The game – North Melbourne 20.5 (125) d Port Adelaide 18.12 (120) at Docklands, Rd 7, 2009 Toyota AFL Premiership Season
The stats – nine kicks, 11 handballs, four marks, six tackles, three clearances and one goal
What was your pre-match routine today?
I like to get to the ground first. Once I get there, I usually have a kick with Brendon Lade in the rooms before the game and normally Josh Carr out on the ground, but he is not playing. I have a few superstitions like that before a game, but the main one is to get to the ground first.
In the first quarter, twice you ran back with the flight of the ball in defence to effect a spoil. What are you thinking when you make that commitment?
You just see the ball and know you have to help out the backline, so you do your best to effect a spoil and hopefully you don’t get a knee to the head or something like that.
A little bit of an altercation broke out between you and Drew Petrie early on. What was going on there?
It was nothing in particular, just the normal stuff that happens during the game.
When North Melbourne kicked six unanswered goals in the second quarter, you went back as a loose man in defence. Was that a direction from the coaches’ box or your decision?
It was from the coaches. I normally start on-ball and then look to push forward. That’s the role I have been playing for the last couple of weeks. Today I spent some time in the backline after North Melbourne got on that roll in the second quarter.
Did you ever feel you were out of the contest?
When they were five goals in front late in the final quarter, I didn’t exactly know how much time was left so I thought it was pretty much over. Then we got on a bit of a roll and the boys kicked three goals and then I found out we had three minutes left to play. I definitely thought we were back in it. You can’t take much out of a loss, but to come back from there, credit must go to the boys for that.
What was running through your mind during those frenetic final stages, when you were five points behind with the ball deep inside your 50?
You just try to want to have an impact. You try to get involved somehow, try to help the team win the game when it is close. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that tonight.
Do you think last week’s Showdown affected you physically tonight?
You can’t blame the result on the Showdown clash. We had a pretty light week, so all the boys should have been fresh. The boys trained really well on Friday. There are no excuses. We knew the Kangaroos would be pretty fired up and come at us after all the attention they had this week. We were ready for it, but didn’t handle it too well early and they got on top. I thought North Melbourne were harder and tougher early on, they were good in that department all night. We knew that when the chips are down they play their best footy.
How do you rate your performance from a personal perspective?
Pretty average. I was around the ball and getting involved in the first half, but I was pretty disappointed with my last half. I didn’t really have much of an impact in the second half. It was one of the more disappointing games I’ve ever been involved in.
What are your plans for after the match and recovery on Sunday?
Back to the hotel tonight and then we have recovery at Williamstown beach Sunday morning. Then we fly back to Adelaide 11am on Sunday.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
