Essendon FC
Born: 8 October 1988
Height: 187cm
Weight: 84kg
Junior Club: Coorparoo/ Wests Juniors
Senior Club: UQ Bulldogs/Morningside
Schools: Brisbane Grammar
Regional Selection:
Queensland Selection: U21 (2007)
Draft Details: Selection #5 (1st round) 2008 Pre-Season Draft; Selection #65 2010 Rookie Draft
AFL Debut: Essendon v St.Kilda, Telstra Dome, Round 22, 2009, (31 August)
Jumper Number: 24
AT A GLANCE: An athletic wingman/forward who was drafted by Essendon less than two years after committing himself seriously to football and despite two shoulder reconstructions in 2007. Having dabbled with the game as a junior, he only returned to football when he began studying at University of Queensland in 2006, enjoying a social game with his mates at AFL Queensland third division level. Such was his obvious potential he was recruited by first division club Morningside as he began a rapid climb to AFL ranks.
He represented Queensland at U21 level in 2007 before his season was cut short by a left shoulder reconstruction. Still he loomed as a top-30 draft pick until a freakish training accident soon after he'd returned to training necessitated a reconstruction of his right shoulder. It was enough to cost him selection in the 2007 National Draft but Essendon had seen enough and gleefully snapped him up with their first pick in the 2008 Pre-Season Draft. He played the entire 2008 season with the Bendigo Bombers in the VFL and was twice a senior emergency before making his debut in the Round 22 clash with St.Kilda at Telstra Dome.
After he was a senior emergency in Rounds 67 of second season he was sidelined for a month with a broken finger. Then in July disaster struck. He dislocated his shoulder playing in the VFL. It was season over. And in September the club chose to perform reconstructive surgery on both shoulders. He was de-listed to make room for further draftees but was promised a 2010 rookie contract and a further chance to rebuild a career which hasn’t yet been allowed to deliver on its full potential. If there’s any justice there will be more AFL football to come, but already its been a remarkable journey for a young man who began 2007 as a second-year science and economics student at the University of Queensland and social footballer keen to elevate his game from third division at AFL Queensland level to first division.
Football wasn’t exactly foreign to him or his family ... not at all. Born in Adelaide before moving to Brisbane with his family aged six, he played early juniors at Coorparoo and had a casual kick with Wests Juniors in 2005. But through what are normally the formative years for a professional sportsman his sporting focus at Brisbane Grammar School was on the school sports of cricket, soccer and athletics. Only when he began at UQ in 2006 and signed on with the UQ Bulldogs did he get a chance to really return to football, which he says was always his No.1 sporting love.
He even boasts a special football pedigree. His grandfather John O'Connell, his mother's father, played 81 VFL games with Geelong from 1955-60 and 156 WAFL games for Claremont either side of his stint with the Cats. A mobile 193cm ruckman, he represented WA 10 times and even played for the "Big V" of Victoria once. In retirement he was a long-serving Claremont president after whom the main grandstand at the club's headquarters is named and is a WAFL Life Member. And he has two uncles, both originally from Claremont, who played AFL football - David O'Connell played 27 games at West Coast (1988-90) and 21 games at Fitzroy (1991-93) and Michael O'Connell played 20 games at West Coast (87-88).
Williams had had started in the reserves at Morningside in 2007 but by Round 5 had found his way into the seniors. And after just four senior games he was selected in the Blair-coached Queensland U21 side for clash with the Victorian Amateur U19s at Elsternwick in Melbourne on Sunday 10 June 2007. It was on that day that Williams really stamped his AFL potential. Coming off the bench to play on the wing, he was among the Maroons' best as they withstood a blistering opening and a withering finish from the home side to register a 15-point win and claim the Shane Johnson Cup in a highly entertaining contest.
Four weeks later, just as AFL scouts were planning trips to Brisbane to study more closely his talents, his season was over. Still, despite his limited football, he polled 28 votes to finish fourth in the QAFL Rising Star Award, behind Labrador pair Mathew Clarke (37) and Daniel Stewart (32), Broadbeach's Queensland U18 captain Dayne Zorko (31) and ahead of Morningside clubmate Damien Bonney (26) and Zillmere's ex-Essendon draftee Austin Lucy (26).
He was invited to the NAB AFL Draft Camp in Canberra with six other Queenslanders - Brendan Whitecross and Sam Reid, who would later be drafted by Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs respectively, James Mulligan, later to become a Bulldogs rookie and subsequent listee, and youngsters Joey Daye, Joel Smouha and David Hill.
