WITH family members in the stands and his teammates urging one another to victory in his honour, it almost became too much for veteran Sydney Swans forward Michael O'Loughlin on Sunday.
The man known to fans and teammates as 'Magic' was playing his 261st game for the club, breaking Swans champion John Rantall’s record.
His beloved SCG crowd had lifted each time he touched the ball and with a solid win against Fremantle looming, the Swans' season was back on track.
O'Loughlin admits he was close to tears.
“I started choking up a bit with five minutes to go,” he said.
“It was just one of those things where, at every stoppage, I could hear Kirky sort of yelling out, 'For Mago, for Mago,' and ... I just starting getting a bit emotional and choking up.”
While some of his family was at the ground to witness his milestone game, O'Loughlin said his wider family motivates him each time he takes the field.
“I'm not just playing for myself and obviously the footy club and my mates here, my blood brothers, but also I've got a big mob back in Adelaide who are watching me back home,” he explained.
“I know all the little fellas are watching as well. I'm talking about the little [cousins] and my aunties and uncles who are watching back at home, so I try to play well and make them feel proud as well. But obviously the four points was the main aim.”
The Swans team ethic is rapidly becoming the stuff of legend and even as O'Loughlin was grilled about his personal achievements, his thoughts continually returned to his teammates.
“It was a great effort from [200-gamer] Goodesy, who I've been quoted as saying I think he'll play 350 games, but also Sean Dempster was a great effort as well, and Spida (Peter Everitt) to get life membership, but more important than all these things was four points,” he said.
“We needed to get our season back on track. It was fantastic, personally, to get the win with the boys.”
Highlights of O'Loughlin's 13-year career with the Swans were shown to the team before they went on to the ground and Rantall, the former club games record-holder, presented him with his jumper.
“I hadn't met him before and he said some kind words about me,” O'Loughlin said of Rantall's presence in the rooms.
“It was just one of those things where I don't think we were going to lose after Roosy pumped the boys up.”
O'Loughlin praised the loyalty and passion of the Swans fans and expressed his love for the SCG -“It's obviously not too big, which is good for me. I don't want to run around too much”. But his focus, as always, returned to the team.
“I'll look back on these when I'm retired and think 'Geez, that was pretty good,' but our job this week ... was about the team playing well,” he said.
“Today, we gave away some silly free kicks, a couple of 50m penalties and I thought in that last quarter, 'Here they come,' but we just hung on.
“In our premiership year, that's what we were all about – just hanging on when we had the lead or we had to catch them. We dug deep and blokes did some extraordinary things.”
Sage words from a player who has made an art form of the extraordinary during a remarkable football career.
