Matthew Scarlett (born 5 June 1979) is a former
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
er, who formerly played for the
Geelong Football Club
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...
in the
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...
(AFL). A
fullback, who is tall and weighing , Scarlett is the eldest son of former Geelong footballer
John Scarlett
Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
.
Scarlett was selected by Geelong with the 45th overall pick in the
1997 AFL Draft under the
father-son rule, and made his senior debut for the club in the final round of the
1998 AFL season
The 1998 AFL season was the 102nd season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixt ...
. Scarlett played predominantly as a fullback, and has garnered a long list of individual accolades. He is a
triple premiership player from Geelong's premiership-winning teams of
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
,
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
and
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
, has won a
Carji Greeves Medal
The Carji Greeves Medal is a name given in recent decades to an Australian rules football award given to the player(s) adjudged best and fairest for the Geelong Football Club for the season.
The voting system has changed a number of times. ...
and been selected to six
All-Australian
The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perf ...
sides, the most selections for a Geelong player. As well as this, Scarlett has been inducted into the Geelong Football Club Hall of Fame, represented the
Victorian state team in the
AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match
The AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match was a one-off all-star game between two representative sides organised by the Australian Football League to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Australian rules football. The match was intended to celebrate the ...
and represented
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
in
International rules football
International rules football ( ga, Peil na rialacha idirnáisiunta; also known as international rules in Australia and compromise rules or Aussie rules in Ireland) is a team sport consisting of a hybrid of football codes, which was developed ...
.
Scarlett is currently serving as a development coach with the
Geelong Football Club
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...
.
Early life
Matthew Scarlett grew up in
Geelong, Victoria
Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, a ...
, the son of former Geelong Football Club player
John Scarlett
Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
. Despite this, Scarlett supported
Essendon Essendon may refer to:
Australia
*Electoral district of Essendon
*Electoral district of Essendon and Flemington
*Essendon, Victoria
**Essendon railway station
**Essendon Airport
*Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League
United King ...
as a child, citing
Michael Long and
Matthew Lloyd
Matthew James Lloyd (born 16 April 1978) is a former professional Australian rules footballer, who played for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
A highly decorated full-forward, Lloyd's AFL's honours include ...
as his favourite players.
He was educated at
St Joseph's College—the same school as his father—where he played junior football alongside future Geelong teammate
Cameron Ling
Cameron Ling (born 27 February 1981) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A tagger at and , Ling is a premiership-winning captain at the club.
He is now a c ...
.
Scarlett entered the next phase of his junior career when he was selected to play for the
Geelong Falcons
The Geelong Falcons is a youth Australian rules football representative club in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition, Victoria, Australia.
The club takes in talented junior players from the Geelong, Colac and Warrnambo ...
in the under 18
TAC Cup
The NAB League Boys (also referred to as simply the NAB League and formerly known as the TAC Cup) is an under-19 Australian rules football representative competition held in Australia. It is based on geographic regions throughout country Victo ...
competition in 1997.
His achievements with the Falcons were recognised when he was chosen to play for the
Victorian Country representative side at the
AFL Under 18 Championships
The AFL Under-19 Championships (for sponsorship reasons, the NAB AFL Under-19 Championships) is an annual Australian national underage representative championship in Australian rules football tournament. It is seen as one of the main pathways ...
,
as well as being selected in the
full-back position of the TAC Cup's Team of the Year.
AFL career
1998–1999: Debut and early career
Scarlett was drafted by the Geelong Football Club under the
father-son rule with their fourth selection in the
1997 AFL Draft, and was the forty-fifth overall draft pick.
[ He was the club's second father-son recruit of the draft, with ]Marc Woolnough
Marc Woolnough (born 20 May 1980) is a former Australian rules footballer who played six games for Geelong in 1998 and 2002.
Woolnough was raised on the Gold Coast, Queensland and attended All Saints Anglican School with Kurt Tippett both ...
chosen with the club's second selection.[ In analysing his drafting, media reports identified Scarlett's strong marking and kicking skills whilst noting his potential as a key defender.][
Despite playing in the league's pre-season competition as a ]back pocket
In the sport of Australian rules football, each of the eighteen players in a team is assigned to a particular named position on the field of play. These positions describe both the player's main role and by implication their location on the gro ...
, Scarlett did not make his senior-level debut until the final round of the 1998 AFL season
The 1998 AFL season was the 102nd season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixt ...
where he was matched up against Essendon full-forward
Full-forward is a position in Australian rules football and Gaelic football with a key focus on kicking goals.
The Coleman Medal is awarded to the player, often a full-forward, who has kicked the most goals in an Australian Football League seaso ...
Matthew Lloyd
Matthew James Lloyd (born 16 April 1978) is a former professional Australian rules footballer, who played for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
A highly decorated full-forward, Lloyd's AFL's honours include ...
. Geelong won this game by ten points, and although Scarlett himself garnered a respectable six disposals and took two marks, he allowed Lloyd to score six goals – a third of the team's total.
Scarlett did not play again until midway through the following season where he was once again matched against Lloyd. Scarlett later credited these match-ups with Lloyd as assisting his long-term development as a player – acknowledging that it was a challenging start to his career. He made a further four senior appearances during the season, including scoring his first goal in round 17. However the majority of the year was spent playing with the reserves team, where he placed third in the best and fairest
In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...
.
2000–2002: Establishment in the side
Following his limited playing opportunities in his first two seasons, Scarlett established himself in the senior side during the 2000 AFL season
The 2000 AFL season was the 104th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989.
The season featured six ...
, playing in 21 games. This included his finals
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
debut in Geelong's elimination final against , in which they were ultimately defeated by nine points. This capped off a breakthrough season for Scarlett, scoring two goals, achieving his first match in which he gathered at least ten possessions, and earning an AFL Rising Star
The AFL Rising Star is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the year. It was first presented in the 1993 season, and was won by Nathan Buc ...
nomination. Scarlett played a further 20 games and scored another two goals in 2001, a season in which had three games with 20 or more disposals. He was rewarded for his efforts by finishing