Ode to Sam Gilbert

Recently, fellow Footy Almanacker ‘Old Dog’ posed an interesting challenge to name a character within today’s generation of footballers.

As a Saints tragic of sixty years, finding a character of the past was like shelling peas but in today’s highly professional, sterile environment it’s a bit tougher.

Having said that I nominated Mitch Owen and North’s Paul Curtis. I based it on courage, humility and the individual’s capacity for either inexplicable mistakes or sheer brilliance.

It prompted me to remember my favourite Saint in this category, the idiosyncratic Sam Gilbert.

A rugby league player from Northern NSW/Gold Coast, Sam didn’t play Aussie Rules until he was fifteen, having switched codes because he felt he was too tall and skinny.

At age nineteen he found himself at the Saints at pick 33 in the 2005 draft. By the time the stellar 2009 season arrived, Sam was one of the team’s foremost role players playing nineteen of twenty two matches including the Grand Final.

So what was it about Sam Gilbert that made him unique? I think it was the edginess and unpredictability that would have me either jump out of my seat in sheer ecstasy or put my head into my hands, pulling my hair out and screaming “don’t think Dilbert!”

Sometimes when I watch Mitch or when Sam got the ball, you could hear the wheels and cogs ticking over in their respective brains as to what to do next. When Sam chose to play instinctively with zero thought he was extraordinarily gifted. Same applies to Mitch.

A tackling machine, fast with fantastic closing speed and when devoid of distraction, an amazing long and accurate kick.

We bumped into Sam and his wife and kids at a café a couple of years ago and he was as I expected, humble and self-deprecating. I confessed to him that I had in moments of frustration referred to him as ‘Dilbert’. His reply? “I’ve been called worse.”

208 games with The Saints and who can ever forget the spark he gave the team after half time in the 2010 Grand Final. Thanks for a great career Sam.

A youtube tribute here I found followed by a dodgy but heartfelt quick ditty in your honour, to Paul Kelly’s Dumb Things.