Travis was recruited from Park Orchards/ Eastern Ranges of Victoria, Australia. He was drafted to feature as a key position player with the capacity of a back-up ruckman. His father as well as two older brothers had also played at Collingwood. He joined one of his older brothers at the club before the brother eventually left for another one.
Professional Football Career
Travis had his debut the following year after he was drafted in the fifth round. It was on April 25th 2005 in the match against Essendon when he was introduced into the game. He had a very impressive game in front of the 70,000 capacity crowd and ended the game with 16 disposals, 8 inside 50’s and kicking a goal. From that day onwards for the rest of the season, he became a regular feature in the team, playing fourteen out of the remaining fifteen games that were left for the season. During the 10th round of the season, he had earned the coveted AFL Rising Star nomination. During this season, he had over 30 touches, about 6 marks and 4 tackles but only 2 goals to his name. It was observed that he had a low level of accuracy on goal, which may have been responsible for his low goals record for that season.
The next season of 2006 was one that had mixed fortunes for Travis. There were games he performed below average, and there were games where he did extremely well. There were games when he found it difficult to make immediate returns after late withdrawals, and there were three instances where he was named an emergency. During this season, he was able to score two goals in the game against Hawthorn and he was able to average 17 disposals and 8 marks when it really mattered. He also had 15 touches and 5 marks in the games against West Coast.
Greatest League Season
The 2007 season was really a great one for Travis Cloke. He began the season playing exceptionally well and he continued steadily until when it was as if he climaxed in his performance on the Australia and New Zealand Army Commemoration Day (ANZAC)on April 25th game. He made 24 disposals, 13 marks, 10 inside 50’s, 4 score assists along with 1.3. He also went ahead to display a sterling performance in the next few matches after the ANZAC day match. He scored or kicked nine goals in the next four matches, including 16 kicks and 11 marks and 3.4 against Carlton in Round 7. During this season, he also proved that his accuracy at goal was also improving. He had a kick at goal in fourteen games consecutively; he also had 20 disposals 10 marks and kicked four goals in a game against Geelong. He had shown sterling performance in several games during this season with amazing statistics to his credit. This led to his winning the Copeland Trophy as the best and fairest player for the Collingwood Football Club. He was named as one of the best forwards in the league for the 2007 season.
The 2008 season was a very tough one for him as he had to do a lot of the work on the forward line since most of the players who were strong forwards were injured. He performed remarkably fine with good assists from behind.
Private Life
Not much is known about his private life. He was involved in a ‘little’ scuffle on New Years Eve of 2008 when he attempted to calm down a group of men making noise around him. What is clear is that Travis Cloke has a lot of fans that express their affection for him and the way he plays the game through many online social networks.
Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com
