It was great when Fev took that mark at the end. I looked up at the scoreboard and saw Ratts and Mark Riley going off and it felt like we’d won a final when the siren went.
In recent years our interstate record hasn’t been that flash and to win our first two road trips this season has been fantastic. It was great to feel that sort of camaraderie on the ground and then in the rooms afterwards as well.
It will be good for our confidence having had a lot of young guys in and getting a few important wins now; we’re expecting to win each week and one like that is just so important for our group.
I’ve never sung the song that hard before and my voice was killing me for a while afterwards.
At three-quarter time Ratts just said that if we made the most of our opportunities you never know what could happen. We’d obviously kicked pretty inaccurately in the first three quarters, but we’d been winning the clearances and the contested ball, so we knew that we were playing alright.
It was just the finishing off that wasn’t working for us.
We kicked the first three and then Paul Stewart went off injured and play stopped for a while, with Robbie Gray waiting to have a shot at goal that would have put them 18 points up. Once he missed that we thought we were a fair chance.
It was good to see young Matty Kreuzer kick a few crucial goals and taking grabs. He’s been down a little bit in the last couple of weeks, so it was good to see a smile on the big man’s face.
Simmo’s goal at the end was obviously important, but we did give him a bit of stick for playing on inside 35 metres. He thought he was in space, but turned around to see a bloke in front of him.
It didn’t matter because he kicked a really good goal.
My dad came over and a few of the guys had their families there too. It was great in the rooms after, seeing how excited everyone was.
Although we didn’t have a lot of time to celebrate, we had to be pretty quick to get to the airport. All the guys were still buzzing on the plane trip home, so it was a really successful trip all round.
The obvious question is ‘Are we doing anything different?’
Really, the answer is no.
The players get a fair bit of time to themselves on interstate trips and it’s up to each individual to follow their own pre-game routine and what works for them.
This trip wasn’t any different from most in terms of routine. We arrived in Adelaide at about 10 o’clock on Saturday morning and, after checking in and having lunch, it’s straight onto the bus and out to AAMI Stadium for a light training session.
Then we went to the beach for a bit and it was back to the hotel in the city where we had a couple of hours to kill before our midfield meeting.
We’ve got a few South Aussie boys on the list and they still stay at the hotel with the group, but can use that time to catch up with family.
I went for a bit of a walk down Rundle Mall and had a browse through the shops. Other guys have a bit of a snooze or watch a movie – all really exciting stuff!
The room that we eat in is also where the docs and the physios set up and it also gets used as an activity room. This time around, about a dozen of us went down and played poker to help pass the time after dinner.
Fev is usually the one who gets it started and I was down there with Grigga, Jarrad Waite Cam Cloke and Eddie Betts with Eddie doing quite well this time around in our little low-stakes game.
I roomed with Shaun Grigg this trip. He’s pretty good to room with, not like Andy Carrazzo who snores, although Grigga does talk in his sleep. I would have been a bit alarmed if he started walking around, but he just had a bit of a conversation with himself which was more amusing than annoying.
We’re a pretty close-knit group generally, but even more so on interstate trips because you do spend a lot of time around each other.
That continued on the Monday when we went as a group to watch the Collingwood game.
We play them this week, so you’ve got to move on pretty quickly and focus on the next big game and the challenge of winning back even more respect.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.
