‘You don’t think it can happen’

JED Lamb cried when he was drafted by the Swans.

There were more tears when his family drove him from their home in country Victoria to Melbourne airport for a flight to Sydney which may as well have been to Mars.

It was not the first time the family had cried together. When Lamb was six, his father was murdered with an axe by a family friend, "Mad Mick", after an argument, leaving his mum Kerrie to bring up eight children. Jed is number seven.

"You see this sort of thing on the news and hear it on the radio but you don't think it can happen to you," recalled Lamb, who is now with the GWS Giants after three years at the Swans.

"Even looking back now it's hard to get my head around it. If it was going to happen I guess it's good that it happened when I was so young. I reckon if it had been when I was 13 to 16 it would have been a lot different and had a bigger impact on my life.

"It had a big impact obviously with mum raising eight kids. That's why we're all so close. There's no doubt that I wouldn't be playing AFL footy today if it wasn't for mum.

"It had a bigger impact on my elder brothers and sisters. When it happened they had to go into the police station and answer questions. I was too young for that.

"They were at an age when they knew everything that had happened so it would have been really tough for them. It's brought us a lot closer together."

It was that closeness which accounted for so many tears when the homesick teenager first arrived in Sydney.

"She'd gone out of her way all her life to look after us and do things for us. She sacrificed so much for us and I wanted to be closer to home to keep looking after her," Lamb said.

"One of the hardest things growing up was going to local footy and you're watching all your mates rocking up with their dads, who are always in the huddle giving advice. Mum's been my father figure as well. During my junior footy days she ran the water for us, she was team manager, she's definitely been my hero and my father figure growing up through sport. She drove me everywhere."

Lamb's mum is made of tough stuff. There was wild celebration at the local pub in Yarram when Jed was drafted by Sydney, but Kerrie noticed that he had disappeared when the Swans announced on national television that they were taking her third son.

"Leading up to the draft my manager told me Hawthorn and the Swans were pretty keen," Lamb said.

"I went to bed the night before the draft hoping Hawthorn would pick me up so I could stay close to the family. Obviously, as one of eight, I'm very close to my brothers and sisters and I've got 12 ­nieces and nephews.

"I was over the moon to be picked up (in the draft) but it hit me pretty hard that I was going to be leaving home.

"I snuck out the back door of the pub and went home and was sobbing. Mum came home and told me to get back down the pub, that I'd be right, so I sucked it, went back down the pub and had a few more beers.

"Mum's been amazing to us."

So amazing that during Lamb's primary school years Kerrie worked at the local abattoirs in the tiny South Gippsland town of Poowong.

"I think all my family apart from my younger sister worked at the abs at some stage," Lamb said.

"I used to go back and stay with my sister when I was 14 or 15. Her husband Nick was boss of the kill floor so he always put us on, which was good.

"Mum worked there for years before we moved to Yarram."

As a result of the family predicament Lamb was the only one of eight children to finish high school.

"They all dropped out of school pretty early and got a job," Lamb said.

"They all wanted to help out mum and fend for themselves."

Through the Giants' links with the University of Western Sydney Lamb has started a business commerce degree part time.

"I'm so grateful just to be playing football. Obviously this year hasn't gone to plan but even so I'm still getting paid to play the game I love," he said.

"There are people out there, as I was, working at jobs like the Poowong Abs.

"It's really hard work and they definitely don't enjoy their job as much as I enjoy mine."

Originally published as Axe murder changed his life

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