The Lions’ astonishing 20-point comeback victory over Port Adelaide on the weekend has captivated the football public.
But amid all the justified hoopla over the 67-point turnaround from late in the third quarter, one small statistic has gone unnoticed – Johnstone celebrating his first ever win in Adelaide.
In 10 seasons and 160 games with previous club Melbourne, Johnstone had never tasted victory at Football Park.
"I remember once at Melbourne we got really close and for most of the rest of the games we got punished – so it was great to finally have a win over there," Johnstone told lions.com.au
"It was just massive to be able to come from that far down and win, especially at an interstate ground.
"Most of the times Port Adelaide and Adelaide run right over the top of visiting teams in that situation.
"To stop that and actually come back and win was unbelievable. I was really pumped after the game."
While many Lions fans would have been despondent during a third quarter in which Port got as many as 47 points in front, Johnstone says he and his teammates were always optimistic of causing an upset.
That said, he admits some stern words from Matthews helped provide the necessary focus heading into the second half.
"At half time he did give us a bit of a spray but we definitely deserved it," Johnstone said.
"We all needed to step up and stop making the silly mistakes that we’d been making in the first half.
"We were confident that we had the fitness to run out the game strong and then when the rain came in the last quarter we knew what we had to do.
"Against Collingwood a couple of weeks ago we probably played around with the ball a bit too much.
"This time we just kept the ball going forward in the rain and concentrated on getting it quickly to Jonathan Brown and Daniel Bradshaw.
"Fortunately it all worked out."
The Lions will go into this week’s clash with an in-form Hawthorn with a respectable season record of two wins and two losses.
Much has been made of the Lions’ tough schedule, which pits them against six of last year’s top-eight sides in the first seven weeks of the season.
Had the Lions been offered their current record before the start of the home and away season, Johnstone believes they would have accepted.
"I think we would have taken it – when you look at the fact that we had trips to Perth and Adelaide in those first four weeks," he said.
"Those are two grounds that it’s extremely hard to win at and to have been able to get the points from one of them has been good.
"Looking back, we could have been 3-1, but both of our wins have been in close games so we could just have easily have been 0-4.
"When you think about it like that, 2-2 is pretty good start and gives us something to build on."
