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It is a method that might play to Jones’ personality and way of thinking and looking at things. He is about to start a coding degree. He can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in about a minute. Ninety seconds tops.
“It’s a bit more specific than kicking five and winning the game,” he said. “There’s stuff in game visualising [about] getting up the ground, taking marks, kicking goals, stuff to do with launching for the ball, running patterns.
“I think it’s partly reminding yourself how you play best. I’ve always been a pretty good runner – tall, skinny and lanky – so I think I focus on that a lot. Also, my ability to get after it at ground level as well, so once the ball does hit the ground I’m almost like another small forward down there.”
When he was a kid he dreamt more than visualised. An avid Essendon fan, he specifically recalls one Anzac Day when he was about 15 and the silence in the ground, and the playing of The Last Post and the national anthem. He felt the tingles and imagined himself out there one day.
Then his dream became a reality.
“I was, what, 20 years old, and I was a little bit rattled to be honest,” he said of his first Anzac Day match in 2021.
Harry Jones visualises what he will do before every match as a means to optimising his performances.Credit: AFL Photos
“I was standing out there, and I was just like, ‘Whoa, this is this crazy’, like, who would have thought, you know what I mean? But I think as I’m getting older and a bit more mature, it’s more about taking it in and then coming straight back to the footy because it’s a footy game as well. We’re embracing all the events that are happening around us pre-match, but being able to take that in and perform on the big stage because everyone’s watching is my next step, I think.”
Jones speaks with candour. He is as critical of his previous performances as he is matter of fact about what he wants from football and what he hopes to be. Just being an AFL player doesn’t drive him; he wants to be great. What could sound brash from the mouths of others, and might even read like it on the page, does not sound that way coming from Jones, who has a gentle manner and a quietly grounded self-awareness.
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“You’ve always got to pinch yourself and remind yourself that you are an AFL footballer because it’s every kid’s dream of becoming an AFL footballer and I feel like I haven’t played enough games yet to sort of satisfy myself and needing to be a gun AFL football player,” he said.
“I don’t want to just be an AFL football player, I want to be a great AFL football player. I want to be remembered for being a really good player instead of just the guy who came in and made the level and played.”
That carries a weight of self-expectation that perhaps matches that of the Essendon fans who are eager for Jones and the clutch of young top draft picks who arrived the following year to achieve that level of greatness. Jones, pick No.30 in 2019, is invariably bracketed in Bomber conversation with the trio of top 10s taken the next year: Nik Cox (eight), Archie Perkins (nine) and Zach Reid (10), who is now his housemate. He likes the way the group is always put together.
“I love it, I want to come through with these boys and play 100, 150 games with these guys. We’re so close as this younger group coming up. I enjoy being categorised with them because they’re unbelievable players and will be unbelievable players,” he said.
“In my draft year I was a pretty late bloomer, so I didn’t really have the idea in my head that I was going to be drafted until just after the start of year 12 … then once I got there, it was like, wow, it takes a bit to soak it all in, and it’s hard to really believe.
“I was an Essendon supporter as well and there were these people I watched on TV each week in the locker next to me, so then to come into that it was not overwhelming, it was an unbelievable feeling.
“Now, five seasons in I’m like ‘All right, let’s do this’. I feel like I’ve got a lot of stuff not under control but AFL ready, and now I’ve got to perform and show it on the big stage.”
Join us on our live blog on Thursday from 2pm for our coverage of Essendon and Collingwood at the MCG, from pre-match to all the wash-up afterwards.
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