August 14
7am: Wake up, shower, breakfast and jump in the car and head towards the airport. Chris (Knights) and I needed to stop and grab some last minute snacks for the two and a half hour plane trip. We are using a charted flight for this trip, as opposed to Qantas who we usually fly with.
The plane trip starts and I’m stuck in my usual seat in between Rutten and Goodwin, which is always entertaining. But I’m not that happy with my seat, I’m right up the front and I can’t stretch my long legs out. It’s a disaster! Lucky for me I came well prepared I have a large range of snacks and I brought an amazing DVD collection. So on the way up I watched Terminator 2 Judgement Day, which was gold not just because it is one of the greatest movies of all time but it took my mind off the lack of legroom I had. Soon after we land and it’s a quick transition on to the bus and off to the Gabba to do a light training session.
We arrive at the Gabba at around noon and it is a cracking day and the ground is in sensational condition. We have a light jog and a few shots at goal and all the boys are then pretty keen to jump on the bus and get to the hotel and have lunch. Our drinks steward Graham Tee somehow always is first in line - he loves his food. Once I have finished lunch I roll straight into a midfield meeting. The day has been flat out and I’m looking forward to some quiet time in the afternoon.
In my relaxing quiet afternoon I have some alone time in my room before heading down to the hotel pool to do some recovery. It’s not the same as doing my usual hot and cold baths, which “shock my system”.
Just before dinner we have our usual team meeting with Craigy and he keeps it short and very clear about what we want to get out of the game.
Dinner is ready and you wouldn’t believe it but Graham is at the front of the line again and the boys are getting stuck into him about it. Haha, good times. Away dinners are always entertaining because someone always playing a prank on someone, for example at dinner Chris Knights assisted one of our physios with his apple crumble that he was having for dessert, but little did our physio know that Knighta put a rolled up bit of foil in his bowl. The word quickly spread around and all our eyes were fixed in our physio eating his dessert until he chomped down on that foil. It was hilarious! Good times lol.
Once dinner is finished I head into the treatment room to get a massage before I go to sleep.
August 15
I had a terrible sleep last night but manage to dragl myself out of bed and head downstairs for breakfast. After a feed I’m feeling a lot better so a few of the boys and myself go for a light stroll in the park to stretch our legs. It’s another beautiful day but we don’t have much time before we have to get on the bus at 10.50am.
We arrive at the ground at around 11.10am and the team and I prepare for the game as per usual. It’s an important game because we don’t want to waste the rest of this season and we want to leave something with Brisbane for next season. I am up against Leuenberger, who is an ultra tall ruckman with extremely long arms.
We started very poorly and a big reason for that was our pressure when they had the ball was way below our standard. We regrouped at the quarter time break, led by Ben Rutten who delivered a really strong message to the group about just that. We responded really well and got back into the game in the second term. After hearing that we were down two players (Chris and Bernie) because of injuries we all knew it was going to be a tough game but the boys were up for the challenge. In the end we got the win and it was a special one too because of the circumstances and the adversity we faced. And what a kick by VB to seal it at the end!
After singing the song next to the indoor cricket nets in the rooms, we got straight into recovery and got ready to head to the airport. Brent ‘Radar’ Reilly and I volunteered to go across the road to the German Club to meet with all the Queensland supporters and all the supporters who travelled from Adelaide. And let me tell you the place was packed full of people, it was a great effort by everyone. We were interviewed on the stage, signed a few autographs and had our photos taken with some supporters. I was hoping to get a big kransky on the way out but our media man David Burtenshaw said we didn’t have time. Hopefully next time I’ll get one.
Once we were all packed and ready to go we jumped on the bus and transferred straight to the airport and literally pulled up in front of our plane, threw our bags on and jumped on. The plane trip back was 30 mins longer for some reason to do with head winds, don’t ask me to explain it…. Anyway it was crucial that we picked a good movie to keep us out of trouble, so I brought out the big guns! Predator starring Arnie. If you haven’t seen this movie go out and buy it! Probably Arnold Schwarzenegger’s greatest of all time.
It ended up being a great couple of days with great weather, we achieved we wanted to and we watched two Schwarzenegger films. Great result!
