‘Wish I had done it a couple of years ago:’ Oliver on Dees years, trade and the diagnosis that changed his life

It was Jake Stringer who made the most telling contribution during the Giants first catch-up with former Demon Clayton Oliver on the back of a boat named Blue Goose in Sydney Harbour early in the trade period.

Just 24 hours had elapsed since a hastily-arranged, short and sharp meeting with new Demons coach Steven King had unexpectedly put the 28-year-old on the trade table.

The four-time best and fairest winner’s head was still spinning as his future suddenly shifted direction and Giants’ coach Adam Kingsley, football manager Jason McCartney and players Stringer, Tom Green, Finn Callaghan and Lachie Ash joined him for a chat.

“I wish I had come up here years ago,” Stringer told Oliver.

Not long afterwards, Oliver became a Giant in exchange for a future third round pick and with the Demons paying roughly half his wage on a contract that finishes in 2030.

Now, about six months after that conversation, and on the eve of his first match with the Giants, Oliver sits in the humidity at Giants HQ wearing an orange singlet and says with a wry smile he is beginning to feel the same way as Stringer.

“I wish I had done it a couple of years ago as well. It would have been nice. I should have come up in 2023. It would have saved me a couple of years,” Oliver said.

It was 2023 when his career began to drift off course at Melbourne following a hamstring injury midway through that season and a bone chipping away in his knee when he returned.

A range of personal and health issues emerged. He was put on indefinite leave as controversy swirled around his off-field behaviour. He then battled a broken hand in 2024 before an attempt to become a Geelong player that October failed. Last year he settled into a better rhythm only for Melbourne’s new regime to show him the exit.

Oliver knows he made mistakes at Melbourne but doesn’t dwell on them, preferring to adopt a never complain, never explain philosophy as he attempts to resurrect his career at his new club.

“I had a good eight years at Melbourne, probably the last two years weren’t great. I am happy playing footy again, happy to be in a good spot and looking forward to a good year,” he said.

“They wanted to go a different way, which is fine, all the best.”

Another aspect of life that is giving Oliver renewed optimism heading into the season is that he is finding ways to manage Crohn’s disease, after being diagnosed with the condition midway through 2023, about the same time he suffered a serious hamstring injury.

At the Giants he has worked closely with dietitian Mel Juergens and feels as though, working together, they are getting on top of what he needs to be well.

“I have got Crohn’s [disease],” Oliver said.

“It’s a bit annoying. I can’t eat too much. I get an injection once a week and that settles it down pretty good. I can’t have gluten, lactose and fructose and a fair list of things.”

Crohn’s disease is a chronic condition that causes inflammation in the digestive tract affecting an estimated 100,000 Australians. Oliver explains it affects people differently, which is why it can take time to create an effective management plan.

“You have to go through a trial and error sort of system [and] find out that certain things make me feel sick and lethargic. I think I have finally got on top of that in the last couple of months. Our dietitian Mel has been unbelievable with all that and helping me,” Oliver said.

“It’s probably the best I have felt training in ages and purely from Mel.”

Oliver is matter of fact about the reality of carrying that condition while playing elite sport.

“Everyone’s battling, everyone’s got something. I am not the only person who has something wrong with me,” Oliver said.

“There’s heaps of boys with heaps of things going on so it’s not poor me or anything. I take it in my stride.”

That stride has become one of the more familiar ones in football, particularly when it was streaming out of Melbourne’s midfield during his 2021 and 2022.

In those two seasons he won a flag, polled Norm Smith Medal votes, earned back-to-back best-and-fairest awards and All-Australian selection, finished third in the Brownlow and won the Coaches Association award two years running.

No wonder Giants captain Toby Greene said on Wednesday Oliver’s stoppage craft was as good as anyone in the game in the past 10 years.

“He will build into the year as it goes,” Greene said. “He’s a good player.”

The skipper has seen the Giants revitalise the career of player after player who left their previous club under a cloud. He knows the recipe to get Oliver cooking again.

And after the season-ending injury to Tom Green, the recruit is no longer an added extra to the midfield, Oliver is suddenly a crucial cog in the machine. His ability to get from contest to contest is elite and will shine even more under new rules which will see the ball thrown up immediately.

And his sharp hands are not his only weapon as the red (headed) rattler’s ability to drive out of stoppage into space is underestimated.

Oliver said he was “shattered” when Green hurt his knee just three quarters into their first match simulation together as he was looking forward to causing some damage with him alongside him.

Now, he says, everyone at the Giants has to give that little extra because last year’s best and fairest winner is sidelined, but he remains confident the team can remain a force. Asked whether he can return to the form he showed up until 2022, Oliver is non-committal, saying he never knows what is ahead.

“Before that 2021 season I never thought I was going to be that good anyway,” he said.

“The way individuals get recognised is by being in a successful team. It is no point being a good player in a shit team, I am a big believer in that,” Oliver said.

He could think of nothing better than turning up at the MCG on grand final day with his former Melbourne teammate, friend and now housemate Toby Bedford, in an attempt to win a flag for the Giants.

“I wouldn’t mind winning one at the ‘G. Our one was in Perth, I will still take it definitely, but I wouldn’t mind one [at the ’G],” he said.

Oliver has settled into his new Paddington home as just another face on a Sydney street, a world away from Melbourne where every move, good and bad, was monitored.

“Every now and again, I get a few hellos but nothing like [in] Melbourne,” Oliver said. “I love it, to walk around and be a normal person, it’s pretty underrated.

“When you’re an 18-year-old and 19-year-old, it’s pretty cool to be recognised by other people and all that and everyone loves it, but you get a bit sick of it after 10 years. To have a refresher up here and a bit of breathing space has been nice.”

Perhaps he should have done it years ago.

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