The stocky, balding, hard nut St Kilda forward took virtually no time to adjust to his role as a running, tribunal-friendly, Hawthorn half-back.
Guerra booted 83 goals in six seasons with Port Adelaide and St Kilda before reinventing himself as a defender where he has kicked just 11 goals since joining at the start of 2006.
But he couldn’t be happier with the role he has cultivated for himself at his third AFL home.
“I played up forward when I was a lot younger but the last five years I’ve played down back at Hawthorn. I love playing back there and we’ve got a good solid group. I think I’ll stick to the backline for now,” Guerra said.
Guerra had earned a reputation before his Hawthorn days for his booming left foot kick and physical pressure on the opposition.
But he saw the writing on the wall for the days of the bump and quickly eradicated that from his game when he joined the Hawks.
“I had to change that because otherwise I was going to keep missing weeks.
"As for the move down back from forward, well if I had have stayed forward who knows what would have happened? I probably wouldn’t still be playing but bumping was the biggest change I had to make,” he said.
While some football fans have openly grieved for the game’s loss of the bump, Guerra is a surprise advocate for its extinction.
“There have been a few players who’d have to have changed their game over the last couple of years and I’m one of them but I’ve got no problems with it. I haven’t been cited for a few years which is for the best,” he said.
“I think the big one is when players have got their head over the ball and people come through ... They’ve had to make changes and they are sticking to it. We just have to work within the rules.”
Guerra missed the last month of 2009 after undergoing a shoulder reconstruction which he says gave him enough time to have an effective pre-season.
“I couldn’t really do full contact until January. I had a very good pre-season. It was probably my most consistent in terms of being out on the park and doing all the running" he said.
The 27-year-old is one of many Hawks fully fit and firing after an injury-interrupted 2009 and says he has already noticed the difference in the opening two rounds of 2010.
“It makes a big difference when you’ve got a lot of players out in the paddock. Once you start getting those injuries week in, week out it certainly doesn’t help,” he said.
“We’ve shown over the past two weeks that we’re starting to play our best footy again and we hope we can carry it over to the next few weeks.”
