Former Geelong forward Cameron Mooney has opened up about his playing career, saying he regrets wasting the first five years because he was a “d*ckhead”.
“I look back at my time and people say you don’t have regrets – well I have so many regrets about my football career,” Mooney has told SEN radio.
“It’s virtually the first five or six years of my career that I absolutely wasted because I was a dickhead,” he said.
“I’m so angry with myself with the way I went about my football.”
Image | Mooney during his days at North Melbourne
Mooney was initially drafted by North Melbourne – a club renowned for its partying in the 90s – where he says he spent “three glorious unprofessional years” and won a premiership in 1999.
After moving from North to Geelong, “I continued down that path for the next couple of years,” Mooney said.
“I was going out a lot, moved down to Geelong and the first time you’re down there the nightlife is fantastic.
“I’ve just come off a premiership and I’m 20 years of age – I’m flying thinking how good am I.
“I was way overweight and when I got back into the team I was six or seven kilos overweight – it was just shocking.”
Mooney ended up playing in two premierships during a golden era for the Cats, but when he arrived in the early 2000s he says the club was in bad shape – “it was $10 million in debt, the stadium was falling over and the captain and coach had just walked out.”
Image | Mooney played in two Geelong premierships
“I remember getting there and having osteitis pubis but not telling anyone being stupid and naïve because I was too dumb to go to the physio,” Mooney said.
“Basically, first session in the groins starting hurting again and I missed virtually the whole season and poor Bomber didn’t know about it.”
Mooney says he wanted to leave the club after he fell out with coach Mark Thompson, but was able to patch things up.
“(Thompson) rang me and just said we’ll fix this, let’s sit down and fix this – because I was gone, I couldn’t stand him,” he said.
“After that phone call I was back on track and one morning before pre-season training I looked in the mirror and said: ‘You’re a joke, you’ve done nothing with your career, the premiership was given to you, you’re a stupid naïve young kid and about to be thrown on the scrap heap pull your head out of your backside’.”
It was the wake up call Mooney needed, losing seven kilograms during that pre-season and finishing top five in the Cat’s best and fairest for that year.
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