The bond that catapulted Ballarat boys Kai Lohmann and Sam Butler to the AFL

If a club is lucky enough, it may have a handful of photos of their pride and joys across the past 100 years. Some don’t have any.

Lake Wendouree Football Club in Ballarat is no exception. For 75 years, only eight junior players are known to have graduated to AFL ranks.

But in 2022, that group swelled to 10.

Kai Lohmann’s debut for Brisbane in round five and Sam Butler’s debut for Hawthorn in round nine means the Lakers will soon need to frame two more photos side-by-side on their wall.

It’s symbolic given the two best mates have been that way since the day they met.

*****

David Loader is a heart-and-soul footy person who was able to turn that love into a career. Various country playing and coaching stints landed him the coaching job at the North Ballarat Rebels under-18s team, and a stint as assistant coach at North Melbourne, before landing back to coach the renamed Greater Western Victoria Rebels under-18s during the AFL’s Covid cuts.

His involvement in elite footy didn’t stop him also embracing the local Lake Wendouree Football Netball Club when his children joined.

“It’s such a welcoming club and they got me involved in coaching. It’s been a big part of our lives over the last 13 years,” he says.

Loader’s son Flynn and Butler became firm friends when they started playing under-10s together at the Lakers. A few years later Lohmann’s family moved to Ballarat from Maryborough and joined the other two boys at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat. Soon enough, he joined their footy club too.

“We’ve been best mates since,” Lohmann tells CodeSports.

Butler agrees. “We started doing everything together.”

Loader describes the three as “inseparable”, and given his coaching pedigree he took extra notice of the two kids who were turning heads at underage games.

“It’s a throw at the dart board to judge a kid when he’s 15, but they certainly had attributes,” says Loader.

“Sam was such a hard worker and quick. If it was going to be a hard day ahead of us, you wanted Sammy Butler in your side. He’d push himself to the point where he could hardly stand up, but he’d find a way to keep going.

“Kai was a little bit different, an excitement machine. He would find ways to do something extraordinary when you needed it. You’d think he’d been quiet and then he’d kick four goals in 10 minutes.

“It was quite extraordinary to have a group as talented as that playing together all the way through at Lake Wendouree.”

*****

A path to the AFL became realistic for the pair when Sam’s older brother Dan Butler made his AFL debut for Richmond in 2015. A premiership in his first season and later All-Australian squad selection at St Kilda fired the younger Butler’s imagination

“Once Dan got drafted, I wanted to have a real crack at it. It was going to be my chance to play against him!” says Butler, but it also had an effect on Lohmann.

“My older brother went through the Rebels with Dan and didn’t get drafted, so seeing his disappointment, but also Dan’s career unfold was a real motivator,” he says.

The pair and others from the Lakers’ gang made it into the elite Rebels squad, and by the time they reached the under-18 NAB League, their mate’s dad and sometime junior coach Loader was the man in charge. That gifted group from Lake Wendouree contributed five players to the Rebels’ best 22.

The commitment that developed during those Covid-affected seasons still impresses Loader today.

“Covid asked young athletes who wanted it most, and Sam and Kai stepped up. They’d get up at 6am on school holidays and run laps of footy ovals,” Loader says.

Butler and Lohmann lived five minutes away from each other when Victoria was placed into lockdown, with exercise the only excuse to leave home.

”We would meet at the oval and just work our arses off. We loved hanging out as much as we loved training together,” says Lohmann.

And new challenges were found.

“When footy was called off for the season we did a few half-marathons, so we had something to work towards,” Butler says, and Lohmann credits that time for their ascension in draft calculations.

“We really knuckled down during that Covid period and that’s where I reckon we took off.”

“There was a wonderful healthy rivalry between those two boys,” says Loader. “I have no shadow of a doubt they drove one another to be better.”

“We pushed each other every day,” Lohmann says. “It got aggressive at times but it made us better.”

*****

AFL scouts agreed as the phones rang hot during 2021, but before draft time the kids who’d met at Lake Wendouree had a final debt to repay to the junior club that meant so much to them.

North Ballarat Football Club sits next door to Lake Wendouree, casting a literal shadow. The club that spent time in the VFL is the biggest in the region and equal parts loathed, feared and admired by other clubs around town. If there’s one game Lake Wendouree strives to win each year, it’s against its neighbouring Goliath.

Sam, Kai and Flynn all returned to make their senior debuts on the same day for Lake Wendouree, helping them to a memorable seven-point win over their arch rivals.

Playing alongside his older brother and against adults was a thrill for Lohmann, but he says the celebrations were a little subdued.

“Sammy got a knock, so I had to take him to the hospital afterwards to get stitches.”

Loader says it was a proud day for all the families who’d watched their journey together.

“It was such a nice touch to see them put on that Lakers jumper together before they went off to an AFL career.”

The odds of having two players drafted in the one season are long. To have two best mates from the one junior club drafted within three picks of each other is a miracle. But that’s how the 2021 Draft panned out, even if they had to wait a day between knowing their football futures.

Lohmann went with the last pick in the first round (20th overall) on night one. The next night Butler was selected with the third pick of the second round (pick 23 overall), joining Rebels teammates Josh Gibcus and Ben Hobbs who’d gone earlier.

Lohmann expected Butler to be picked first.

“He came straight over to my place (after Lohmann was picked) and was so proud, despite still waiting to be picked.”

Now officially a Lions player, Lohmann was required in Melbourne the next afternoon for his first club function. After shaking many hands, he found that Butler had been picked and managed to quietly slip away.

“As soon as his name got read out I jumped in the car and drove straight back to Ballarat to his house,” Lohmann says. “It was a really special moment, hugging him and knowing all the hard work had paid off.”

*****

Loader thinks the two boys would have barely spent a day apart in five years, but now they’re at opposite ends of Australia. It hasn’t stopped daily texts and weekly phone calls. Nor the natural banter of mates.

“To see Kai surviving up in Brisbane by himself is pretty surprising,” Butler says. “Because his mum did everything for him.”

“Sam’s girlfriend is the only reason he’s surviving out of home,” retorts Lohmann.

The two will catch up in the mid-season bye back in Ballarat, and plan to go holidaying together in the off-season, but the cross-country chats have also been serious at times. Butler’s mentor at Hawthorn is Luke Breust, but he also called upon his old teammate and two-game AFL veteran Lohmann for advice before his first game.

“He was pretty helpful, he told me it would be physical and quick,” says Butler. “And he was right, after the game I realised how mentally and physically switched on you have to be at AFL level. You can’t expect things.”

Lohmann thinks Butler handled it well. “I had to turn off my phone on the day of my debut I was that nervous, so I just said keep to yourself and maybe put the phone on silent for the day.”

*****

Today’s round 10 fixture between Brisbane and Hawthorn in Launceston was circled as a possible day the two might play against each other for the first time. Lohmann’s ankle injury means that the much-anticipated clash will have to wait, as Butler prepares for game number two.

The boys think most of the Lake Wendouree Football Club will be in attendance if they do end up playing against each other on the MCG in the future.

“It would be a life goal. There’ll be that many Ballarat people there, they’ll fill a whole stand!” says Lohmann.

“They will all come down, and they’ll barrack for me because I was at Lake Wendouree for slightly longer,” jokes Butler. “They’ll all be Hawkers for the day.”

Loader says it will be an emotional day for all the families involved in the journey. “We’ll all sit together and enjoy it immensely.”

And maybe, hopefully many years, down the track they will be reunited back home where the friendship started.

“Lakers are my roots, I’ve been there since I was in grade two,” says Butler. “I’m sure we’ll meet back at Lake Wendouree one day in the future and play together again.”

Lohmann agrees.

“If we could do that one day, Sam, myself, Flynn, my brother and Dan, that would be pretty awesome. Sam would be sitting in the goalsquare with a bit of a belly!”

As Loader sits in the Lake Wendouree clubrooms you sense he’s as proud of their bond as he will be of anything they achieve in an AFL career.

“They will be lifelong friends.”