BM) Congratulations Jack on 10 years in the AFL, how would you sum it up?

JZ) Firstly, thanks for that. I actually received life membership this year at North Melbourne, that’s probably my greatest achievement in my footy career so far to be part of the North Melbourne family for 10 years. It’s funny when you first get drafted Adam Simpson, (Brent) ‘Boomer’ Harvey and those guys were chatting with the young guys and said, ‘boys, make sure you enjoy your career because it goes really quickly’. With a few of my mates (you think), ‘yeah mate, sort of whatever, I’ve got a long career ahead of me’, but, in a blink, it does go very quickly.

BM) So that’s been the highlight?

JZ) From an individual point of view, it is. I remember when I first got drafted sitting down with Sammy Wright, my Murray Bushrangers’ team-mate, and at the first best and fairest we went to, Leigh Harding got a life membership and we both sat there that day and said, ‘that would be our number one goal, to be life members at North’ and we both got to do it together and that’s very special to us.

BM) You had a couple of broken legs in your first few years, what impact did that have?

JZ) It had a big impact, I probably wasn’t as fit as I should have been when I was drafted, so I probably started behind the eight ball. I broke my leg in my first year, which held me back, and once I got back in my second year, I wasn’t playing great football and just as I started to get going, I broke it again, and a little bit worse this time, it probably sat my development back a few years. It does make you think whether you are good enough to play at the level when you keep getting injured. In saying that, it did help me a little bit as well, you realise how lucky you are when you are fit and from that point I didn’t want to miss too much football and I’ve been pretty lucky since.

BM) It’s interesting to say you weren’t fit enough, you always came across as a super fit teenager?

JZ) Every kid when he’s 15 to 18 who wants to play AFL, with all the rep programs, is fit, but when you get into an AFL club, that’s a whole different ball game. The guys spend all day, every day on their fitness and their physical conditioning and I probably didn’t know what it took to be an AFL player. But I could not speak highly enough of the club to be able to get myself into a position to play AFL footy.

BM) You were made captain ahead of the 2017 season, what did you learn about yourself and the role?

JZ) There’s a few things you don’t know a captain does until you become a captain. There’s a lot of other commitments you need to do and a little bit more responsibility in terms of helping the club’s profile and helping the club off the field as well. I just assumed, and it was probably a little bit naive to think that a captain was someone who helped his mates on and off the field and that was about it. Once you get your head around it, it’s a great job to have and I couldn’t be happier in the position.

BM) It was a tough start, a number of the older players, like Brent Harvey, retired, how difficult was that?

JZ) It was very sad to see those guys go. I think once you’re inside the four walls of an AFL football club, you know how the industry works and, unfortunately for those guys, it was the end of their careers. But, for us inside, life goes on and as soon as day one of pre-season rolled around, a lot of the younger players realised there were probably four spots up for grabs, so all we did was get straight back into work.

BM) It was a tough time on field as well, losing the first five games. 

JZ) We went from a very experienced group to a very young group and I think we lost three of those games by two or three points. Although we started 0-5, they (the players) never once gave up and never faltered in their approach. As a leadership group we were questioning things we were doing, but we were lucky enough to have a really solid playing group and with Brad Scott as coach, we knew that whatever happened, our processes wouldn’t change and we stuck to that and it worked out and that gave us a lot of confidence into the future.

BM) You’ve been such a courageous player with so many off-seasons disrupted due to surgery, how many surgeries have you had?

JZ) I’ve had two knee surgeries, hip, foot and toe and I’ve also had three shoulder surgeries and the two broken legs. There were a few other things in there that I skipped on surgery, (I’ll have) one or two other things fixed up at the end of the career as well, so I’m looking forward to 40 mate, it should be fun (laughs).

BM) You had ‘minor’ knee surgery following the last season, do you expect to start 2019 as fresh as you have for years, given those bouts of off-season surgeries?

JZ) I hope so. The last few years I’ve done minimal pre-Christmas on the field to then maximise it in January and February and hit the ground fit and fresh for the next year.

BM) Given those injuries, do you think you will get a ‘full’ career?

JZ) I think I will, the medical team at North are always outstanding and they’re always putting your best interests at heart.

BM) Every player wants to say he got the best out of himself, you’ve obviously got some years left of course, but can you say that?

JZ) I think so, I can say within myself that I’ve given everything I’ve had in 10 years and I’ll continue to do so until the day I finish.

BM) You moved forward this year from the midfield, what did you make of that?

JZ) I really enjoyed it, I played a lot of junior football as a forward and last season we had a little more depth in the midfield. I’ll do a bit more work this pre-season on improving my ball craft.