I COULDN'T believe it when someone said to me the other day that it's been 12 years since North Melbourne and the Sydney Swans last played in a final.

I remember that day – the 1996 Grand Final – like it was yesterday. It was quite clearly one of the two best Saturday afternoons I've ever spent on a football field (if you hadn't guessed already, the 1999 GF wasn't a bad day either!).

The morning of the match was a special moment in my life and I remember that almost as fondly as the game itself. I shared a house with teammates Matty Capuano and Stuey Anderson, and it was a sensational feeling banging around the house knowing we were playing in a grand final later that day.

The household was well and truly amped on the morning of match, and the grunge music pumped loudly out of the stereo as we got ourselves ready for the biggest game of our lives.

Coincidentally, the last song to come on as we headed out the door was the Smashing Pumpkins' Today, a track that has the lines; 'Today is the greatest, day I've ever known'. I thought that was a pretty good omen.

I'm sure a lot of North supporters will remember that I'd had a pretty eventful week leading into that match. I'd injured my knee late in the preliminary final against the Brisbane Lions and was facing a race against time to be fit for the match.

Our club doctor Harry Unglik was really concerned that I wouldn't be fit but I had no doubt that I'd line up in the side.

To add even more drama to a crazy week, I polled enough votes to share the Brownlow Medal with Michael Voss and James Hird, but was ruled ineligible because I'd been suspended earlier in the year.

I felt the best way to handle all this was to head off to the Royal Melbourne Show with Matty and Stuey on the Thursday night. I'm not sure if it's in the Australian Journal of Psychology, but after a couple of spins on a ride called the Gravitron and all my troubles seemed to disappear.

Getting back to the actual game, I can recall having a pretty quiet start. The stats sheet shows I had a few touches in the first quarter but I knew at the time that I'd had minimal impact.  

At quarter time Denis (Pagan) came down and put it on the line. 'Mate, if your knee's no good, get off the ground. But if you're alright, start showing something." Or words to that effect.

There are a few moments from the rest of the game that will stay etched in my mind forever. One of them was when, midway through the second quarter, I got a knock on my 'bad' knee. I got up thinking that it wasn't as sore as I thought it would be.

That made me believe that I no longer had to protect it and I could just threw caution to the wind.

I ended up playing OK and felt as though I played a part in helping us over the line. Then to see the looks on the faces of blokes who'd been at it for 10 or more years – Darren Crocker, Ian Fairley and Dean Laidley, for example – was just priceless.

I'll be heading up to Sydney tonight to watch the boys take on the Swans in the elimination final. Like I've done all year, I'll take my place on the bench to have a chat with the Roos' ruckmen as they come on and off the ground.

Every now and then I find myself barracking on the sidelines like I'm just another fan. As much as I know I should be keeping myself in check as a club 'official', I like the fact that the game can still bring that passion out of me even though I'm no longer playing.

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The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.