Typical of his humble nature, he still doesn’t rate his own abilities, calling himself a ‘plodder’, but one thing Paul Duffield could always do is kick the football, well. 

Perhaps it had something to do with growing up in Darkan, a tiny town on the edge of the Wheatbelt 200km southeast of Perth, where sheep and wheat kept things ticking over.

“I only really had myself to kick to down on the farm so I had to make sure I kicked it well,” Duffield says.

Maybe it was in his blood.

His father, Wayne, was an accomplished footballer who played wing and defence for West Arthur Football Club in the Upper Great Southern Football League.

“My old man was very skilful, right and left side,” Duffield says.

“He was a very hard worker on the farm and had a young family, and he decided his priority was family, not football, so we didn't get to see a lot of him play when we were younger.

“He was a very good country footballer, and so were my uncles and the family is very sporting.”

Duffield’s talents saw him move to Perth at the age of 15 and board at Aquinas College – an institution that has produced the likes of Daniel Kerr and Quinten Lynch, who Paul played with, and AFL stars Ben Allan, Peter Bell, Simon Black and Nat Fyfe.

He was rookie drafted by the Fremantle Dockers in 2003 and again in 2005. Duffield believes his kicking skills got him drafted, but, despite his skills, his career struggled to take off.

“I think I played 24 AFL games in my first five years and I played about 70 or 80 games of WAFL league,” he says.

But thanks to what he calls some incredible support, he started making inroads.

“I was lucky enough to have some great people around me, some fantastic family support as well as some great coaches that helped me along the way,” Duffield says.

He realised that to make it in the AFL, he had to continue striving to get better.

“I had to keep improving, I wasn't overly talented, and I'm still not, I'm a bit of a plodder,” Duffield says.

“I had to keep working very hard to keep improving, and if you keep knocking on the door long enough, eventually you either open it or you knock it down.”

While he became a regular member of the Freo team, there were still instances where Duffield found himself dropped back to WAFL level.

He says his coaches have been significant in helping him find the consistency required to play AFL week in, week out.

“I probably can credit Chris Scott for having a significant influence when he was here, and also Mick Prior and Ross Lyon, as well as all my coaches,” Duffield says.

Duffield credits his current coach Lyon for helping him realise the preparation required to take his game to the next level over the past two years.

“Preparation to make sure that how I went about training and preparing day in, day out to be a professional footballer,” he says.

“I think people say all the time 'I wish I could go back five or six years and take what I know now into a younger body, but that was one thing Ross came along straight away with, a really professional attitude to everything you do, being smart with the way you manage your time.

“That's been significant in me learning to be amore professional footballer and just striving to improve on the little things day in, day out."

Now 29, Duffield sits on 149 AFL games, one away from becoming eligible for life membership at Fremantle.

“To me, it's really significant and very important,” he says.

“It's something that I've looked forward to but will really cherish for the rest of my time.

“There's been a lot of hard work and a lot of hard effort put in by a lot of people to get to this point in time.

“It's a great thing to have and I'm really honoured.”

That door that Duffield spoke about has been well and truly beaten down.

“At some stage I had to make the choice to knock it down and go forward with my career and make something of it,” he says.

“Looking back on that, it's something that I'm proud of, making something out of something that might not have happened.”