How’s the shutdown treating you?

It hasn’t been too bad actually. I’ve been staying down at Airey’s Inlet where my grandma has a house, and it’s been good. She’s had this place forever and we used to come down every school holidays as kids, so I came straight here when things got called off and it’s a pretty nice place to be. I’ve tried my hand at surfing a bit, so I’m going to try and get into that a bit more and see how I go. I’ve had a good routine going and kept the mind pretty active, which helps. I haven’t got bored or sick of it yet. I would love for us to be playing and doing what we love, but I haven’t hit a lull yet.

You drove back to Melbourne with Heath Shaw?

Yep, we came back together after it all shut down. It was good, he didn’t drive me too crazy, which might sound surprising. We talked for about the first four hours about what we thought would happen and then talked absolute drivel for the next four. But it was fine. It was nice to be with someone who likes to talk rather than sit there all that time talking to yourself.

You take your study pretty seriously. Have you been able to get stuck into some of that?

It’s been handy for that, having all this time. I’m studying commerce, majoring in marketing and international business. I’m doing it very slowly, but getting there. It’s actually giving me some good structure to my days at the moment, I try and get some exercise done in the morning and then get a couple hours of work done.

Where are you up to?

I’ve done 14 or 15 subjects now, through Macquarie Uni. I’ll have two full years completed soon and that leaves me one to go which will be nice. I didn’t really take it seriously in my first couple of years while I was working out what I wanted to do, so I’ve had to play catch up a bit. It was just something to do outside footy at the start, but as I’ve got older and worked out a bit of an idea for what I want to do when footy is done I’ve been way more focused with it. Commerce, business, finance – they’re all things I’m interested in.

So you’re almost done?

Almost. It will still take me ages. I like my overseas travel, so that’s always hindered me in semester two, but I doubt we’ll be travelling anywhere for a while so I might be able to knock a bit more off. I’ve always told the boys to make sure they get overseas rather than go straight home for their eight-week break, and they know I was right because they’re stuck at home now.

What have been some of your more interesting subjects?

I was proud that I passed statistics, that was a really hard subject and one of the tougher things I’ve done. Some of the global business subjects are pretty interesting. I’ve done a couple of them and you definitely learn a lot about how the world works.

Any other hard ones?

I just picked up management accounting. I added it on for this semester after footy stopped and I knew I’d have more time. It’s actually kind of hard. I’m not an accountant, that’s for sure, but it was one of the only subjects I was able to pick up, so I went with it so that I could hopefully tick it off. I have a lady who used to teach me in one of my first-year accounting subjects who is really good. I’ve stayed in touch with her and she helps me a lot, so I’ll be relying on her to help me get through I think.

What do you see yourself doing in the long run?

I’m not sure specifically, but I know it’s in that area. I’ve been doing a little bit of work experience here and there outside the club trying to find out what I do and don’t like so I’ll keep doing that and narrow it down in the next couple of years. I went to do some work with Chris Larsen who runs Ironbark Management, which is asset management. I did some stuff in Melbourne with some friends who are in stockbroking as well. Both of them were really interesting, and I hang off Matty de Boer a fair bit. He’s really good in that area and he’s someone I like to bounce questions and ideas off, he’s sensational to learn off. He’s super helpful.

I heard you’re an avid reader of the Financial Review.

I am, at the moment. I have a lot of time to do it now. I’ve always liked reading the paper and that’s what I’m on at the moment. It’s nice to go down to the beach for a swim and a coffee and to have a read. That’s one of my favourite things to do and something I definitely enjoy.

Are there many readers in the group?

A lot of the boys are getting more into reading, definitely a lot of the older boys. Cogs (Stephen Coniglio), Lachie Keeffe, Matty de Boer, Heath Shaw. Everyone bounces book recommendations off each other and some of the boys are right into it. Early days it was all about autobiographies and now we've moved on and it’s more learning books and a bit of everything really. I haven’t ventured back into fiction books yet, but you never know. There’s been a few good recommendations that you note down and make sure to get around to.