Off The Ball | ‘A juggling act’: How James Harney manages footy, farming and captaincy

But that’s exactly what James Harney manages to do, week in, week out, as captain of Echuca United.

"It's a bit of a juggling act,” he said.

“It helps a bit when my younger brother Joe — he plays with me at Echuca United as well — we work together, and you do try to prioritise work and getting the jobs done on time.

“It just might mean you work a bit later on a Monday or a Wednesday, and then if it works in and there's no weather coming, you can knock off at 5-5.30 on a Tuesday and Thursday to get out to training and do that.

“Sometimes you have to go back to work and finish a job after footy training, but we try to manage our time around it.

“Sometimes like this week we've been battling, it’s been a bit wetter, so neither of us have made training this week, but it’s just a juggling act.”

While the long days out in the fields often get in the way of football, they have also been beneficial for the Eagles’ #5.

Speak to anyone at Echuca United, and they will tell you that Harney oozes leadership out of his ears, something the man himself attributes to growing up on the family farm.

"I have been doing that over a long time,” he said.

“I don’t know if that comes working with my old man, and then at a younger age taking on some organising roles and decision-making at the farm I’m working in with Dad, and at times running it a bit now, you just get used to that.

“At Elmore I played 10 years of senior footy, and I think I was captain for nearly seven of them. It’s just something that I put the effort in to get to training and be around the group as much as possible and try to help in any way.

“You gain a lot of respect from that, I can see that people respect things that I have to say, and I just want to help make people better and then you get into a leadership role, and that just doesn't faze me.

“I enjoy it, I'm quite happy to try and help people as much as I can while I try and play my best footy as well, and the more I can help others, the better as a team we are. You're not going to do much as an individual in a 22-man team.”

As a leader, Harney’s standing as captain at Elmore was well established, having played 196 games for the Bloods.

But at the end of the 2021 season, he made the switch to Echuca United after encountering the now Eagles coach Farran Priest at Elmore.

“It was a big connection just on seeing and meeting a person with a football background like Farran,” Harney said of the move.

“Even though he didn’t get to play as many games as he could have when we would have liked at Elmore, it was just meeting him.

“At the end of season, when you get rung by a coach or potential coach or something that you don't know from a different club that you don't know much about, sometimes it's hard to make that link.

“I had known Farran a little bit and respected the way he spoke about football and what he wanted to achieve as the coach, and the way he went about his meetings and recruiting and all that connection stuff was really something I really enjoyed.”

A senior figure in what is a young and inexperienced Echuca United side, Harney has played the role of mentor to what he considers a “committed group.”

“Nearly every week we're a different side because we are so young,” he said.

“Each week, you’ll take another little thing out of the game, and a young 18- or 19-year-old player will apply that the following game, and then you just keep building on that.

“We’re a much better side than last year, we’re even a better side at times than earlier this year, and we just keep building because the way that the group is, they never take a backward step from making training or getting something out of training.

“You've always got the blokes on the park even after a tough loss or a loss at any stage, you don't drop off numbers at training or effort at training because it’s just a committed group to getting better.”

With a reputation as a high-flying forward, Harney is supremely confident in his ability in the air without crossing the threshold of arrogance.

The Eagles’ spearhead also converts his marks into scores, having this week taken the lead in the Murray League goal-kicking tally after a big bag of eight against Tocumwal.

“I am a good mark, so I just think, well, if I can get up into the pack or just jump, I’m a better chance of marking,” he said.

“Against some of the stronger defenders I’ve played against, if I can’t leave the ground they can sort of out-muscle me a little bit, but if I can run and jump, I’ll back myself 99 per cent of the time.

“Even since under-17, under-18 football, that was the type of forward I’ve always been, a jump and try to mark it type.”

That notion is backed up with results — coming into his under-18 season with Rochester off the back of a broken ankle, Harney kicked 72 goals to win the Goulburn Valley League’s under-18 goal kicking award.

“I'd always played at Elmore in under-17s footy growing up there,” Harney said.

“But that one gap year between under-17s and trying to play senior footy, I chose to go and play at Rochy with all of my Year 11 and 12 mates.

“Not too many of the Rochy elders knew who I was, but there were a few mates who just said ‘nah just let him play, get him to play full-forward,’ and I was lucky enough to play at full-forward.

“Rochy had a good side, a lot of them are playing now — Nath Marrone, Nick O’Connor and Mitch Bright and those blokes, they were all in that side and I generally got pretty good service.”

Rochester would ultimately lose the grand final to Shepparton Bears that year, and Harney took his services back to Elmore.

When the move from the Bloods to Echuca United eventuated, it was a family affair, with younger brother Joe joining James, albeit at the opposite end of the ground.

“He's played a season and a half that has been his best footy he's played,” Harney said.

“It’s always good standing in the goal square at the other end and you look down and they look like they’re going to kick it to the main forward, and his long arms come in and chop it off or he takes an intercept mark.”

Just how good Joe’s form has been of late is evident when looking at the Eagles’ best players against Rumbalara, when Joe took the best-on-ground honours from James, despite the elder of the two kicking 12 goals.

“I don't know, you’ll have to take that up with Todd Ramage,” Harney said, laughing.

“He might have got our long sleeve jumpers mixed up, I’m not sure what happened there. They did the awards after the game, but I’m not too worried. I kicked those goals, but the majority of the work was done by the other boys.”

Echuca United will face Moama this Saturday in the Three Jacks Trophy clash, with Harney leading the Eagles’ charge to reclaim the cup.