Martin Mattner

Martin Mattner (born 6 August 1982) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Sydney Swans and Adelaide Crows in the Australian Football League (AFL).

He then sought to further develop his game and progressed to play with the Imperial Football Club in 1997, and later Sturt, until he was recruited to the Adelaide Football Club for the 2002 season, off of the rookie list.

Debuting with Adelaide as a 19-year-old, Mattner began his career slowly.

This was suggested by former Crows coach Malcolm Blight, as he did with Andrew McLeod and Simon Goodwin in 1997 and 1998.

At the end of the season, he had only missed out on two games due to a calf injury.

He had a career high 27 disposals against St Kilda, and followed that performance with 25 disposals against Geelong playing on the likes of Gary Ablett and Jimmy Bartel.

Also in the game against St Kilda, Mattner had a career high number of kicks and marks playing further in the midfield.

In the year he was elevated off Adelaide's rookie list (2002), Mattner was having to travel up to Adelaide twice a week to train and play football for Sturt.

After being elevated from Adelaide's rookie list at the start of the 2002 season, he played just seven games for the year.

One of his best performances was a game against Geelong where he laid 13 tackles, a feature of his game that he had become noted for.

He picked up 11 disposals in his first game, and then 13 disposals in a win over St Kilda.

He averaged eight disposals a match over his seven games, and had an impressive average of just over three tackles a game.

Much was the same the next year, with coach Gary Ayres displaying a tendency to not play his younger players unless a senior player was injured.

In the 2002 SANFL season, the Double Blues won the premiership over Central District and Mattner was listed among the best players in the Grand Final.

Sturt's end of season trip was to Bali.

Team members were caught up in the 2002 Bali bombings and fellow player Josh Deegan and club official Bob Marshall were killed.

He was able to play ten games in the 2003 season, averaging nine disposals a match, including 21 in a game against the Kangaroos, in the same game as he kicked his first goal.

Mattner during these two years was still young, and was playing well for his local SANFL club Sturt, regularly gathering 20 or more disposals a match as well as laying many bone-crunching tackles.

During the 2004 season, Mattner was seen to improve in a number of areas – averaging eleven disposals and playing 16 matches for the year.

Midway through a disappointing season for the team (where the Crows missed the finals), new coach Neil Craig gave Mattner more opportunity than previous coach Ayres, which helped Mattner grow as a player, another feature becoming noticeable was his run through the midfield.

His new coach also played him more through the wing than Gary Ayres did, giving him more opportunity as a player.

At that time, he had a career equaling 21 disposals in a game against Melbourne, and failed to miss a match after his inclusion in round 7 which shows how well he was performing.

Prior to joining Sydney, he was Adelaide's leading tackler for the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

In 2005, Mattner came of age and so did a younger Crows outfit.

He played all but one match for the season and failed only once to gather more than ten disposals in a disappointing effort against Melbourne.

His average of 16 disposals per game seeing him as an important cog in Adelaide's midfield.

He also had 98 tackles, which was the highest of any Crows player in the season.

His long left-foot kicking, often described as "raking" and "accurate" by television commentators, was vital in setting up many of Adelaide's forward thrusts.

He missed just one game in the season, which was in round 22, but failed to have a 15 disposal plus game in any of the Crows' three finals.

Adelaide was knocked out of the finals race by West Coast in the preliminary final.

In the 2006 season, Mattner missed out on two games due to a calf injury.

In 2006, Mattner started to play on a half-back flank, keeping a smaller player relatively quiet and gaining many possessions of his own.

He was traded to Sydney from the Crows in October 2007 in exchange for draft pick number 28.

Mattner grew up in a small town called Ki Ki, which is 150 kilometres south-east of Adelaide.

He retired midway through the 2013 AFL season, succumbing to his ongoing hip injury.

He took up a coaching role with the Sydney Swans as a development coach until the end of the 2015 season.

In October 2015, Mattner was announced as the head coach of Sturt.

Martin Mattner is one of the few players to win a SANFL Premiership as a player, a SANFL Premiership as a coach and an AFL Premiership as a player.

Mattner grew up in the tiny southeast South Australian town of Ki Ki.

He attended Coomandook Area School and played some junior football with the Peake and Districts Football Club.