Anthony Miles "My 17th Birthday"
What did you ask for on your 17th Birthday?
MOST boys turning 17 ask for a surfboard, a new pair of sunnies or maybe an iPad for their birthday. Anthony Miles asked for a wheelie bin. “My girlfriend at the time bought it for me so I could do my ice baths. I guess it was an unusual present,” Miles told the Herald Sun this week. Miles would run a hose from the family bathroom to his new bin outside, fill it up with ice and take the plunge. Over and over and over. “We didn’t think anything of it because we all knew how serious Anthony was about his football,” mum Mary recalls. Five years on Miles’ ice baths may be a little more refined at Richmond’s Punt Rd Oval, but the drive and dedication that has carried him there burns as bright as ever. Dumped last year by Greater Western Sydney, ignored first at the trade table and then the national draft, Miles has fought his way off Richmond’s rookie list to become one of the feel-good stories of the year. After making his Tiger debut against North Melbourne in Round 12, the 22-year-old has become Richmond’s best clearance player — ranked fifth in the competition — averaging 6.7 per game. He has shocked the Tigers with his ability to the extent that his coach is comparing him to Sam Mitchell. He ranks second at the club for contested possessions (11.1) and tackles (4.6) and fourth for disposals (24.1). Richmond is on a six-match winning streak, but Miles hasn’t just come along for the ride — he’s been driving it, thriving on a second chance he’d started to believe would never come. It’s a journey that started in the New South Wales town of Howlong, 30km north-west of Albury on the Murray River, which laps the banks of the Miles family property. It was what Mary described as an “old fashioned upbringing” — a no-fuss childhood for a no-fuss player. There was water skiing and swimming in the river, footy in winter and cricket in summer, and tearing around the streets on push bikes all year round. A young Miles would follow older brothers Lance and David everywhere, inadvertently causing dad Gerald to give him a nickname still going strong today. “My old man called me ‘Snipper’ because I was always snipping at their heels. It just stuck,” Miles said.
“We were always outside. As the youngest I got bashed around a little bit. We get along really well, but if you ever wanted something you certainly had to earn it. We had some really, really big front yard cricket and footy games. It would be the whole street, half of the town would be at our place and there were a lot of smashed windows dad wasn’t too pleased with.” Looking back, Mary said it was no surprise her youngest son plays the way he does. “There was our three, another three boys next door and two boys across the road and he was the youngest of all of them. It was pretty rough and tough,” she said. But it was a childhood touched by tragedy, with Miles’ cousin dying of cancer. Searching for answers, Mary started going to church. Middle son David followed before Miles, about 15 at the time, also discovered what now forms a big part of his life. “I am a Christian and my Christian faith is important to me,” Miles said this week. “I don’t think I force it on anyone, particularly at the Tigers. There’s a lot of blokes who wouldn’t even known I am a Christian. It’s an important part of my life and I believe that I wouldn’t be where I am without God’s help. “There’s prayer and I try to get to church on Sunday mornings. Obviously, it’s hard in-season. I like a beer as much as the next bloke, but I just try not to go over the top as much as a lot of blokes would. I don’t think it separates me from my relationships that I can have with guys at the club or anything. A lot of my close mates know I go to church on Sunday, but other than that it’s pretty normal. “Sometimes I think people can get caught up in jamming religion down people’s throats. It’s certainly not about that, but of course, if someone wanted to speak to me about it then I’d be open to chatting.” Of particular significance to Miles is chapter and verse Isaiah 40:31, which, in part, reads: “For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, they run and don’t get tired.” Miles stumbled. He fell. But he doesn’t hold any grudges against GWS despite being cut after 10 games in two years. “It was really tough to swallow. It was probably unfortunate for me that they got so much top-end talent. I felt like I was playing some good footy in the NEAFL but it was pretty hard to crack a game,” Miles said. “They’ve got a great deal of talent there, it’s a tough side to break into and obviously they didn’t see me fitting in.” The Giants tried to orchestrate a trade, but there were dead ends everywhere. Then came the national draft. Zip there too. “You get told you’re not going to get picked up so you’re looking at VFL clubs, SANFL clubs and then you’ve got the draft which was another disappointment. It probably happened at the 11th hour before the rookie draft,” he said. Richmond list manager Blair Hartley phoned Miles two weeks before the rookie draft to tell him the Tigers wouldn’t take him, only to ring again the night before. “He said: ‘Don’t be surprised if we take you, but we’re not promising you anything’. I certainly didn’t sleep well that night,” Miles said. The next day Miles’ second chance came courtesy of the Tigers and pick 27 and he wasted no time getting to work. First came a chat with assistant coach Mark Williams, whom he worked with in his first year at GWS. “We spoke about what he thought I needed to improve on and what he’d seen at the Giants. Mark is brutally honest, which is what I love about him and we went through some stuff,” he said. “The biggest message I took out of it was, ‘Don’t act like a rookie. If you act like a rookie you’ll be treated like a rookie, so come in here and be part of the group’. “To be honest, I didn’t feel like there was any real expectation on me because I couldn’t be picked, but I felt I had some deficiencies to work on like the defensive side of things and I was able to iron a bit of that out. I’ve still got a long way to go, but that better equipped me.” A career-ending toe injury to Jake King eventually opened the door for Miles to make his debut halfway through the season against the Kangaroos. He had 19 possessions, eight clearances and six tackles and hasn’t looked back. “The last six weeks, particularly, has been mind-blowing. You come to training on a Friday and there’s 500 people watching,” he said. “Our supporters are just amazing and I’ve been blown away by the support I’ve got. Last Friday night against Essendon was awesome.” The feeling is very much mutual. Asked about Miles after his dominant performance against the Bombers, Damien Hardwick virtually laughed at how ridiculous it was that such a player could be so close to being lost to the elite level. “He’s just a very good player and we’re really pleased to have him on our list. We’re probably very lucky to have him on our list too, to be perfectly honest,” Hardwick said. This week Hardwick went a step further, comparing Miles to four-time Hawthorn best-and-fairest and dual All-Australian Mitchell. “It has been a remarkable story. He has had success through his career and just risen to the level and there is a guy similar in Sam Mitchell who got overlooked in certain drafts, but they have always had the ability to win the ball and he is only going to get better,” he told 3AW. Miles admitted he’d surprised even himself, but believed he just needed a chance. “There was those doubts at the end of last year and the disappointment of being delisted, but to be here at Richmond, at such a great club, has been unbelievable really,” he said.
