GEELONG star Harry Taylor, who signed a new five-year contract with the Cats last week, has admitted he and his wife Michelle seriously contemplated returning to Western Australia for the sake of their children.
The Taylors were torn over whether their two kids, James, aged three, and Isabel, aged one, should be living closer to their relatives.
"They don't get to see their extended family all that much, and Michelle and I were very lucky, when we were young, to spend a lot of time with our cousins and our extended family," Taylor explained to AFL.com.au.
"We've got great memories of all those times, and we didn't want our children to potentially miss out on that.
"So we had to work through a lot of things. It was certainly a difficult decision and it wasn't something that we wanted to rush into.
"My wife and I spent quite a bit of time discussing different things.
"As much as we wanted to get the decision done as soon as we could for the club's sake, because they can't be waiting too long and need to plan ahead, it takes some time to work through everything.
"The club were fantastic in allowing us to do that, and the club were also great at putting some things in place to make life a bit easier for our family.
"We are extremely happy that the club's been able to do that and we're staying in Geelong."
Over the coming five years, Taylor will be granted extra leave to visit WA more often, and he and Michelle will be "encouraging our families to come over and visit whenever they can.
"There's always going to be that part where the kids don't get to see their extended family as much as if we were living in WA, but we're more than comfortable with that part of the decision in the end.
"We're happy to be staying at Geelong."
Taylor has admitted to being offered a lucrative five-year contract by Fremantle, but when he looked at his decision from a football perspective it was a no-brainer.
"The biggest factor was the culture of the footy club," the 27-year-old said. "I want to be successful, I want to win more premierships, and at Geelong we're a great chance to do that.
"Going to a new club and experiencing something else could have been a little bit exciting.
"But we found it very difficult to move away from this culture.
"We might have gone somewhere else in WA and the culture might have been great as well.
"But that wasn't something that we ended up wanting to do, just because it is so great here.
"There's amazing people all through the club, from the people up the top all the way through to the player and the staff that work around here on a day-to-day basis.
"It's just a great place to actually come to work every day. It was extremely hard to rationalise a move away from that."
Taylor will be 32 by the time his new contract expires, which means he is all but certain to finish his career as a one-club player.
"To actually play your whole career at one club, to always be known as a Geelong footballer, was something pretty special," he said.
"It was certainly in the positive column when it came to staying at Geelong."
Taylor has enjoyed a brilliant season, averaging 17 possessions and eight marks across his 15 matches, and even sneaking forward to boot nine goals.
He has risen to 46th in the Official AFL Player Ratings, is sixth when it comes to defenders, and is considered a certainty to be included in the All Australian team.
And when he looks back over his career, he is extremely proud of what he has achieved.
"I've been able to play in a lot of winning games of football, including finals, which is something that I think every AFL player strives to do," said Taylor, whose win-loss record is 101-26.
"To have won two premierships and have played in three Grand Finals so far has been unbelievable."
Adam McNicol covers Geelong news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter at @AFL_AdamMcNicol
