We not only caught a charter plane back from Melbourne after the game, but the club had the charter to fly there as well.
Catching charters is usually great – no waiting around, no long queues to get on, and plenty of room on the plane.
The only problem on this occasion was that there was waiting around.
Unfortunately the plane had a malfunction and we didn’t get into Melbourne until close to dark.
It meant we trained a bit in the dark, which was a bit of an experience.
That’s certainly not to use that as an excuse for our performance on Saturday night against Essendon.
In the overall scheme it was just a minor hiccup, and certainly the rest of our preparation was very normal.
I always like to get up and out of the hotel as much as I can on match days, particularly when we are playing night games.
I usually head into Chapel Street in Prahran in the morning with Joel Patfull, Jed Adcock and Dan Merrrett - we have a favourite arcade there.
We usually play ‘basketball shoot-out’ and entertain ourselves for a while.
We get left alone which is great – I guess that’s because we’re just low-key Brissie boys.
I usually go for a jog and do some stride throughs around lunchtime to get the blood going and keep the body ticking over.
I’m always happy to play at Telstra Dome.
You always know what you are going to get in terms of the playing conditions, so you’re not wondering about what boots to wear and changing weather conditions. So you can always go in with a good attacking game.
You don’t notice the roof being on when you are out on the ground playing, although the atmosphere inside certainly feels a little bit different.
A few of the boys reckon their kicks travel 10m further inside the Dome although I’m not so sure – I never mind a bit of breeze behind me to help the kick on its way.
But those boys reckon it goes a fair bit further in the Dome.
We caught the charter back to Brisbane after the game against Essendon, although we were a bit later leaving than we expected.
I usually try and get out to have a look at the Suncoast Lions, our reserves team, when we are around on a Sunday, but I gave it a miss this week.
It had been a very ordinary night against Essendon and I just felt like staying away and clearing the head.
The focus is now clearly on West Coast this weekend, and while some people have long memories about our club’s record against the Eagles, I only think of good things when they are mentioned.
For various reasons I haven’t played against them that often, but I instantly think of last year’s game when we beat them at Subiaco Oval as rank underdogs whenever their name comes up.
So I don’t think there’s any ‘IOU’s from our point of view.
We’re confident we can still play some good footy and the confidence hasn’t taken too much of a beating with the last couple of losses that we’ve had.
While we haven’t played the type of footy that we’ve wanted, the other teams have played a lot better than their positions on the ladder indicate. And at the end of the day we are still in the top eight.
We still have our destiny in our own hands, so we are still in control of that.
