The tragic death of former football star Cam McCarthy has moved An AFL legend Dermot Brereton.
McCarthy was on GWS giants in 2014 and 2015 and met Brereton, who was employed by the club to mentor their young players.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: Fremantle players in tears during Cam McCarthy stand.
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Brereton, one of the greatest forwards of all time, naturally spent time with the young goaltender, who was finding his feet in the game after being drafted with pick 14 in 2013.
Speaking on radio station SEN on Saturday, Brereton said the scenes at the start of Friday night’s clash between Fremantle and Sydney made he emotional.
McCarthy moved to Fremantle after his brief stint with the Giants and his former teammates Nat Fyfe, Alex Pearce and Michael Walters were involved in the game against the swans.
Early in the match, the cameras caught the emotion of it all, with Fyfe and Pearce visibly upset.
“It touched me to see Alex Pearce and Nat Fyfe just break up,” Brereton said.
“It was extremely sad.
“(McCarthy) was just a really handsome young man who got lost…
“(He) had some internal problems himself. To the McCarthy family, please accept my and our heartfelt, deepest sympathies.
Brereton revealed he had been in touch with McCarthy since his years at GWS.
“I haven’t spoken to him in probably two to three years and obviously a lot has happened in that time,” he said.
“His number is still on (my) phone…
“I looked at him this morning and stared at him and thought, knowing what happened, ‘Did we do enough?’ … ‘Did I talk to him enough?’
“Not that (I was) deep in his life, but he was calling me after he left the Giants and asking me about things when he was at Fremantle.”
Brereton said former Giants football manager Graham Allen was also a McCarthy fan.
“Gubby (Allen) would say to me … ‘I’ve got a great talent in a guy named Jeremy Cameron, (but) there’s a couple of other guys I think you could do something with.’
“Cam came a year or two later and he was the bravest in the air by far.
“He wanted to shoot himself off his feet.”
There were more emotional scenes at the end of the game as Pearce and Fyfe paid their last respects to their former team-mate.
Flowers should have been handed out by Fremantle players to mothers around, given Mother’s Day is on Sunday, if the Dockers had won.
That didn’t happen after the loss, but the two Dockers veterans found another use for them.
The two went down together to the door from which McCarthy had led so many times to lay flowers in his honor.
“A touching tribute from former and current captain, Nat Fyfe and Alex Pearce,” former Fremantle captain Matthew Pavlich said.
“(They) played a lot of footy and spent a lot of time with Cam McCarthy, both during his career and after.
“You can see what an emotional night it was for the players who played, but everyone in the stadium and everyone part of the GWS Giants and Fremantle football clubs.”
Adam Papalia said the terrible news would be heavy baggage for the Dockers players to take into the game.
“Tough night for the Fremantle Football Club to have to go to work after something like this,” he said.
“It would have been really shocking news for all the players this morning.”
– With Harrison Reed
If you need help in a crisis, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For more information about depression, contact Afterblue on 1300224636 or talk to your GP, local health professional or someone you trust.
