great article: stone cold stunning stevie mckee

[junkboy75]

Collingwood ruckman McKee defies odds
By Martin Blake
May 30 2002

Steven McKee has not quite reached cult-figure status at Collingwood, but you get the feeling that it might not be far down the track.

Certainly "Hotrod", the satirical writer of Extreme Magpies fame, has the lumbering, unspectacular ruckman heading in that direction.

Long ago McKee became "Stunning Steve" in Hotrod's eyes. Nowadays, with just three games to hit the half-century, he is simply "The Stunner".

McKee has read the irony-laced words of Hotrod before. But he would like to think he is a better player than that. And perhaps he is right.

Pitted against arguably the league's best ruckman, the monolithic Matthew Primus, at Football Park last Friday night, McKee held his own in a two-man war. As is his wont, Primus kept planting his feet at the ball-ups and daring someone to shift him. McKee was tired and sore at the end but his emergence as a player had continued.

He is an old-fashioned ruckman, running hard at the centre bounces, jumping early to create the contact with his opponent. Often he will drift into the hole in defence, picking off misdirected kicks from the opposition.

Peter Moore, the dual Brownlow medallist, schools him once a week along with Neil Balme, Collingwood's football operations manager.

Perhaps most importantly, the fact he is holding down the No. 1 ruck position allows Collingwood the flexibility of using Josh Fraser mostly as a forward and Anthony Rocca almost exclusively in front of goal. Fraser needs time for his body to develop and it is McKee who is buying that time for Collingwood.

If his maturity has been slow in coming, then McKee has a valid explanation.

In his first year at Collingwood, 2000, he was not only struck down by the legionella virus but had his recovery delayed by the fact that it was not diagnosed initially.

As early as February that year, during the pre-season games, he had felt "a bit strange", having some blood tests that showed nothing. It was not until Melbourne was gripped by legionella outbreaks in June-July that he had the tests that revealed the truth. "If I wasn't getting 13 hours' sleep a day I was hopeless," he recalled. "I wasn't eating like I normally do. I lost a fair bit of weight. Even with the little skill sessions out on the track, I was really struggling."

By the time antibiotics and rest helped him to recovery, he had effectively lost the 2000 season.

If 2002 has been his watershed year, then he is not resting. He recalls that last year he played most of the season only to be dropped after round 18.

He does not have the type of football pedigree you expect from a league player nowadays. He never played TAC Cup football, declining the chance to join Murray Bushrangers and staying to play in Myrtleford.

Nor did he play in the national under-18 titles, which spawn most of today's AFL players.

As a boy growing up in the one-pub town of Porepunkah, 15 minutes' drive from Myrtleford, McKee had dreamt the AFL dream like a lot of his mates.

But when the Bushrangers came calling and the pathway was laid out in front of him, he did not have a driver's licence to make the 45-minute trip to Wangaratta for training, and, with both his parents working, he opted to stay with Myrtleford.

Probably the experience did him no harm. As Myrtleford's first ruckman in the 1995 and 1996 seasons, he copped a few biffs and bruises, once memorably from Peter Foster, the former Footscray defender then playing for Yarrawonga.

People told him that his shunning of the Bushrangers and the tried-and-true path would cost him a place in the draft. But Richmond picked him at No. 55 in the 1996 national draft and he was off to the big smoke, mimicking his father Jeff's trip to try out with Melbourne many years earlier.

Jeff McKee, a truck driver, had hated life in the city and quickly returned to Porepunkah to make his name playing for Yarrawonga. His only son had different problems when he arrived in Melbourne.

Steve McKee spent two frustrating seasons at Richmond trying to jump the queue of "talls" headed by Brendon Gale, Brad Ottens, Matthew Richardson and Ben Holland.

By the end of 1999, Danny Frawley had arrived as senior coach and something had to give. Frawley told McKee that his opportunities would be limited. Richmond wanted Clinton King, Collingwood's rough-and-ready midfielder; Collingwood wanted a ruckman. The deal was done.

"It made sense to swap over," McKee said. "I just thought there was no point staying if I wasn't going to get the opportunities."

Not even Mick Malthouse's famous glare intimidates him any more.

"You have to look straight back at him and get back out there and do something about it," he said.

This story was found at: http://realfooty.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/29/1022569792534.html




"..we flew at them as a hawk to his prey, passed through them in the disordered state in which they were, separated them into two distinct parts and then tacked upon their largest division.." -- Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, 1797

[This message has been edited by junkboy75 (edited 30 May 2002).]

[bwphantom]

Stunning is a legend. I for one believe we have had more use out of him than bitchmond has of King. Alot of people have bagged our recruiting for this trade. 'WHERE ARE YOU LOT NOW!!!!!'.

I feel for him as i have an understanding how his legionalas affected him. It has now been 2 mths since i have been diagnosed with Glandular fever. If i do anything physical (like washing dishes), i am absolutely hammered and do not have energy for the rest of the day. Some days I feel great and others as flat as a board. I believe this was the case with McKee last year. In the end he just ran out of energy.

Every match report I have written Stunning has featured. He did a great job on Primus. Also, the ruck opponents that gave him a pasting last year are now on the receiving end of Stunnings' hard at it attitude and style.

He is a great asset and will prove to the baggers that he is our long term ruck prospect as our recruiters stated when we traded for him from bitchmond.

YOU SHOW 'EM STUNNER.


If your not bleeding Black and White, you don't truly support Collingwood!!!!!

[stik35]

Sounds like Stunning has been given a raw deal with his illness and the fans bagging him constantly.
Good on him I hope his good form continues so that he can stick it up all those (including myself) who had no faith in him.
Good article though, it was good to hear a bit about his background - sounds like he's another country boy.
But why "Stunning"?

[paulie]

The best Cult figure at the Club since Killer Manson by a mile.