Scott Pendlebury was just one year into his AFL career, but in the 2006 off-season, he made a pledge: he was never going to play VFL again.
It was a bold statement given his last game of football was in the VFL, going down to Geelong for Williamstown - Collingwood’s affiliate side - in a Preliminary Final.
That prelim was on 17 September, and he had last played at AFL level a month prior, seeing him fall agonisingly short of his debut-season goal.
Speaking on Episode Seven of ‘Pendlebury: Beyond 400’ – an eight-part podcast series out of ‘The Howie Games’ hosted by Mark Howard - Pendlebury detailed how hitting double digits for AFL games in his maiden year was what he set as a pass mark.
“The mental side of footy, early days in my career, say ’06, ’07 at the start, Simon Lloyd was our sports psych at the time so did a lot of work with him,” Pendlebury said.
“That was around goal setting, what I wanted to get out of my first couple of years.
“Specifically, in my first year, I wanted to play 10 games for example.”
In the end, he achieved 90 per cent of that first-year goal by playing nine games. But as he navigated through his first year, Pendlebury was equally as cognisant of some development he had undertaken throughout the year, as he was determined to make sure his on-going goals were achieved to 100 per cent status.
“I got glandular fever in December, which sort of threw my plans into a bit of chaos but Lloydy was fantastic for teaching me how to break down goals and then make it so it’s measurable,” he said.
“End of my first year, I’d played nine games, but I’d moved into a midfielder by that stage so is set up my off-season with Lloydy about, ‘alright I don’t want to play VFL ever again’.
“I want to play AFL and I don’t want to waste any time, so what do I do?
“He’s like, ‘well who’s the best trainer at the footy club?’, and it was Paul Licuria at that stage, so it was to link up with him in the pre-season and just watch what he does.”
But Pendlebury wasn’t just at those sessions with the 192-game Pie and current Club Vice-President to observe. He was in a hurry, even as a teenager knowing that simply doing what his senior teammate was doing wasn’t going to fast-track his development in the way he desired.
“In my head it was ‘I’m going to watch what he does, but how can I be better than what ‘Lica’ (Licuria) does, what more work can I do?’,” he said.
“Because, if I just do what ‘Lica’ does, there’s always going to be a gap between us, especially as an 18-year-old kid.
“So I put a lot of time in my first off-season, I reckon I had maybe two to three days off after my last game of the season and I was back in the gym on Monday, because I felt like my biggest growth area was getting in the gym and getting strong legs, so I did a lot of work.
“My older brother introduced me to the gym and we were training there six days a week, I put on so much strength and started to really be able to move a bit of weight which gave me a lot of confidence when I came back in pre-season to be able to compete with ‘Bucks’ (Nathan Buckley), ‘Burnsy’ (Scott Burns), Shane O’Bree, ‘Lica’, Brodie Holland.
“It didn’t mean I could beat them or even stick with them for probably for a whole training session, but it meant I was making ground on them and gave me a lot of confidence.”
The success of Pendlebury’s off-season that materialised in year two, is what laid the foundations for the relentless processes he then put in place for the first half of his career.
Finishing second in the Club’s Copeland Trophy count in just his second season, Pendlebury homed in on routine even more than ever before.
Some aspects were more stringent than others, and some more in the realm of superstitions, but each was designed to help the left-footer feel at his best when he crossed that white line on game day.
“I was building a weekly routine, if I play on a Saturday what’s my week look like, if I play on a Friday what’s my routine, Sunday what’s my routine,” he said.
“We had different routines for every day, there were certain things that I liked to tick off, like on my day off it was ‘muffin day’, I’d always have an apple crumble muffin and a coffee.
“I’d come into the Club, and I’d make these massive ice baths up and these really super-hot, hot baths, and I’d do 10 minutes in the freezing cold ice bath and then 10 minutes in the hot bath and I’d do the rotations.
“I’d eat the same thing two nights before a game, one night before a game, the same lunch one night before a game, the same pre-game meal.
“I used to play in these red speedos that were like lucky jocks, so I’d built up quite a few superstitions, because mentally I thought those things really helped me and they did, they gave me so much confidence when I went out there.”
So, if you think hark back to any of Pendlebury’s most memorable moments circa 2007-12, you can bet all these elements of his routine had unfolded during the week.
Wondering what he ate for dinner two days before the 2010 Grand Final, and then again in the week of the GF Replay? You can bet it was a chicken risotto.
Wondering what colour jocks he had on when he sealed the game against Geelong in that 2012 MCG classic, or when winning his maiden ANZAC Day medal in 2010? They were no doubt red.
And let’s say for arguments sake, that each and every week in the season during this period, he took at least one rest day – that’s 139 apple crumble muffins consumed. Even the best know how and when to treat themselves.
But there was naturally going to be a point where this was unsustainable and shift in routine was required, making Pendlebury’s standing in the game well over a decade later even more remarkable.
“That plan that I had of basically knowing what every minute of my day looked like, the extra work I was doing on top, I held that for probably six to eight years,” he said.
“I had this plan and it was just so consistent. It was like clockwork, I knew what I was doing, it gave me great level of comfort and then probably around 2012, it started to really wear me out.
“At that stage, David Stiff had come into the club through those years and I remember speaking to him and he just sort of challenged me to challenge the way that I did things and gave me a different perspective on things.
“He challenged me to let go of it all and just have a routine that I could do when I got to the game and when I say let go of it all, it’s more let go of the chicken risotto two nights before a game, the two salad rolls the day before the game, the red jocks - those things that looking back, they played a part in me getting to where I’ve got to, but it’s not the whole reason.
“After eight years of doing the same thing like clockwork … we let go of this stuff that we just decided didn’t mean anything, it’s not going to affect how I play.
“We did it, I played a pre-season game and low and behold I played pretty well, so I managed to get rid of stuff that I’d had in my program for years and years.”
By this stage, a Pendlebury in his mid 20s was the Club’s Captain and in his prime, yet already he’d matured enough to see the necessity of adaptation even when at the peak of his powers.
And now, as he enters year 20, as a father for two and two-time premiership player, Pendlebury is well adept in managing a routine that is far less stringent, while also finding the time to flood his voice notes app with thoughts and feelings for the 21st century version of a training diary.
“The game why I play is because I love it. I have fun doing it,” he said in wrapping up episode seven which details the mental side of the game.
“I’m highly competitive and I felt like if I can understand all of this stuff to a really high level ... it’s going to help us achieve team success.
“Just speaking about it now, it’s no secret it’s in last six or seven years that when Jax and Darcy came into our lives and we had a family, and I’ve really enjoyed being Dad.
“Red jocks, blue jocks, black jocks – it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a really good routine now where there’s still a lot going on, but it’s done with a really good balance.
“Footy’s become not everything to me, it’s a part of who I am, but not who I am.”
Listen to each episode of 'Pendlebury: Beyond 400' via 'The Howie Games' wherever you get your podcasts.
