Recently we discovered that Xavier O’Halloran had become a painter. You too?

I don’t think there is much competition, to be honest. Xavier’s looked very, very good. Mine is more of a limited collection, just the one piece at the moment, one masterpiece and that might be it for me. It’s fair to say that Xav definitely has me covered with the painting.

Tell us a bit about the masterpiece…

Well, it actually started with some drawing and colouring. My little sister Charlotte started doing some mandala art, which I don’t even know how to describe. They’re like these fancy, circular sort of things, designs or drawings that you can paint or colour in. I think she started off by giving some to my Dad, because they’re meant to be relaxing.

“Fancy circular sort of things”??

I can’t think how else to describe them! But Charlotte got me doing a few of them, and then she got the paints out and so I joined in for a couple of days. My mum is actually an amazing painter, she is very talented and I think Charlotte got more of that talent than I did. She’s the true artist, so she gave me my instructions and told me what to do, and I ended up coming up with this weird abstract, colourful piece. I’m not sure what to call it and I’m not even sure it’s finished. But I did enjoy it, I might even start some work on number two one of these days.

Charlotte was only little when we drafted you 18 months ago. Was it nice to spend some time back at home with her?

It was. She’s gotten a lot older. It’s actually been good, because we got to play in South Australia twice last year, and my family came up a couple of times so I ended up seeing them a lot more than I thought I would. But it had been a few months since I'd seen them since games stopped, or since I'd been back home, so it was been good to spend some time with her and also my brother Riley. He's been great to train with. He’s getting stronger and starting to get a bit more into his footy, so it was been handy having him around.

You live on the Trinity College, where your dad is principal. Was it a nice place to spend a few weeks training?

It’s been really good, I had everything I needed. There’s basketball courts and gym equipment, an oval right outside our house and another couple a bit further down with goal posts and stuff. It I was going to be stuck anywhere, it was a perfect spot as far as training goes.

What else did you get up to during the break?

I’ve done a fair bit of uni work. I’m studying business so I’ve had a couple of quizzes and been able to do a bit of work out of the way which has been good. And I’ve been doing some meditation stuff with Gary Gorrow, which I really enjoy. There’s a decent crew of us who do it and have got on board. It helps you really clear your mind. I got introduced to it a little bit through Mum, and I sort of did it every now and again but I wasn’t really into it properly. Just before the games stopped I started to get right into it and do it twice a day, every day pretty much. This has been a good time to solidify that, I’ve really ingrained that in what I do each day and it’s been awesome for me.

You’re a huge basketball fan… I presume you've been right across The Last Dance documentary on Netflix?

Oh yeah. I’ve been loving it. Especially because Michael Jordan was before my time, and you hear so much about him. It’s such a good insight into what he’s like, and what he was like back then. It’s just interesting how competitive he is. He’s such a winner. We’ve talked a little bit about it as a group, about how the Bulls had to go through some struggles early on. The Pistons were a team who were better than them for a couple of years and they had to figure out a way to get past them. So there’s been a bit to get out of it. And Jordan was interesting because he was such a star. He was scoring 30-40 points a day and they needed to convince him they needed to get other guys involved if they were going to win it. He had to accept that and probably had a lesser role than he could have to help the team win. It’s a really great show, I can recommend it.

Better than your painting?

Oh yeah. I’ll be sticking to football, I think.