Why Collingwood’s cult hero copped abuse for playing in a premiership

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Despite becoming a premiership player in just his 40th match, Billy Frampton is no one’s idea of an overnight sensation.

It was the end of his ninth season on an AFL list when the medal finally went around his neck in 2023.

Billy Frampton and Darcy Cameron, good friends from their Perth days, holding up the premiership cup.

Playing in his first final he played a critical forward role, disrupting the influence of the Brisbane Lions’ champion defender Harris Andrews just enough to help the Magpies win the thriller.

He immediately became something of a cult hero among Collingwood fans, David taking on Goliath in the most important match of the year and restricting Andrews to just one intercept mark in the first three quarters.

Dealing with the new profile, and some unexpected online hate for his role as a decoy in the premiership team, took adjustment.

“I did not expect it to garner that much attention, good or bad. It was definitely a lot of bad as well. Heaps on social media…yeah, plenty of feedback,” Frampton said.

“It was definitely different. It took me a while. Probably that whole off season was a little bit strange for me to try and deal with everything. But once footy came around the next year you put that on the back burner a bit. But it still gets brought up pretty often to be honest.”

On Saturday, the 28-year-old will return to the MCG to play in his first preliminary final confident in himself and his role as a lockdown defender, and with 33 extra games of experience behind him.

But it’s taken him until this season to find enough belief in himself that one mistake or a below par game no longer sparks the sort of negative thoughts which afflict many elite athletes.

“This year, especially. I’ve delved a lot more into the mental and emotional space to try to find a lot more solid ground for myself, which has helped a lot,” Frampton said.

Billy Frampton played a critical role in the 2023 flag as a defensive forward on Harris Andrews.

“One of the biggest ones [is] trying to be able to put mistakes behind me. It’s something I really battled with through my career and I’ve spoken to a lot of people about that, and how I can make an error and then get back on with it.

“It’s always been something that’s lingered with me. I’ve always wanted to do everything really well, and that can spiral pretty quickly in footy especially when you’re playing on good forwards who get the ball targeted at them 15 times a game.

“You only need to be off a couple of times, and it can go south so finding ways to push through that and just trying to enjoy every bit of footy and not ride the ups and downs, not have the pressure on yourself all the time.”

It’s testament to his resilience that he has persevered while enduring a battle common to many high achievers for much of his career.

After arriving at Port Adelaide from South Fremantle via the last selection in the 2014 national draft (pick 84) that wasn’t an academy or father-son addition he waited four years before making his debut in the final match of 2018.

He joined Adelaide in 2020 and spent two seasons there before landing at Collingwood in 2022 under new coach Craig McRae, one of the low cost talls recruited along with Darcy Cameron, Jeremy Howe and the sidelined Dan McStay that have underpinned McRae’s premiership pushes.

During that time Frampton, who is known to have an inquisitive mind, rode football’s inevitable rollercoaster as if he was on a bucking bull in a rodeo.

“Instead of going down that negative pathway, [it’s about] trying to come back to a positive immediately as soon as I have an error…it’s become a bit of a habit for me over time, which is helpful. [It’s] helped me so much to be able to not let one become two and be able to nip things in the bud,” Frampton said.

Frampton gets ready for the preliminary final.

The 28-year-old speaks with disarming honesty as he reflects on the loop he once endured. The lightness of his tone, however, shows such emotions are in the past even as he describes how the pattern of mistakes and axings played on his mind.

“I [could] just get these things running in your head a little bit and it just sets you on the wrong path, and one thing goes wrong, and then it’s like here we go, ‘I am going to play shit again, I’m gonna be out of side again’, and then it’s just that constant. I don’t know how many times I’ve been dropped in my career, but I’d have to be right up there,” Frampton said.

“Trying to break that has been really tough [but I have reached] a place where it is not even on my radar. If those situations come around, I’m a lot more grounded and confident in myself to be able to deal with them and, I guess, mentally, it’s just more of a nice place to be.”

Not that playing in the backline in front of close to 100,000 people is many people’s idea of a nice place to be. But it is to Frampton who has made the leap under the calm, respected tutelage of Jordan Roughead, who remains an unsung hero at the Magpies. Frampton has found his niche in defence alongside Darcy Moore and Jeremy Howe.

Frampton at training with Jordan De Goey this week.

And he has become a true believer, in himself.

“This is probably the first time that I’ve really felt, I guess, sure of myself in my role and I’m very clear in the system, what I need to be doing at all times, feeling confident to be able to make calls on the fly and communicate with my teammates and feel sure of myself,” Frampton said.

“Everything feels just a lot more stable for me.”

Much better suited to defence as he runs in straight lines and reads the ball better when reacting to opposition cues, Frampton is a player of substance in an era of style.

His grand final battle with Andrews is part of Collingwood folklore but on Saturday Frampton will be at the other end of the ground as he tries to move one step closer to becoming a premiership defender and a flag-winning forward.

Here comes Billy, 10 years after he arrived.