Jacobs Reaches Fifty Games

Written By: Andrew Owen

Photos By: Aaron Raman & Gemma Boys

This weekend against Swan Districts, Julian Jacobs will play his fiftieth game of League Football. 

Jacobs started his career in 2009 at the Subiaco Football Club, where under Lions Coach Scott Waters he played eight games of league football that season and was emergency a number of times.  “It was a tough gig, you couldn’t buy a kick at Subiaco, it was pretty tough to get a game, they didn’t hand them out.  I played eight games in my first year of league and I was also an emergency about five or six times that year as well.”

After his first year of league football, Jacobs decided to go to Kalgoorlie to finish off his university degree at the WA School of Mines and play for the Boulder Tigers in the Goldfields Football League.  He dominated the competition and ended up winning the Mitchell Medal which is awarded to the competitions best player.  Jacobs polled 41 votes on the night and was 12 votes clear of teammate Darren Bradshaw who came second.  Jacobs said it was good to play for the Tigers and with some of the stars that they had in their side.  “The Tigers were really good and I enjoyed playing football with them.  We had one player called Darren Bradshaw, who was the brother of Sydney and Brisbane forward Daniel.  Bradshaw was probably one of the best one-on-one marks that I have seen.  He also managed to kick 100 goals that season from roughly 11 games.”

After the season and his studies had concluded, Jacobs decided to come back to Perth, where his Mum and Dad had just moved from Esperance into a suburb called Lathlain.  This is where his journey to become a Demon started.  “I used to drive past the Perth Football Club a fair bit and then one day I decided that I would sneak down to a training session and try to have a kick and not really get noticed.  They found out I was a Subiaco player and it went from there.”

“I was speaking a lot with former Perth Football Manager Darren Solomon at the time and he was probably the main reason that I decided to stay and it went from there really.”

In his first season at the Demons, Jacobs played 15 games, laid 59 tackles and averaged 18.5 disposals a game.  At the end of season he had made a huge impression on the coaching group and ended up finishing third in the Butcher Medal.  “It was good to come away from Subiaco and make a name for myself over at a new club with new team members and everything,” said Jacobs.

In 2012 he managed 18 games, but it has been his form in the 2013 season that has been most impressive.  From eight games this season he has averaged almost 22 possessions and five marks a game.  Jacobs puts the form increase down to the fact that he was allowed to have a good break at the end of last season.  “I went away and worked up north and as a result I missed a lot of the preseason due to these work commitments.  It was really good just to get away and do my own thing and concentrate on work.”

Jacobs went away due to his job as a mining engineer.  During the season he is based in the city but in the offseason he likes to be hands on.  “During the off season I go and work four or five months on site.  I do this just to go and gain some exposure to life on site and what mining is really about instead of sitting in an office in the city.”

“To keep fit while I was away on work I did a little bit of triathlon and a little bit of cycling.  I also went for runs after work and just tried to do a little bit every day.”

Missing majority of the preseason is probably not ideal for most footballers but in Jacobs’s case it has helped him to find a nice balance between life on the field and life off it.  “It’s a hard balance but I have got a fantastic boss who is very understanding and only sends me away in the offseason over the summer which is pretty hot in the pit.”

Jacobs said that while it was great to have reached fifty games of WAFL, playing one hundred games was something that he would just have to take one season at a time.  “It’s a long way away yet I think, but I suppose if work lined up with football then by all means that would be fantastic.  However, it’s a fine line between work commitments and football.”