LONG-KICKING Brisbane Lions defender Josh Drummond will take three days off from his quest for a win this weekend to try to find some Queensland sun.
Like tagger Troy Selwood, Drummond has had the misfortune to return from injury during the Lions’ six-match run without a win.
The 24-year-old kick-in specialist is understandably keen to sing the club song but - with a long off-season rehabilitation from shoulder surgery behind him - he’s also eager to make the most of the mid-season break.
”I’ve only been back in the seniors the last five weeks or so but I’ve been playing reserves since round two and before that I was getting the shoulder right,” Drummond explained.
”It’s been a pretty long road to recovery so it will be good to get a few days off and refresh. Obviously being a footballer isn’t like a nine-to-five job but you end up with a commitment pretty much every day of the week, whether it’s recovery the day after a game or weights on a Tuesday.
”To have two or three days off where you can let your mind go and not think about footy will be good.
”Being a Sunny Coast boy, I’ll probably head up there to try and find some sun.”
Not that Drummond is overly optimistic of his chances of finding too much winter warmth, with South East Queensland in the midst of an uncharacteristic cold snap.
So icy was the wind sweeping Brisbane on Wednesday that Drummond suspects it was probably warmer on Sunday at a sodden Kardinia Park, where the Lions went down by 50 points to top-of-the-table Geelong.
”I walked out of the house this morning in shorts and a t-shirt and it was absolutely freezing,” Drummond laughed.
”Down in Geelong on the weekend, the conditions were pretty tough, especially in the first half when the wind was really strong. The ground was pretty much mud and, being a Queenslander, that’s not something we’re used to.
”But it actually wasn’t as cold as I thought it might have been.”
The loss to Geelong continued a frustrating run of outs for the Lions, who took the game right up to their hosts until late in the third quarter.
Rather than concentrating on what isn’t going right, Drummond prefers to focus on the fact that the Lions are putting themselves in the contest.
A fifth win of the season, he believes, is within reach.
”The last couple of years, when we’ve been beaten we’ve tended to be beaten quite heavily,” he explained.
”We haven’t played our best footy this month, but we’ve still been competitive – and we’ve got to look at that as a positive.
”The results aren’t going our way at the moment but it’s important we keep our heads up because a win isn’t too far away.
