LIKE a lot of people last Sunday morning, I thought we were going to be playing the Crows this week after seeing Adelaide pip the Western Bulldogs on Saturday.

I went to the movies on Sunday and one of my mates was texting me during the St Kilda game, giving me updates from the match about how close the Saints were getting to the margin they needed to grab fourth spot.

After learning the Saints had done it – and they’d now be playing us – I immediately thought of my former Geelong teammates Charlie Gardiner and, more particularly, Steven King.

Kingy and I are great mates. I speak to him every week and I’ve spoken to him a couple of times already this week.

He’s looking forward to playing against his old side, although he hasn’t given too much away.

We’ve obviously spoken a little bit about footy, but not a whole lot.

While footy is taking up a lot of focus at the moment we’ve also been chatting about Kingy’s wedding, which is going to be in Bali in October.

I’m going to head over there for that and will be spending about a week over there with him later in the year, so we’ve spent a bit of time talking about that, as well as getting into each other about this week’s game of course – which has been fun.

I think even he’s pretty surprised with how it’s all worked out for the Saints over the past couple of weeks, as I don’t think he or even his club expected to finish fourth given where they were a few weeks back.

It should be a great game on Sunday, and I’m really pleased for Kingy that he’s getting another chance to play finals.

I was disappointed to see him to go at the end of last year, as I would have liked to see him finish his career at Geelong.

But it’s just great that it’s all worked out well for him. His last month of footy, in particular, has been really good and his body has held up really well.

In saying all that, I think everything’s worked out for the best. Kingy got an opportunity elsewhere to continue his career while Mark Blake, who was so unlucky to miss out on playing in a premiership last year, has had a great year for us as well.

This weekend when our teams run out on the ground, Kingy and I, such good mates for so long, will be fierce rivals for 120 minutes. And I’ll be right behind our two big fellas.

There was a really big rivalry built up between Geelong and St Kilda a few years ago, especially when Grant Thomas was coaching the Saints.

There’s no doubt the two clubs still really respect each other. I know all our boys really enjoy playing against the Saints.

The intensity definitely lifts in finals footy, but we don’t need to do anything drastically different in the coming weeks.

We’ve showed that we’re a pretty good side and we’ve been able to sustain that over most of the year.

Now, if we can just keep that going for the next few weeks, the results should take care of themselves.

I know I, along with the rest of the players, feel more confident and relaxed going into the finals this year.

Last year, you could feel the pressure.
Let’s just hope we can come through with the goods on Sunday.