![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/71700d175e4c1a4ee45f1f69bada0fca1f42249e.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cThat\u2019s where my love of footy stems from I think, the footy and netball every Saturday in winter was something you really looked forward to. There\u2019s no real egos in a small town, everyone is pushing for the same thing, everyone wants to represent the community in the right way, and do it with your mates. That\u2019s probably it, the love for the community is where I built all my morals from, the love for the community and the people within it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A young Jordan Dawson in South Australia.<\/p>\n
Unlike a lot of teenagers with their eye on the AFL, Dawson was a natural talent with few pretensions about a professional career in the game until he was about to start one. Back then, he was primarily a Crows fan, admiring Andrew McLeod and Mark Ricciuto.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t one of the touted young juniors coming through the ranks, where I was always destined to play AFL,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was about enjoying school footy, being in Adelaide, making new mates, widening the eyes a little bit and getting out of a small town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it wasn\u2019t until my draft, the year after I finished school where I was playing footy for Sturt and had a little bit of interest from AFL teams and that was where I started believing that maybe I might end up getting drafted, but it wasn\u2019t until the back end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sydney, as Jack has documented, was the hardest of finishing schools, with a core of midfield talent that Dawson was never able to crack. Jack was a kind of Falstaff to Dawson\u2019s Prince Hal \u2013 as befits someone whose favourite pub in Sydney is called the Shakespeare Hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my fourth and fifth years at the Swans, nearly every night I would go to Dawso\u2019s place,\u201d Jack says. \u201cHe was living with James Rose, another Adelaide kid at the time. I would go around, and we\u2019d order pizza, watch a movie, watch YouTube or just hang out.<\/p>\n
![\"Jordan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/a5e32cc8615ee50e468519b8d049fce6dc979aa0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Jordan Dawson in his Swans days. Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I spent a lot of time with Dawso, and he has told me that in those first couple of years when he was struggling, it was important to have someone like that in the same way I had someone like [then Swans assistant coach] Rhys Shaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was important to Dawso to have someone like me who understood how shit it can be, but also with Dawso it was saying \u2018you can do it\u2019. My skill set was limited, but with Dawso it was like \u2018you aren\u2019t staying here, it can get better for you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reminded of those years, Dawson says he has learned to be much more \u201cprofessional\u201d in subsequent seasons, but also that they built resilience and breadth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was guys like Brandon who spurred me on to keep fighting and pushing to play,\u201d Dawson says. \u201cBuilding those relationships and learning on the job is crucial to your development as a human and also a footballer.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Dawson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ebcc41f90209182367f8f8a8ed96af26be3cfa3e.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Dawson in his All-Australian blazer, alongside Ed Richards and Max Gawn. Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
Jack recalls that in Dawson\u2019s first two years at the Swans he played a string of reserves games \u201cwhere he would have numbers like 45 [touches] and four goals\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was his standard game. And if he wasn\u2019t behind Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker, Hanners [Dan Hannebery], probably Kieran [Jack] as well in the Swans midfield, and Heens and Millsy [Isaac Heeney and Callum Mills] got put ahead of him as well … He\u2019d be in every other club\u2019s midfield.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the decision he made to leave, to go back to Adelaide yeah, but he deserved to be the number one player at a club, and he\u2019s definitely proven why.\u201d<\/p>\n
Helped along by the strictures of COVID-19 and a blossoming relationship with his partner Milly, Dawson put up his hand to move home in 2021. <\/p>\n
Quickly, he became loved by the Crows faithful, especially after wobbling through a post-siren goal to beat Port Adelaide in his first showdown. In 2023, the club appointed Dawson captain.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a line in C.S. Lewis\u2019 Narnia books that if someone thinks they are sufficient to lead, it is proof they are not. Dawson\u2019s trepidation about taking the job, assuaged in part through long discussions with Milly, turned out to be evidence of how much he cared.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been pretty open about how I wasn\u2019t sure if I was the right man,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re never really sure if you\u2019re ready for those types of roles and especially in Adelaide, it\u2019s a footy state and they ride the highs and lows. I wanted to be sure I was able to perform on field, but also to lead a bunch of young men is a pretty daunting task.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m extremely competitive, but calm with the way I go about it. I understand there are moments when you need to change your tone and be a bit more aggressive. So it\u2019s about picking your moments of what to say and when to say it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve also become a bit better at delegating and empowering others. That\u2019s when you see the most growth.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jack says Dawson\u2019s lack of ego has served him well as a captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t puff his chest out that much unless he has to on the field. But he does really care about the guys he plays with,\u201d Jack explains. \u201c[He] will put his arm around people, as opposed to giving them a bake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, this year\u2019s success took time to build. In 2023, the Crows played a highly attacking, entertaining brand but were brittle at the back. Last year saw a correction in defensive accountability, but a bad start was never shrugged off. Questions were beginning to be asked about coach Matthew Nicks, and those whispers could not escape Dawson\u2019s ear.<\/p>\n
For those reasons, this year\u2019s round one belting of St Kilda meant far more than it looks like now, when 17 wins followed and top spot was secured for the second time in the club\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly round one against the Saints, it was the first time since I\u2019ve been here that we won in round one,\u201d Dawson says. \u201cI think mentally that was something we really wanted to hone in on and narrow our focus on round one and getting that done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen from there we\u2019ve grown so much, but as a group we were able to put a team performance together and you saw the growth in the team in that game alone, and then from there we\u2019ve been able to take massive strides.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the more telling Dawson stories concerns Taylor Walker. Entering his mid-30s, Walker was troubled by back spasms. He brushed off numerous attempts by others to get him to try Pilates before Dawson got through to his captaincy predecessor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d always thought to myself a 34-year-old man can\u2019t be seen doing Pilates,\u201d Walker said last week. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t until Daws said, \u2018trust me just have a go at it\u2019, so I tried it and started getting a bit of pain relief and now I\u2019m just addicted to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawson was given added help on the field, much as Nicks was aided off it by the addition of Murray Davis to the coaches box<\/a> and Neil Balme and James Gallagher to the Crows\u2019 board<\/a>. James Peatling, Alex Neal-Bullen and Isaac Cumming have, in Dawson\u2019s words, added polish, experience and more \u201cclass around the ball\u201d. <\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n That polish was scuffed by the furore around Izak Rankine\u2019s suspension for a homophobic slur<\/a> delivered against Collingwood in the penultimate round. Rankine has left the country<\/a> to train, with Dawson left to address the male and female players. It\u2019s not an episode he wishes to discuss, as the Crows prepare for a qualifying final against the Magpies, but Jack is more forthcoming.<\/p>\n \u201cI know Dawso is a very caring and empathetic person,\u201d Jack says. \u201cI think he\u2019d be disappointed in his teammate for saying what he said, and as captain of the club as well, he\u2019s got to do more interviews and things like that.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s got to be another way to change something besides say \u2018yes, there\u2019s a widespread issue with homophobia\u2019. How do you talk to those people, how do you actually talk to them? You have to understand why they would get there to say that, and why they would say it.\u201d<\/p>\n The memory of those years on the fringes in Sydney will be priceless as Dawson navigates Adelaide\u2019s first finals series since 2017. Both in terms of dealing with the players likely to be tipped out by the likes of Max Michelanney, but equally with those who must step up for Rankine.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n \u201cI can relate to them because I\u2019ve been in that position,\u201d Dawson says. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the team and then out of the team for a final, and it hurts. But you\u2019ve just got to stay ready.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen every year in finals there\u2019s guys who come in just before the finals start or even the first final and they end up holding their spot and they\u2019re able to achieve something great. So that carrot to dangle to always be ready is a crucial one.\u201d<\/p>\n The power of Dawson\u2019s care for others can be measured in how Jack, despite some well-developed cynicism about the AFL system, regards him.<\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoy seeing a guy who is genuinely a good person have success, in an industry where the good people can get weeded out and numbed down, and their niceties can be cut off. To see somebody like that has almost given me a bit of positivity about footy, which is the gift that keeps on giving the longer his career goes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThat\u2019s where my love of footy stems from I think, the footy and netball every Saturday in winter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-111498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}