MATTHEW Scarlett has played 199 games of AFL football, almost as many as his father, John. You would think we might know a bit about him by now.
The question: "Just who is the man under the mop at full-back for Geelong?", so moved a Melbourne film producer several years ago that he penned an ode to Scarlett on the culture-meets-footy website australianrules.com.au, under the moniker Oroton , likening him to legendary songster Neil Young.
"We know nothing about him, and isn't that better than knowing everything about most of the nonentities on football's centre stage?," Oroton wrote. "The guy doesn't have to take media training, he just doesn't do the media. He doesn't need to oil up his muscles, appear on naff calendars or play air guitar in some bad Eye of the Tiger bit of '80s synth-rock. No, I see Matthew Scarlett as Neil Young … that night on the MTV awards when he played with Pearl Jam and blew them off the stage. Matthew Scarlett, southern man, rockin' in the free world, long may you run."
That was 2002, but nothing has changed. Scarlett is still football's pimpernel, and even an increasingly voracious media has learned that to seek him here or there is to experience a feeling the game's best forwards know well — try as you might, the closest you'll get is a glimpse of the No. 30 haring out of harm's way.
The modern custom of fronting the cameras in the lead-up to a milestone was coolly baulked this week before Saturday night's 200th game, to nobody's surprise. Geelong's media overseers cut an agreement with Scarlett at the start of the 2006 season — he would give interviews when the Cats lost. It caught him out more than he would have liked that year, but has served him well since.
His "Scarlett's Web"columns on the club website don't exactly lay bare the inner-Scarlo: "It's a physical sport, but you'd think sides would realise by now it doesn't pay to rough us up"; "it's getting to sound a bit like a broken record, but last week the boys were terrific again"; (and, before last week's Hawthorn game) "all the players can't wait to get out there for it, as it's another big challenge for us".
Darren Milburn has played alongside Scarlett for the latter's whole career, and sees something in one assessment that puts his mate as having the smarts of a fox.
"Yeah, he has got that street-smart way about him, he's pretty switched on," Milburn says, admitting that he understands why some find Scarlett mysterious.
"He's not predictable like most people, the way he dresses, the things he's into. He just doesn't care what he looks like or what other people think about the way he goes about his life."
Marc Woolnough walked in the door at Geelong sharing a father-son bond with Scarlett, his dad Mike having been a teammate and cobber of "Gunner" Scarlett in the '70s.
Their offspring forged an instant bond, the Geelong boy through and through taking the Southport-reared Woolnough under his wing. The latter was the higher draft pick, but his AFL dream was crippled by two knee injuries and restricted to six games. But he had a mate for life.
"Matthew and I don't speak all that often — once every few months — but when we do see each other it's like we only caught up yesterday," Woolnough says. "You wouldn't jump on the phone for a chat and speak for hours, he's not that sort of bloke. But once you're friends with Matt, you're friends for life."
Woolnough says he is quiet and unassuming, but fiercely loyal. "If you do the wrong thing by Matthew's friends, his family, his teammates or his footy club, watch out, he won't have it."
Scarlett has always kept things to himself — legend has it that, aged 18, he asked permission to miss training to attend the birth of his daughter, Tayla. Until the question was put, nobody at the club knew he was about to become a father.
An at-times gruff, dismissive nature has not always been universally welcomed, as was borne out when leadership consultant Gerard Murphy invited the under-performing Cats to provide a no-holds-barred assessment of each other at the end of 2006.
"It's pretty hard sitting in front of 40 guys and basically get told what a wanker you are," Scarlett told journalist Scott Gullan in The Mission , the inside story of last year's breakthrough premiership. "You just have to take it on board, look them in the eye and promise that you are going to change … because it will help the team."
Milburn said it was "pretty important for our footy club" that one of its best-ever players take the criticism on board and respond accordingly. He sees it as consistent with an increased maturity that has come as Scarlett's own world outside football has grown.
"He's had a change in lifestyle in the past couple of years, a new baby girl coming into his life, and having Tayla to a previous relationship. He's had to grow up."
Woolnough says his one-for-all ethic has always struck him. "The thing about Matt is, he doesn't care if he plays well or badly, he only cares if the team wins."
He describes Scarlett as "an unusual man" who was "a bit of a ratbag" early in his career. Living in a second-storey flat, Woolnough remembers being woken after midnight on match eve to the sound of stones hitting his window. Below was Scarlett, apeing Rocky Balboa seeking a blessing from his priest before fighting Apollo Creed.
"I'm asleep, and he's throwing rocks at my window. He wouldn't leave until he got a blessing."
Coach Mark Thompson is an unabashed fan, rating him the best backman he has seen.
"I've never really seen a defender play the way he has," Thompson said this week of the rebounding, running game that has married accumulating up to 30 possessions a game to the more traditional full-back's task of drying up opposition goals.
"He's certainly taken it as far as we could possibly have ever imagined it could have been taken."
While rust never sleeps for Neil Young, it seemed Scarlett might not rest either as the celebratory hours became days last September. A more mature man he may be, but Woolnough says the capacity of old is still there.
"He's got an unbelievable amount of endurance when he does go out. He just keeps going and going and going."