‘It’s mainly just a taste thing’: Why Giants rookie replaced his water intake with full-cream milk

When a teenager moves out of home, their behaviour tends to be a reaction to whatever restrictions their parents put on them growing up. The shackles of adolescence come off, and they can do whatever they want with their newfound freedom.

Usually, that means a filthy bedroom, a kitchen sink stacked with dirty dishes, or endless curfew-free nights on the town with their mates.

Meet Jason Gillbee, aka the GWS ‘Milk Man’.Credit:Nick Moir

Jason Gillbee’s rebellion was a little different.

“My ‘shackles breaking’ was me being able to have a heap of milk,” he said.

We all have our quirks; there’s no shaming here. But there is a sense of palpable disbelief around the GWS Giants – where the 18-year-old was drafted as a rookie at the end of last year – about this kid, and how he operates.

Three years ago, Gillbee made an executive decision to replace his entire water intake with milk. Full-cream, preferably.

Jason Gillbee, playing for the Allies, at the U18 AFL Boys Championships last year in Adelaide.Credit:Getty

This little nugget of information probably would have remained within the four walls of the club’s Olympic Park base had it not slipped in towards the bottom of a long-form, behind-the-scenes story by AFL.com.au on the Giants’ first pre-season under new coach Adam Kingsley.

As a result, Gillbee has become an overnight sensation, a viral hit, without having even come close to playing a single minute of AFL football.

“I was the most irrelevant person in the game – probably the most irrelevant person here,” he laughed. “People back home would probably be like, ‘Yeah, if he was to blow up for something, it’d be something weird as.’ And it’s ended up being something weirder than you’d even think.”

Gillbee grew up on a farm in Balranald in the NSW Riverina. There wasn’t as much milk around as he would have liked.

“I just explained to the boys, like, ’Boys, I don’t really drink water.”

“Me and my brother have sort of always drank it … Mum wouldn’t buy it all the time because we used to drink it like that,” he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

Everything changed when he moved to Bendigo for school in Year 10, and was billeted with a local family.

“That was probably like the real start of it. I’d always drank milk before that, but like, it was just there all the time,” Gillbee said.

“That first year and a half, I’d always drink full cream, and the family that I moved in with only had light milk. And I was like, ‘I don’t know about this’ at the start. But I sort of got used to it and then the light milk became fine.

Got milk? If not, you know who to ask.Credit:Nick Moir

“But when I moved out [on my own], I was back on the full cream. So it was probably then – and there was no real reason other than like, it was there, and they kept buying it so I could keep drinking it.”

There are loads of relevant questions at this point, but all of them are tangentially connected to the main one. Why?

It’s not about adding extra size to his wiry 191cm frame, although that is an added “bonus”. And don’t get him started on almond or oak milk.

“It’s mainly just a taste thing, a flavour thing,” he said. “It’s not like real flavoursome, but like, I don’t know – the taste of milk, I just find it so much better than water. And it’s hydrating. People say it’s more hydrating than water. I don’t know how true that is. But still, it’s gonna hydrate me, and I think just because I’ve been doing it for so long, I can drink a lot of it.”

How much, exactly?

“Probably 2-2.5 litres a day,” Gillbee estimates. “Depending how hot it is.”

So far, it hasn’t caused him any health-related grief. Not yet, anyway, although he is happy to clarify he drinks water while training.

“My brother, he’s at boarding school in Ballarat, and he was running, and he kept collapsing. He’d run and then he’d like, collapse,” he said. “But he’d been at boarding school, I don’t think he was eating that well, and he was just drinking milk as well. And I think they reckon he started collapsing from that, but that’s never happened to me.”

“The family that I moved in with only had light milk. And I was like, ‘I don’t know about this’.”

The word spread at the Giants after a midfield meeting, where players had been asked to bring in three items that helped explain who they were, or held sentimental value, to get to know each other better.

Gillbee brought a sledgehammer, to represent his childhood on the farm, a group photo of some of his best mates at the club, and a three-litre bottle of milk.

“I was drinking milk in there, and they sort of knew – people knew about it. I just explained to the boys, like, ‘Boys, I don’t really drink water. I drink water on the track, but other than that…’ It was a pretty funny meeting,” he said.

The club’s dietician, Melissa Juergens, wasn’t thrilled with this revelation.

“I sent her a message and said something like, ‘Oh, hi Mel. I drink an unusual amount of milk, like, you’d be surprised how much.’ And she replied back, ‘Yeah that’s alright, we’ll talk about it soon.’ But I don’t really think she knew to the extent,” he said.

“I was happy with that response, I was like, ‘Oh, I can keep drinking it’, because she said, ‘Milk’s great.’ And I was like, ‘Here we go. I’m right.’ Now that it’s all come out, we’ll probably have to talk a bit more about it. I’ve been exposed.”

Kingsley, for his part, is OK with it.

“I met him at the [draft] combine, and he just had that little bit of spunk about him. He was lively, pretty quirky … I didn’t know anything about his milk habit, milk replacement therapy, or whatever he calls it. But basically, that feels like it’s him,” he said.

“He’s been terrific since he’s been here – knows when to be serious, knows when to really concentrate and focus in on meetings, but knows when to break the ice and have a bit of fun. That’s kind of what you want around your footy club, those sort of people.”

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