‘Maybe, eh?’ Shane shook his head. ‘Let’s get this intro over and done with so we can get on with training.’

The coach was a stubby man with an enormous belly and beard, and an even bigger voice. ‘Carn, you guys,’ he was yelling. ‘Get your arses into gear. You going to warm up or what?’

‘Hey, Robbo,’ Shane said. ‘This is the bloke I told you about. Leon Walker. Wants to try out for the team.’

Robbo eyed Leon like a piece of meat. ‘Not very big, are you?’

‘No, but I can run.’

‘You’ll need to around here if you don’t want to get squashed.’

Leon almost laughed. Robbo was a bowling ball crossed with a doughnut—what did he know about running? Shane had said Robbo drove the log truck Leon had often seen in the street: a big blue Kenworth. That was what you got from too much driving—a belly Humpty Dumpty would be proud of.

Robbo called the team in, and the men stared at Leon. They were a mixed bag: a couple of oldies in their thirties still trying to keep up, the rest in their twenties like Leon. Beards were the go and most had tattoos. Beside them, Leon felt like a cleanskin.

‘Okay, fellers,’ Robbo said. ‘This is how it is. Walker here is trying out with us, and if he’s halfway decent we’ll let him in. We’ve had some injuries this season, so it won’t hurt to have another player on the interchange bench.’

The men’s faces were hard, and Leon heard murmurs of Parkie and wondered if they were all loggers. Robbo did nothing to stop the whispers and Shane wasn’t saying anything, so Leon knew he’d have to show them he was good enough.

Then the rain set in, sheets of it rushing across the oval. He was used to bad weather, but this was still going to be tough.

Robbo sent them on a warm-up jog, and they took off, jostling, spitting and cracking jokes, rain needling their faces. Leon tried to hover at the edge of the pack, out of the way, but he wasn’t going to get off that easy. A big bald bloke called Toby bumped into him and almost knocked him down. ‘Ah, sorry, mate. Didn’t see you there.’ Toby’s arms and legs were a tapestry of tattoos. ‘Who do you barrack for?’ he asked.

‘Carlton.’ Leon had chosen the Blues when he was a kid, even though most of his mates went for Hawthorn. He had no idea why he’d done it, maybe just to be different. Now Toby roared with laughter, and Leon knew he was done for.

‘Did you hear that?’ Toby yelled. ‘He’s a bloody Blues supporter. Fucken silvertails.’

The team jeered.