Travis Cloke

joffa corfe · PREMIERS 2010 Joined: 13 Nov 2003

Fair dinkum if this bloke does not play in a Collingwood premiership team we'll never win one!

Travis Cloke leaving a lasting impression
Damian Barrett | April 05, 2008 12:00am Herald Sun Website

TRAVIS Cloke turned 21 early last month. He celebrated by asking a few mates to a simple family dinner, and all he sought as a gift to mark the coming-of-age was a replica of a diamond ring owned by his dad.

Down-time for Cloke is spent using pencils and charcoals to draw, feeding the many animals that live on his family's sprawling property or heading off to his older sister's house for some play time with his eight-month-old niece.

He has spent the past two years gaining certificates that "advance my personal skills and knowledge of everyday life" and will later this year begin a more involved course, which he is yet to settle on, at a major university.

What we're dealing with in Cloke is a different type of modern footballer, a young man described this week by a Collingwood identity as "Gen Y going on Gen X".

Cloke's rapid elevation not only to Collingwood club champion in 2007 but also to elite AFL player may have surprised many in football, but not those who had become well aware of his character.

For while he had always shown footy potential, it was his off-field ability to deal with life's good and bad moments that had them knowing that when it all came together for him, it would come with a bang.

He started '07 unsure of his claim on a senior position and went to being adjudged the Magpies' best player across its 25 matches, and its standout performer in three finals.

Cloke listens, say his coaches, from senior Pie Mick Malthouse to goalkicking tutor Brian Taylor.

More importantly, they say, he acts on what he is told.

"It's funny, but I sort of feel confident in this league now," Cloke said this week.

"That wasn't always the case, wasn't the case this time last year.

"I've always felt part of Collingwood, from the moment I walked in the door, but feeling part of the senior team is something else. At the start of the year (2007), in front of everyone, we were sat down and asked if we felt comfortable and if we felt we had a position in the side.

"I wasn't one of the ones who felt they did. I was confident, perhaps hopeful, of having a good year, and really wanted to cement my spot at centre half-forward, and that was the main driving force for me."

Cloke's breakout season of football came in his first without brothers Jason and Cameron also listed as Collingwood players.

He was, he said, both OK and disappointed about their departures, which came via the Magpies' axe.

Jason went to Bendigo in the VFL, Cameron went to Carlton and Travis went to borderline AFL star.

Cloke looks back on 2007 with pride, but now, two rounds in to the 2008 season, is convinced he would have had a similarly solid year even if his brothers had stayed.

In other words, he didn't need them to vacate his football space in order for the success to come.

More significant in the vast improvement, Cloke said, was overcoming a couple of personal issues, mainly the effects of a jaw realignment procedure, which was performed in 2005.

In surgery best described as horrific, Cloke had his upper jaw sawn off, moved 8mm outwards and 2mm to the right.

The left half of his bottom jaw was then broken, the right side slightly moved down and across.

Then, eight plates and 15 screws were used to hold his new face together.

It took Cloke months to recover and cost him significant momentum in the 2006 season.

"There were a couple of setbacks that weren't to do with football, the jaw being one of them, and just generally me being that young kid where your whole body is changing, developing," he said.

"It's probably still happening a bit. The jaw became a confidence thing, how it would hold up. I have had scans. There are no breaks and the screws are still in place.

"In the first couple of games back, you'd turn a bit (on the field) so that you didn't take the hit on your face.

"Now, I don't need to do that. Now I don't notice it. We did a lot of work at training, a lot of conditioning in getting hit in the face, to know when it was coming and how it would be coming."

Former Collingwood captain Nathan Buckley said Cloke's rise was because of his ability subtly to alter the way he played the game.

"He was always very driven and disciplined, a common trait through all the Clokes, and he has really been able to use to his advantage, from 2006 to '07, a couple of basic changes made to his game," Buckley said.

"He became a totally different proposition once he made the changes. He used to take a mark and just roll around on to his left and kick it as long as he could, which, really, wasn't much good to anyone the way the game is played these days.

"He quickly developed the ability to open up his vision and spot targets 20-60m away. It made him twice the player he already was and showed how good he was that he could turn it around in the space of one pre-season."

People who know Cloke tell you he is unfussed, on and off the field.

Which is a sound quality for someone who struggled, sometimes from 10-15m out, with set shots at goal.

His official return was 39.39, but there were many more kicks than ended up out of bounds or in a dead pocket.

Attempts at rectifying that are well progressed, with Taylor acting as kicking coach.

"It is more to do with the way I am dropping the ball, or releasing it from the fingers," Cloke said.

"The drop of the ball hasn't been straight at times, and that is about it. It was never a mental thing.

"I am on the right track. I don't feel I have got it exactly, though."

Taylor would not discuss his work with Cloke, other than to say he was dealing with a "young man who is prepared to listen and do whatever it takes to get better".

The no-fuss approach Cloke takes on the field is apparent off it, too. During school years, he was in to painting in a big way as a way of leisure.

Now, he finds it a hassle, and mess, to set up the oils and instead enjoys the more basic methods of art.

He finds relaxation in using charcoal and pencils to draw whatever he fancies, from family photos lying round the house to trees on the family property.

It is his outlet, he says, from the madness that would descend if he was to focus only on football.

"It's just something I do, like to do," Cloke says.

"It's my outlet. A lot of the boys have jobs, some of them knock around with other guys outside football. For the time being I do this.

"It gets my mind away from football. If you're going to focus on footy 24/7, you're going to go crazy. I just sit at home and do them, drawings. I did a lot of painting when I was at school.

"I used to carry my book around with me and draw things that were unusual, photos that were lying round the house, family photos, other pictures, put my own little spin on life.

"I have done drawings of family and friends, trees, whatever I find interesting on that day. Just put my own spin on it."

Those who have seen his works say they're extremely impressive.

In fact, his art made as much an impression on a posse of Collingwood officials who visited the Cloke house in 2004 seeking to secure his signature as did the miniature horse that amused the visitors with the way it was allowed access to most parts of the house.

It was at that meeting that Collingwood first felt the youngest Cloke may not head to the Pies, as it became obvious Richmond, which also had access under the father-son rule (David played 333 matches for the Pies and Tigers in 1974-91), had made a significant play.

One strong story doing the rounds at the time of Jason's drafting to Collingwood via the 2000 national draft was that he and Cameron were being used purely to get to Travis.

"We heard the talk, but it was just nonsense," Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said.

"Travis would have been 12, 13 at the time. I mean, really. Each was recruited on their merits. It is insulting on them for people to think that."

Travis, too, heard the talk. In fact, he heard it loudly - from the mouths of adults who would fit snugly in the ugly-sports-parent description.

"When I was playing junior footy (at Park Orchards) at the time, the parents on the sidelines would give it to me, give me an absolute mouthful about it," Cloke said.

"So when I came to the AFL, I was used to what happens on that front."

For a family as tight as the Cloke brothers, much was read by outsiders into the fact Travis Cloke's breakthrough AFL season came in the year that the older two Clokes had been forced out of Collingwood.

For a guy who turned 20 just days before the 2007 season began, Cloke produced an extraordinary year.

When he reflected on the personal output, which included a stunning preliminary final, Cloke said nothing major should be read in to 2007 being the year he was left as the only Cloke on Collingwood's list.

"You could put it down to Jase and Cam not being here, but really, how would anyone know what would have happened if they had stayed?" Cloke said.

"You often have no idea what is going to happen in football. I know it was unusual without them for a while, particularly that first day back.

"But you realise very quickly life goes on, for everyone. It doesn't stop for anyone. And if you don't realise that, you're going to fall off. Probably a good way to describe it at the time was being naked.

"Your brothers know what you are like, and at home you can be yourself all the time. I had my brothers at home and at the club.

"But when you are at the club, there are 40 blokes who you are every close to, but they don't know the intimate things about you.

"It was definitely different, and hard for the first couple of months. Seeing Heath and Rhyce Shaw, and how close they are, well, that helped us through it, been really good for me.

"And, as I said, life goes on. Already there are a lot of younger kids at the club who didn't know Jase and Cam anyway."