to go. And I'm the age I am now, and I'm like, 'What am I doing here?' And then I wake up and have this relief.' He pauses, thinking. 'I honestly think I lived that way, with that anxiety, from 18 to 23.' Perhaps unsurprisingly, in his waking hours, Jack no longer plays any football at all. 'I retired a couple of years ago. My knees are …' he catches himself. 'I was going to say my knees are stuffed, but the truth is, I never escaped my game-day anxiety. On a Saturday morning, if I had football that afternoon, I would be anxious in a way that I recognised from being a child. And I just wanted to not feel that on weekends any more.' Loading He tried to get past it, he explains, but 'no matter how many strategies I came up with, I would go out there and plant my feet on the ground before a game and be like, 'It doesn't matter,' all this stuff – it just didn't work.' He puts a hand to his stomach. 'Still even talking about it now, I get a nervousness. It doesn't matter what level – I could go play local touch footy and I'd still have it.' Watching football, he adds, is different – then he has the relief of knowing it's not him out there, and he can just enjoy the game. But he doesn't deliberately turn on the TV on winter weekend afternoons. Instead, he's just as likely to be sitting on the floor of his quiet, light-filled flat, thinking about a different kind of goal. He's starting to try his hand at writing a collection of short stories, he says; he's thinking about a sequel to Pissants. 'Writing is a skill,' he concludes as we leave the pub, 'a beautiful skill, that you can spend your whole life getting better at.' Which seems like a pretty good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
