Raph Clarke is not looking for excuses despite his off-field battles.

ON THE day after a half-strength St Kilda defeated Richmond in its first NAB Cup game of 2008, creating great and unwelcome expectations for the Saints, Raphael Clarke discovered that he would carry his own burden: Epilepsy.

Clarke had stayed up after the night game, not heading to bed until about 3am. After a short sleep, he went to St Kilda’s 8am beach recovery session and felt OK, if a touch tired. "After a night game, it’s always hard to sleep," he said.

He went back to his bayside home, where, fortunately, his younger brother Marius — down from Darwin that weekend — was staying. Raph, a rangy 189 centimetres, stretched out on the couch for a nap.

When he awoke, paramedics were trying to seat him on the couch. Disoriented and dazed, Clarke sought to push them away, before his teenage brother persuaded him to co-operate.

Marius, also having taken a kip, had been first alerted to the fit when he noticed the couch vibrating.

Then, he saw Raph having a fit on the floor. Marius laid him on his side, rang their sister to check the address, and called the ambulance. "He did pretty well," Raph said.

You’ve had a seizure, Raph was told.

Later, while awaiting tests at the Epworth Hospital, the younger of St Kilda’s Clarke brothers had a second fit.

Soon, after his brain was scanned, he was diagnosed as an epileptic. Relieved that brain tumours had been discounted, he still worried. "Then it became, can I play footy? That was my first question."

St Kilda kept his condition in-house, while club doctor Tim Barber stood before the players and briefed them.

There were ramifications for teammates, who were told that Raph couldn’t swim alone, or be immersed in the club’s ice bath by himself, due to the risks of drowning via another fit. Those precautions remain.

He did not drive for more than three months, nearby teammates Jason Gram, Matthew Ferguson and Sam Fisher (the trio share a house) often ferrying him to training.

As club doctor Ian Stone explained, the Saints are careful that Clarke gets sufficient sleep after a night game — or excuse him from early recovery sessions — since lack of sleep might have brought on the fits.

Officially, the club had said only that he had "collapsed".

Clarke kept playing, and was placed on medication (Epilim) that can have side-effects, such as drowsiness. He was informed, however, that there was no reason he could not play.

Clarke’s coach, Ross Lyon, subsequently told Raph how Wally Lewis, the rugby league legend, had recently outed himself as an epileptic — a select sporting club that includes former cricketer Tony Greig.

"Talking to Rossy, he said . . .‘you’d be sweet, because he was one of the best rugby players going around’."

Lyon told him: "We’ll work through it with you, make sure everything’s right."

In the meantime, Xavier Clarke senior, the 53-year-old father of St Kilda’s Xavier and Raphael, was stricken with what has since been diagnosed as terminal bowel cancer. The Clarke boys have been back and forth between Darwin and Melbourne in recent weeks, knowing that their father doesn’t have much time left.

They remain on call for a sudden flight.

Raphael Clarke’s 2008, thus, has been difficult. He has chosen to speak about his epilepsy and his family trauma in the belief that the public should know of extenuating circumstances.

For Clarke has become a favourite scapegoat for the St Kilda faithful, and the target of much invective and ridicule on the internet and airwaves.

Clarke and club insiders offer his condition — and his father’s situation — as a relevant fact, not an excuse.

Raph, for his part, believes the epilepsy has afflicted him more psychologically than physically. His father’s illness had troubled him more, he said.

"I don’t know if there’s a big effect on my footy or not. I think it could be more mentally because, you know, some games I’m more amongst it, making tackles and getting a kick. In other games, you wouldn’t know if I was out there, sort of thing ... I don’t know if I was thinking about other stuff, you know, with my old man."

Raph added: "Your mind’s just as important as your body, playing at the level. If your mind’s off 1 or 2%, you’re going to get caught out."

He has been working with St Kilda’s sports psychologist, Sean Richardson, though lately — because of all the travelling to Darwin — he’s been "trying to figure it out myself".

While the Saints have given them a license to fly back and forth to Darwin, Raph says his father, a triple premiership player with St Mary’s in Darwin, "pushed us to get this far" and most wants to see his boys playing senior footy.

"Seeing him crook and that, you don’t want to leave his side ... because you don’t know how much longer he’s got ... just trying to balance up, you know, spending as much time with him and doing what he wants us to do.

"Ross (Lyon) has been awesome. With the stuff with dad, you know, he’s said whatever we needed ... to let him know. He never had any dramas with us being away.

"He still has confidence in us playing good footy, and that sort of makes you feel better about yourself." Clarke said the medication had made him drowsy only initially, for perhaps the first week.

"It’s not an excuse for me. Every training session I go as hard as I can. It doesn’t affect my training whatsoever. It’s more, you know, it’s after a game maybe if I’m a bit tired. I haven’t had enough sleep maybe."

Clarke said sleep deprivation was thought to be a cause of his epileptic fits. Technically, as club doctor Ian Stone explained, Clarke suffers from "Idio Pathic Epilepsy" which means there is no apparent reason for the condition. He has not had a seizure or fit since he began his medication.

Raph had experienced migraines since his early teens. Some weeks before his first known fi t, he was found on the fl oor of his living room by his sister (then living with him), having suffered a migraine. He had bitten his tongue and, in hindsight, the medicos believe this was a epileptic fit that wasn’t witnessed.

In 22 years as a club doctor at Fitzroy and St Kilda, Stone said he had not known of an epileptic player, though the condition affl icts just under 1% of the general population.

Clarke is aware that he’s been the subject of barbs from supporters. He is representative of his team in that he labors under heavy expectations — in his case, for the fact that he was an early draft choice (pick No.8, 2003).

"You don’t mind a bit of media ... having a crack," he said. "But when your own fans are getting into you." He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Lyon recently told Raph, "people are riding you pretty hard".

"I don’t mind a bit of pressure and that," said Clarke. "But when people don’t know what’s happening outside."

They don’t know what private agonies players are dealing with.

"It’s that sort of industry we’re in, isn’t it? If you kick it the wrong way, or handball to the opposition, everyone jumps on you. It doesn’t matter who you are. I think we just wanted to let people know some of the things that, sort of, been (going) on."

While Xavier continues to battle hamstring injuries, Raphael actually has had his best season to date, in terms of injury.

Hitherto, Raph had been stricken with ankles, osteitis pubis (two operations), quad and hamstring strains, a fractured lower back and a nasty ailment called Sciatica, a back nerve problem that saw him have several epidurals and nerve root injections last year.

The back problem prevented him from running for three months last year. "Some mornings I couldn’t even bend down and touch my knees."

His 2008 had held greater promise than any other season to date, since he had completed his first full preseason with the Saints.

Then, epilepsy intervened, and his father’s illness worsened.

The irony is that Raph reckons his body is fine. "The epilepsy thing is, you know, behind me. It’s just a daily couple of tablets, and I’ve been doing that most of the time with anti-inflammatories and stuff when I had all my injuries. It’s nothing new taking a couple of tablets a day.

"This is the best I’ve been with injury. I still haven’t missed a game this year through an injury. It’s sort of been everything else."

Everything else — shorthand for epilepsy and a dying father.

Raphael Clarke, contracted for 2009, just wants a clean run, without mishap.

His circumstances are exceptional, yet his ambitions remain mundane. "I’m just trying to play some good footy, get some form back."