The ruckman is slowing winning his battle to bulge. In fact, he has grown higher as well as wider. He arrived at the Western Bulldogs three years ago at 205cm tall. He is now “207 or 8”cm tall, which puts him just behind Mason Cox, Aaron Sandilands and Jarrod Witts. He came to the club weighing 87 kilograms. Now he’s 100kg, he says but then he blushes. He does that a lot, blush that is. So much so that Daniel Giansiracusa dubbed him Chilly for the fiery red his face goes. Luke Dalhaus picked up on the name and ran with it. Whenever in a quiet moment in team meetings Dahlhaus would slyly mutter “Chilly”. All eyes would quickly turn expectantly to the big man who cannot hide in a crowd and he would dutifully oblige and with flaming red cheeks on command. So, when he blushes when he talks about his weight, firstly that is not uncommon and secondly it leaves you wondering if he has really reached the three figures or he is a bit embarrassed that he is bending the numbers. It doesn’t matter, he is getting there. It requires diligent work to fight against his body burning off the calories before it adds muscle and weight. It’s a genetic thing. His brother is the same height but he comes in at the rakishly thin 87kg. He’s not allowed outside in high winds lest he breaks. Tim English is among the tallest AFL players. Credit:AAP

On Sunday, English was confronted with two windows on his life in football. There was Mason Cox – a player of similar physical dimensions who was playing forward (on Sunday he didn’t play second ruck which he normally does). And there was Brodie Grundy. There are similarities about Grundy and English’s paths (if not their games). Like Grundy, English entered his national draft touted as the best ruckman in the pool and a likely top 10 draft pick. But clubs are reluctant to risk high draft picks on slow burn rucks so like Grundy English slid from to be taken at 19 (Grundy went 18). They both then carried first ruck within two years of being in the system. Like Grundy English’s running and ability to run out games is an asset. The strength is the difference. “Grundy’s strength is something that didn’t catch me by surprise but is something I find hard at this stage to be able to combat,’’ English said. Grundy is four years older. “Through years of ruck coaching he has also got better technique as well as his strength and that makes him hard to play against.

“It is hard, physical strength does not come naturally for me at the moment. I spend a lot of hours in the gym tying to build up my body.” It has been a battle, not only to push himself to add the weight and strength, but to challenge the presumptions he would have to wait for his body before he could play. “Initially the thoughts of everyone was ‘it’s a minimum three to four years before he’d be ready to play’ but for me I was not coming in to make up numbers; I wanted to play straight away and knew I could bring something to the side from day one. It was my life dream – I was not going to sit back and drift along developing and say, ‘Give me time’.” English knew what it was to be patient. He was not drafted in the first year he ought to have been eligible. There was a glitch. English is off the farm, a 2630 hectares of grain crops and sheep outside the wheat-belt town of Pengilly, south-east of Perth. The farming service town is better known for producing Nicky Winmar than wheat. Leroy Jetta is from there, too. English’s mum taught him at school.

When he was 12 Tim went to boarding school in Perth. It was tough early but he adjusted. His brother is two years older and was already there to help him settle in. Being tall and sporty also helped. A weird arm that wouldn’t let him bowl properly meant he was a batsman and wicketkeeper. At his size he made slips redundant. Hockey was his main game. As he got older and more involved at footy he would go down from school to Claremont and use their gym and train with the Colts team. At the end of the year he put in a registration to play Colts for Claremont. It was rejected. He was tied to South Fremantle because that was the zone for Pengilly. “I put in rego again next week and failed again, then it was finals so Icouldn’t play a Colts game, which meant I couldn’t register for the draft so I missed ... that year,’’ he said. “That was probably good for me in the end I got to go away and have a bit of time with schoolmates. I went back to South Fremantle and spent a year developing in Colts and played a (WAFL) game late in the year.”