Emma Quayle, from The Age, caught up with Misiti after his 200-game milestone last year in Round 5 against Collingwood.
There are two good reasons why Joe Misiti should feel extremely glad he plays in the same football team as James Hird. The first one is obvious. Had it not been for Hird, and the passionate, defiant, five-goal game that won him a second Anzac Medal, Misiti might have celebrated his 200th league
game with something slightly less than an 11-goal win over Collingwood, a post-match snuggle of his newborn baby boy and a thank you speech in the rooms.
But the second is just as important, at least as far as Misiti is concerned. More than 10 years ago, as teenagers starting their Windy Hill careers together, he and Hird struck a deal: that the first player to reach 50 games would collect $50 from the other; that the first to 100 games would score $100, and so on.
And so were it not for the captain, and the miserable tussle with injury that has cost him copious amounts of football in the last four years, the more durable Misiti would have entered round six with a few less dollars in his
pocket. Not that that was any certainty. ""He’s the hardest bloke in the world to get money out of, Hirdy. But I’m on to him,"" Misiti said. ""I’m looking forward to that money. That will be a nice little shopping spree.""
Much has changed in the life of Misiti since he plonked himself in the centre square for the second-last match of 1992, dishing off 14 handballs in the final term alone and wearing a much floppier hairstyle than he has sported since. ""It used to take me about an hour to do my hair before I played, and even more time trying to keep it in place during the game,"" he said. ""But
that game is something I remember, the crowd and the speed of it. To debut at the MCG at the age of 17 for my favourite footy team, it was
something pretty huge.""
As a footballer, Misiti’s journey has taken him from the boundary-line goal that put the 1993 Grand Final beyond Carlton’s reach right on three-quarter time, to the Fairstair cruise right after that game that meant starting the
next season in less-than-ideal shape, and the consequent, infamous, skin-folds clause in his contract. He was dropped on the eve of the 1998
finals series, and almost traded to Collingwood after the disappointment that was Grand Final day 2001. But in his unfussed, genial and reliable
way, he has always fought back. In 2000, Misiti’s marshalling of his midfield troops played no small part in building the (almost) unbeatable machine that was the Bombers; in game 200, his first match back after injury, he
did not star, but found the ball on several important occasions.
Off the field he has grown too, from the Keilor Park kid who does not let himself regret that ocean cruise (""because you’ve got to enjoy being a young fella, and no-one wants to look back at when they were a kid and realise they never had fun"") to a husband, and father to little Joshua Joseph. ""He hasn’t caused too much havoc,"" said Misiti. ""He must know it’s
footy season.""
To appreciate what Misiti has lived through at Essendon, it is perhaps best to look at the fortunes of those who shared the unexpected success of ’93 with him. Hird, who Misiti can remember wrecking his knee after coming
down from Canberra, was obviously there with him in game number 200; Mark Mercuri and Dustin Fletcher would have been, had injury
allowed. Mark Thompson is the Geelong coach, Gary O’Donnell and Mark Harvey are assistants and, at the other end of the scale, Gavin Wanganeen plays for Port Adelaide and, for various reasons, Rick Olarenshaw, David
Calthorpe and Paul Hills are long gone. It saddens Misiti that an up-and-coming footballer can no longer graduate from his local AFL club’s under-19 side through the reserves and into the seniors.
He grew up, after all, a mad Bomber fan who would go to Windy Hill games with his father and uncle, stand on a stool behind the goals and have a kick on the ground after the siren. If he was trying to start his career today, he does not think he would get far past the ""trying"" stage. ""I was slow and I
couldn’t jump. I still can’t,"" he said. ""We used to have big lists in those days, so it was easier for young blokes to get a chance. I think I’d struggle to impress the recruiters, coming through now.""
Picking out the highlights of his on-field career, so far, is easy. There are the mates Misiti started out with, and the others he has gathered along the path. He considers it an achievement, if a slightly strange one, that he has
played all his senior football under the one coach, Kevin Sheedy. ""I probably still only understand about 60 per cent of what Sheeds says, but therewould be blokes out there who are only at 20 or 30 per cent,"" he said. ""I’m doing well.""
There is 1993, the unexpected Premiership, and 2000, the perfect year. ""We worked so hard for that flag, for that whole year,"" he said. ""We would run out there every week knowing that the opposition was going to have to do something unbelievable to beat us, and that’s not something you feel very often. We deserved that Premiership, and that’s such a rewarding feeling.""
Another high point came before all that.
Growing up, Misiti idolised the powerful, bullocking style of Tim Watson, and wore No. 32 on his duffle coat. When he played his first game for the Bombers, his hero was retired; halfway through his second season, Watson was back.
""It was a big buzz, playing beside him. I didn’t think it would happen, and all of a sudden it did,"" Misiti said. These days, it is Watson’s teenage son, Jobe, he trains alongside. ""The thing with Jobe is that you look across at him and
watch him run and he looks exactly like Tim. He’s his clone. It’s a bit unique, being able to play with him, but really it just makes me feel old.""
The disappointments occupy a far smaller place in Misiti’s mind than the good bits, but are just as easy to name. There is the 2001 Grand Final, the one-point preliminary final debacles in 1996 and 1999 – ""one of them we would have pinched, and the other we blew, but they both just kill you"" – and the ultimately aborted Collingwood trade.
Misiti had heard people say football was a business, and never doubted that it was. Still, the attempted swap, which came in the same week he was preparing to marry Nora and renovate his house, and was abandoned when the Magpies would not give up a first-round draft pick for him, hurt. ""It missed out on happening by about a minute. I was sitting there next
to the fax machine waiting for a contract to come through trying to realise Essendon didn’t want me,"" he said.
""It scared the hell out of me and I was a bit angry at the time. But it’s not something you can do anything about, and it’s all over now. I don’t think about it, and even if I do, it’s a positive. It all worked out, and Essendon kept me, and I got to stay.""
These days, Misiti is not sure how long he has left in red and black, although he thinks he can play into his thirties, and is obsessed with the thought of snatching one last flag, because ""two is a pretty good effort, but three would
be a real achievement."" Another last goal is to win the best and fairest award he desperately wants, and that has so far eluded him. ""I’m all about winning another Premiership, but one of the things I’ve always wanted to do is to win a footy club best and fairest. I’ve been close a few times. I’ve had two second places, a third, two fourths and a fifth, so I must be getting close. I reckon I know what to do to get one now, so I’ll just keep chipping away.""
‘Still Smokin’’ taken from Edition 31, of the Bomber.
