By Gilbert Ngabo

Copyright thestar

Andrew McGrath recalls the first time he asked his father to buy him a footy ball and the confusion that followed.

“What the hell is that?” his father inquired incredulously.

It was just a year after the family had moved from Mississauga to Australia. McGrath was six years old and was trying to catch up with the Australian rules football game that every kid at his school was enamoured with. He didn’t want to be the only one who wasn’t.

“The best way to describe it is, it’s like their hockey version in Canada,” McGrath says. “It’s like a mixture of rugby and soccer. It’s a physical game of chaos and amazing to watch.”

Aussie Rules Football, which was became organized in Canada in 1989, is played in four 20-minute quarters (15 minutes in the women’s game) on an oval-shaped field. Players can carry the ball with one dribble every 15 metres as defenders try to tackle them and turn the ball over. Passes can be made by kicking it or punching it with a closed fist, known as a handball. There are four posts at each end of the field. Six points are awarded to a team that kicks the ball between the centre posts, and one point is awarded if it goes through an outside post.

McGrath’s father eventually caught onto the hype around “footy” and bought a ball. With McGrath’s speed on the pitch, it didn’t take him much time to excel at the sport. He had no idea, though, that he would eventually turn it into a career.

By the time he was 18 years old, McGrath was highly recruited in the Australian Football League and, in 2016, the Essendon Bombers made him the first pick in the national draft. Nine seasons later, he is the only active Canadian player in the hugely popular league.

“It was certainly a lot of pressure but it’s all part of all high-performance sports. I’m really grateful that the club picked me and I’m blessed to still be playing for them,” McGrath said.

An outstanding defender from the get-go, McGrath capped off his rookie season by winning the Rising Star award, the Ron Evans Medal and the AFL players association’s Best First Year Player award. He has been named to the 22under22 team four times, and served as Essendon’s vice-captain in two seasons (2021 and 2023). He’s currently signed to a six-year contract that will expire in 2030.

In the off-season, McGrath has held on to his connection to Canada, where his beloved sport is growing. He recently visited members of Australian Football League Ontario, a grassroots league that started in 1989 with the goal of growing the game and training future stars to give players at the Humber College Australian Football Field in Etobicoke advice on how they can improve.

Many young players know him as a legend of the game and a representation of what is possible, though most of the players in Ontario have come to love the game for its social aspect and the friendly competition that allows them to stay active and healthy.

“What I like about this sport is that you’re always covering a person from the other team, so you get to know this person, you’re chatting, you make new friends every game,” said Krista Kent, 35. Her 55-year-old mother has joined her team. “There’s no other sport that gives you that much time beside your opposition, so it’s fun to get that contact and interaction.”

AFL Ontario is currently made up of seven men’s and five women’s clubs, making it the largest Australian football league in North America. The majority of the clubs are in the Toronto area (Toronto Dingos, Toronto Eagles, Toronto Rebels, Central Blues, High Park Demons), but there are also teams in Kitchener, Hamilton and Ottawa.

Similar leagues and associations exist in Alberta, Quebec, British Columbia, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, all under the umbrella of AFL Canada, which has 70,000 participants.

Recruitment to join any of these clubs is open yearlong and the hope is to keep growing.

“We had 14 rookies on my club this year, which was wild but it’s fabulous to see new people loving the sport and learning it,” said Woz Wozny, a league board member and head coach of the Toronto Central Blues women’s club.

That’s music to McGrath’s ears. At 27 years old and very much in his prime, he would love the opportunity to play for or coach a club in the Ontario league once his pro career in Austrialia is over, just to keep the connection to the game alive.

McGrath envisions a time when passion for the sport will sweep Canada. In Australia, his Essendon club averages almost 44,000 fans per game while the league’s championship game, known as the AFL Grand Final, brings 100,000 fans into the building.

“The league is growing internationally very quickly. It’s only a matter of time before we get to a level where hopefully the players get paid and some of them can transition from North American footy into the AFL,” he said. “It takes time to grow these things but it’s already amazing to see the pace at which it’s going.”