THE danger in watching from beyond the fence is that you construct a personality profile based on the way someone goes about his football. So, a highly skilled, at times cavalier, goal-loving defender like Lindsay Gilbee is assumed to be loud, brash and confident, bordering on cocky.

Shaun Higgins, who has shared digs with Gilbee since farewelling his host family at the end of 2006, says people are easily mistaken in football. "I can assure you he's far from that person," he says, leaping to the defence of a teammate seven years his senior who Higgins says has been a caring, big-brother figure to the young Western Bulldogs.

"He's a sensitive guy, Linds, who would do anything for anyone. You'd go a long way to find a nicer guy. Ask anyone at the club, they'll tell you he's the sort of bloke who will do anything for you."

Gilbee says he used to be a worrier, growing up in Coldstream filled with apprehension over what people thought of him. He has stopped caring, although his generally sympathetic demeanour can still be tested.

As it was by one newspaper's reporting of his comments ahead of this year's Hall of Fame game, which fuelled the misconception that Gilbee might think more of himself than he does of others.

(Gilbee wondered if teammate Daniel Cross was a better fit than some who were picked in the Hall of Fame game, admitted he was disappointed he'd missed out too, then was dismayed to read the next morning that, essentially, Lindsay Gilbee thought he was a better player than some of those selected.)

Gilbee reckons it's impossible to completely separate football and your life beyond it, and says people at the club knew when he was going through a rough patch earlier in the year. Just as he does others. "There's certainly guys who I can tell if they are down, and I'll go up and ask them if they're OK, can I help in any way. That's the sort of person I am."

He says what Rohan Smith did for him when he walked through the door in late-1999 "will never be forgotten — Alison and the kids, opening their house to me, cooking, stuff like that". He smiles at the thought that he is 27 now (as married father Smith was then), and a single bloke knocking around with Higgins and Ryan Griffen.

"We virtually spend all our time together, me, 'Griff' and 'Higgo'. I know they're a bit younger than me, and I'm not saying I'm taking them under my wing … We're all single, and you tend to hang around and do things together because you haven't got those other aspects in your life.

"I can see a lot of myself in Griff. He's a very shy kind of person."

Higgins denies that Gilbee only has him sharing the rent because of his culinary skills, but the elder of the house admits, "Shaun's the cook, he's not a bad little chef at all." His Jamie Oliver impersonation stretches to "pretty much anything", and Higgins says that "even if 'Gilbs' starts cooking, I pretty much always take over". The chef specialises in a variety of stir fries, Gilbee in cleaning up.

As a footballer, Gilbee imagines people see him as a skilful rebounder who gets a lot of the ball and uses it well via his greatest weapon — his kicking.

Fair enough, he says, but he hopes his competitiveness isn't overlooked. "Kicking is my best asset, but I have others. My third-man in stuff, my marking overhead, even though I don't get to do it as often … I know I still have to work on my competitive side, but I love a contest."

The common knock on his quarter-back's game from a defensive pocket or flank is attention to the finer detail of marking his man, and he can laugh now at the spray coach Rodney Eade gave him at quarter-time in one match last year, after his opponent slipped away "a couple of times … He got into me a bit about that."

Yet the onus of responsibility can be deceptive; Gilbee has been tagged by Port Adelaide playmaker Kane Cornes, and marked hard a few times this year. "Rocket says, 'If they're going to take their best midfielder out of the game to tag you, sit in the goal square'." Against Port, Gilbee had 14 possessions, Cornes 15, and the Dogs a win.

"It's not about getting 20 kicks and losing. Our ethos, it's Dale Morris, who every week has five or 10 possessions but could be winning our best and fairest."

Against Melbourne last Sunday, his 27 possessions earned Gilbee widespread votes, yet he thinks Matthew Boyd and Ryan Hargrave were better, and maybe others too. "Ryan Hargrave has been terrific every week. He gets the ball the same or more than me every week, and he's just as damaging. People think of me because I do the kicking out, but other guys in the team are just as damaging."

Gilbee loves crossing the Westgate Bridge to "work", knowing he is about to toil hard but with great reward. "That's something you can't take the enjoyment out of footy."

In a game, few things bring Bulldog fans more joy than Gilbee or Nathan Eagleton catching the opposition out with a whispered receive from a teammate beyond his range, and drilling home a goal from outside the arc. Opponents are onto it now, but every now and then they are still caught napping.

Teammate and fellow 1999 draftee Robert Murphy speaks of Gilbee's kicking as if it borders on a religious experience — the stillness, the natural, fluid motion, the communion of boot and ball. Gilbee admits it is a feeling to cherish, and one he has always known.

"I was never the best player in the team, but as a 16-year-old I probably passed a lot of people. I was a very accurate kick but didn't have the distance of other guys, then I reckon as an 18-year-old I must have grown an extra muscle in my leg.

"It is nice when you make sweet contact with the Sherrin and it goes 60 metres."

Gilbee says he "absolutely loves" his teammates, and shares a special bond with the class of '99; he has lived with Hargrave and Mitch Hahn, and is close to Murphy and Daniel Giansiracusa. "You look back and think, geez, the five of us have played 130-plus games now." He notes today's opponent has a similarly well-travelled troupe from the same year — Cameron Ling, Paul Chapman, Corey Enright and Joel Corey.

Soberly, he concedes it has been a fantastic year — so far. All have felt the love, as the buzz in the western suburbs grows. "You notice going out to schools, the kids wearing their Bulldogs colours, the people with flags up in their windows.

"Every person I've met outside football says they were brought up in Footscray.

"I dunno how many people can have been born here — it must be millions."

Both Gilbee and his club have doubters, who see the player as a snapshot of his team — a free-flowing entertainer with limitations that could ultimately bring him undone. Time will tell, but looks can be deceptive.