Behind Mason's Injury 🤕 Trac Spleen Bros 👬 Go Away Taggers 👋

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, Legends, Welcome back to the Mason Cox Shaw.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm alive.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
It's been two weeks since we've had our last episode,
but I am back in. Braiden Cox's back. Also, we
talked plenty of footy today. We've got obviously the Big
Freeze match that was an incredible win for Collingwood. Over
the weekend, Dusty's got his three hundredth coming up, the Man,
the Myth, the legend that is one of the greatest
players to ever play. And last week we'll give you
an update what exactly has happened over the last two

(00:28):
weeks and is my body actually crumbled and nothing laught?
Who knows. We're gonna get into that and plenty more
in this episode starting now. All right, everyone, we're gonna
get straight into this episode. It is a big one.
It's been a few weeks off. I've got my head
caved in, so I had to figure that out. But

(00:50):
it is going to be a big episode today. We're
gonna do a little bit different, a little bit different.
But before we get into it, I'm fel to welcome
the legend that is Breidon Cox.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Welcome back, Max. I missed you.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
We had a couple of weeks off, it felt like forever.
You know, when we don't do this podcast, I just
sit in the dark room on the other side of
the studio and just wait for you.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
To come back. That's pretty much like the two weeks,
and we will get into that.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
But as you said off the top, we're going to
treat this one a little different because we've missed a
couple of weeks. We've got some catching up to do,
so I'm going to post to you and we'll dissect it.
But like the biggest questions in footy, some big talking points,
big moments, and we'll go back a couple of weeks
because there's been a change to the interpretation, not the rule,
the interpretation of holding the ball.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I don't know have you been able to watch much footy.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
I have a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:40):
I've been limited, i must say, with the concussion protocols.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Right, So what I will say about this rule, I
personally love it. I went in super skeptical obviously two
weeks ago, thinking, you know, it's a pretty big change,
although it's just an interpretation week point. Ah, it was
so good to see how it rolled out, and then

(02:03):
I think beyond that, it's how consistent, they can stay
with that interpretation because it's a big.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Ass Yeah, consistency is key. What do your takeaways from
this new interpretation.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I will say, whenever you explain this sport to someone,
the holding the ball rule is probably the hardest thing
to describe because it's purely opinionated. It's all based on
whether the umpire thinks, you know, it was too long
or too short, whatever it is. And whenever you have
to say, oh yeah, like one hundred thousand people all
screen ball to try to influence an umpire to make
a decision to say it's a turnover to the other

(02:36):
team because they've held onto it too long. But there's
no set in stone rules around what is too long.
It's a tough thing to explain, but I do understand
what they're doing. I actually think it's great for the game. Well.
AFL we've known for years are trying to make the
game as quick as possible and trying to get more
points on the board and trying to get the you know,
the movement of the pill a bit more. So. I

(02:56):
think this is an issue that helps that whenever you don't,
you know, pay holding the ball, then it's a lot
of stoppages, and it's a lot of kind of repeats,
and it's a lot of just time kicking over it
where that's not what the IFL wants. The IFL wants
the thing to be moving back and forth. And I
think that's the initiative I've had with this. I've I'm
off for it and I think it's great. But like

(03:17):
anything in life, and I've learned with the IFL, they
go to an extreme at the beginning, a very much extreme.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
Think about descent.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Remember descent, put your arms out for them fifty Yeah,
nowadays you can still have a.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Crack at them. Do you will flop your arms wherever
it is.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
They don't say anything, but remember those first days of descent,
it was like any just movement they were calling fifty meters.
And I think they're at that kind of two week period,
three week period where they're calling it all now and
then they'll take a step back, and the further it
goes on, you know, the less of those calls you'll see.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, I actually like the first week. There's a couple
of instances this weekend just gone where it already felt
like they were pulling back on it, and like you said,
off the top. It's hard if you're showing someone for
the first time the game a month ago, you'd be
watching a game and you're like, oh, why wasn't that
holding the ball, and you couldn't go like, oh, because

(04:08):
of a reason. It was the rule it was And
then you know, when they first introduced it, it felt
way hotter and I loved it, and it was pretty
quick you started to learn and adapt and go like, oh,
that should be holding the ball. That's holding the ball,
and like it was being paid. I think a few
things out of it that were the AFL weren't calling
it because they wanted it to be knocked out in
the tackle and they thought that was the best way

(04:30):
to have the game be free flowing. But what's come
out of this is like pure panic handballs out into
the open. They're like, I need to get this as
far away from here as possible, so they just blast
it and that opens up the game so much, which
I think that's been awesome. The real basic ones of
like people were doing seven twenties, ten eighties, whatever's after ten.

(04:51):
I don't even know what comes after ten. It's just
now it's a three sixty, and like that's an easy
one to be able to. That's an easy queue for
everyone to be able to recognized when it comes to
your team directly, Collingwood, did you guys address this?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Do you believe it will help you?

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Because you are a high pressure, high tackle team, and
I feel like those teams should be rewarded by a
rule like this.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, I think there's I mean, there's certain parts that
you know we like and there's probably other times where
you wouldn't want that to happen. Right, So, if you're up,
it's a close game, you're trying to kill the clock
things like that, Like this rule.

Speaker 5 (05:23):
Doesn't allow you to do that, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
So there's two sides of the coin, the king of
killing the game.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, So like there's there's moments where that where like
you know, if you're panic handballing in that scenario, then
you know it might go the other way and you're
sitting there going like I had.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
To get this out otherwise it would have been a
free kick.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
So you know, there's there's negatives to it, and then
there's also positive of being one of the highest pressure
teams and something we value in the tackle count and
stuff like that that you know can benefit benefit us.
So you know, there's both sides to it. You have
to kind of take the good and the bad. But
I don't mind it. I think it's going to be
good for the game. I think it kind of, like
I said, opens it up. It allows for like chaos
that people want to see. People want to see, you know,

(06:00):
they don't want to see stoppages and want to see
time off the clock. They want to see the thing
moving around and people doing stuff that they didn't expect.
So I think overall it's going to be good. Did
we address it as a club? I mean I haven't
really been in every single meeting, I will say over
the last two weeks so, but it is an interesting
thing where the IFL sends like an email I assume
to the clubs, and then that gets filtered down to

(06:21):
the players. So the players don't have a direct link
to the IFL. The AFL Players Association might put something out,
but the AFL doesn't actually directly contact the players, so
sometimes it has to be filtered through the players Association
or filtered through the club to get to you. And
that's something I'd be I'd be interested. I think it'd
be great if the IFL said a little here, some
visual you know, examples of what you should do, and

(06:41):
what you know is now going to be called holding
in the ball, and just send that's directly two players.

Speaker 5 (06:47):
I think that's probably ideal.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
I've actually I thought this numerous times over the journey,
and I've actually been, you know, with two players from
two separate clubs at times, and one or no and
one won't and there's just no, there's no clear It
doesn't seem anyway from where I see it very much
on the external that there doesn't seem to be one

(07:12):
clear path from like the AFL house directly through to
the players. They're kind of relying on the club to
be the middleman to pass on information or how that
gets from AFL house to the clubs, and like if
one blokes on holiday and doesn't get the email, everyone screwed.
And then you're kind of hoping that your players are
watching AFL, but a lot of the time you're like, oh,

(07:34):
I don't watch AFL. I like to get like clear
ahead and have the weekend off and stuff like that.
I heard players found out about this interpretation through Twitter
and Instagram.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Oh yeah, for sure, that happens all the time.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
I remember last year I was injured for you know,
that little chunker period of time, and I went on
the podcast and we talked about the umpiring rule of
the arm borrow or the arm out in the in
the center balance, and that was like Brad Scott, I
think it kind of pushed the this to Chris. Gott
had pushed this to try to you know, protect his ruckman,
as he's done quite a few times with some things.

(08:09):
Go any further with that. But and I remember I
was sitting there and you know, two or three weeks
off and you know, I came into the club and
I came in here and I said something about I
didn't think that was right. Yeah, And all of a sudden,
the club got an email from the IFL same wise
Mason commenting on the fact that he thinks the umpire
is are wrong and such as such, you know, and
they how to sit down with the GM. The GM
had to explain to me. I said, look like I

(08:30):
didn't know this, Like no one had told me this,
Like you need to be able to filter this down
to me. So, yeah, there's plenty of situations where you know,
you just the information doesn't passed down or there's lack
of communication, and that happens at every single club, I
can almost guarantee. But you do find out, like obviously
it's in the media, so you kind of get it
gist of it. But I think most clubs, and I
think we're a pretty good club about it being able

(08:51):
to get that information to the players.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
It is funny, but we'll move on because it's good
that you'll be rewarded for your tackles when you do
get back out there, get a few more the balls,
a few more touches. It'll be good for everyone. Let's
move into the man, the myth, the legend. Then that
gets thrown around you call me that which is you know,
I'll take it. But Dustin Martin, you too. He probably

(09:15):
owns the title. There's still you know, people are doing rankings,
goat rankings. You know that's gray area stuff. I don't
think there's a gray area when it comes to best
Grand Final player of all time post won three Normies, Like,
there's undeniable, undeniable, so he is greatness personified. Dustin Martin

(09:37):
plays his three hundredth game, obviously, probably could have played
it a week earlier, called into work sick, I got
the a couple of weeks ago, he got a leather
poisoning so called in sick just to have his three
hundredth here at the MCG.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I mean, what are we thinking about?

Speaker 4 (10:01):
That?

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Is that fine?

Speaker 1 (10:02):
I mean I don't like I'm not sure what was
what happened as to the reason he didn't play this week,
But if I was him, like, it would be an
incredible experience to have it at the MCG. Not to
have it as an away game, but like something that's
you know, someone who's so iconic to that club and
someone who's been so successful, and someone's been massive in
their success of their team and being able to turn
that club around. It it almost feel wrong not doing

(10:24):
that in front of you know, eighty ninety thousand year
fans who you know will show up on that day
a home game. The MCG is literally in the backyard
of their club. Sure there would be an incredible amount
of fans. I'm sure there'd be that many tributes with everyone.
And he's well deserving. Like, the guy has absolutely killed
it for that long. He's been just one of the
biggest threats in the league for such a substantial amount

(10:46):
of time. It's incredible, I can. You know, we always
kind of look at him because he's a bit of
a you know, we don't really know him. I feel like,
because he doesn't do media, we just kind of have
this person that's like such a gun and such an
incredible player, but we don't really know him as a person.

Speaker 5 (11:02):
There's only very.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Few people I feel like that do and that kind
of adds to the story, right, Like that adds to
the aura that is Dusty Martin.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
When I think of that, I think Tony Lockett never
really saw or heard from him. Lance Franklin never really
saw or heard from him, And it just it adds
to like the folklore of the bloke like he's I imagine,
once his career is all said and done, he'll just
disappear and it'll be like that bloke actually like he existed,

(11:32):
He came, and he played the game.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
What's him in the corner of a pub just sit there?

Speaker 5 (11:35):
Like is that that is?

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Is that?

Speaker 5 (11:38):
That's Dustin Martin in the world.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
And it is good saying that.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
It is good that he I believe that he does
play three hundred at the MCG, like you said, because
if he chooses not to do media, throughout the week.
It's not like Richmond has a nice little piece that
it looks like they've put together for him.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
It really would have felt like they've had plenty of
great moments with him, but they would have been robbed
of this moment that I feel like it's more for
the fans than it is Dusty almost at this point.
But you know, to have it have such a special
occasion at the MCG they can really put on a
show for him because I don't feel like he's out
there to you know, do it all for himself.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
He doesn't want the chair, right, he doesn't want all
of that stuff.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
He'll just do what he does throughout this week to
give back and to give to the fans and stuff.
But the whole no media thing, it's been an interesting debate,
mainly one sided because the media is creating the debate
and they're like, I reckon, he should talk to us,
to us please, do you think it's fair that he

(12:44):
doesn't speak to the media. Like, obviously to a degree,
it's his choice. There is you know, broadcast rights and
it brings money into the game. But at the same time,
you know, a month ago they were saying that he
needs to retire and he's gone past him and then
he came out and had a blow. So there would
be definitely an element of like shove it up your ass.

Speaker 5 (13:04):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
I think you just get to a certain point. And
like him and his personality, I don't think he's a
very outward person as far as talking and speaking and
stuff like that. And I think whenever you do interview him,
he just doesn't really give you much. And that's like,
you know, after a game he has if he's best
on ground stuff and you know, Abby Homps goes over
with the mike to him, like he will say, yeah,
it was good. You know, it's credit to the team.
Like he just says the PC stuff like what you

(13:25):
would want as a PR manager. But you know, like
there's that many people throw him under the bus over
his career. He's probably just going like why would I
try to help you guys? Why would I help you
build your brand by talking to you? Like now, like
why would anyone I feel like that would be in
his position would probably be a bit you know, jaded
from the people who have talked about him over the years.
And to be honest, he doesn't have to do media, like,

(13:46):
he'll do what's required of him. But if he plays
his best and yeah, it does his best work whenever
he's not doing media not out there, then you know,
that's that's what the club wants and it's you have
to be able to fulfill that. And there's there's people
think in the media sphere right that like want to
get clicks and want to you know, get people to
listen to him and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
So what do they do.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
They go to the best players that people are going
to talk about and they make controversial comments. And that's
something that he's consistently seen over his career. You see,
Buddy would be the same. You know, there's all these
kind of people making all these comments to try to
be relevant, and it's honestly, it's a credit to Dussi
for not reacting, because you'd be pissed, you'd be annoyed,
you'd be like, f these people, like these people don't
deserve my time, like and they're sitting there talking about

(14:27):
me and I can't control it. And he's consistently just said,
you know what, I'm just not going to comment. I'm
not gonna comment, And that's that's not a hard thing. Sorry,
that's not an easy thing to do, And I think
it's a credit Tom, and people like might be upset
he doesn't do media, or might respect him more because
he doesn't do media, because I feel like there's a
bit of animosity towards the media I think in Australia,
and people realize kind of how bad it can get.

(14:49):
But you know, I think it's a credit Tom. Yeah,
be yourself. If you don't want to do it, you
don't have to. And I don't think anyone should sit
there and be upset at you for that.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
I like when he's like current and former teammates like
do it like.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
I think that's nice. But yeah, you're right if you're
not really planning.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
A life in the media post footy, which I can't
imagine that Dustin is you're only really there's no win
to gain out of talking to the media. For you,
it's either you know, you get through it and it's fine,
or you create a whole heap of stress for yourself
if you say the wrong thing. So I can see
it from that aspect, it is good when you get

(15:27):
little like crumbs of information from his teammates and stuff,
like I think who was it.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
The other day.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think Jack Rewat was saying that he loves to
play games and stuff like like I don't know whether
it was board games or whatever, but like stuff like that.
I did see that the Richmond Football Club ages ago.
There's like this iconic clip where he's so team orientated
that he keeps like he obviously had a blinder of
a game and credit to the boys, like all this stuff.

(15:53):
I think he kicked five goals or whatever it was,
and you're like, oh, yeah, but I just credit to
the boys that gave me, like fed me the pill
all day and they were like, you kick them from
outside fifty you hit it yourself. And he's like, well, fuck,
like I'm trying here, I'm trying to be selfless. But yeah,
it is awesome, and congratulations to Dusty hundred massive three hundred.

(16:14):
I just hate it when it gets around the three
hundred mark because you know that we've only got limited
time left, especially when it's with these goats.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Of the game.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Now.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
One thing that is the absolute opposite and the absolute
kill joy in our game, it's the tag. Every other
year it pops back up?

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Are we going to bring it back? You got people
in the media pleading for it. You hear David King
on the rig just saying, oh, how are you going
to let him have forty touches? Thirty touches kick three goals?

Speaker 5 (16:42):
You know what?

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Shut up?

Speaker 3 (16:44):
It's the game is so much cooler seeing the stars
do good things. But no, we get some random back
pocket bloke and we stick him on one of the
stars and then he gets eight touches and then we say, oh,
it wasn't last night. It's forty to thirty game, bloody
sweet to watch. Oh they're so good. I can't wait. Anyway,
I want to get your opinion on it, because I

(17:04):
obviously freaking that you placed on.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
Someone from I feel like, yeah, it's better for the weekend.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
It's just lame.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
It's like so obviously, like Nick Dacos got tagged, and
that's someone that I just assumed would because there's so
much attention throughout the course of the week. The blokes
a racking up forty touches kicking two so they want
to shut it down. You look at the bond he
gets tagged like regularly. It just happens. And now most
teams in the in the past two weeks have found

(17:32):
a tagger and implemented a tag. Zach Merritt got tagged
over the weekend by Chin Cutter. So, yeah, what do
you How do you feel about the tager? I want
to get your honest opinion because I've given you mine.
So how do you feel about the tags?

Speaker 5 (17:46):
I hate it. I don't think it's great for a visual.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
I don't think anyone goes out there and goes man,
I can't wait to see someone get less touches in
the game. That's just how it's boring to be honest.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
With my tickets to go watch the best players.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
But like, look, you look at it from a club perspective,
and you look at it from the opposition. I get it,
you want to, like, you know, try to nullify the
best player on the ground. But I think from a spectator,
like you don't want to see that. It is an
interesting thing because I look at you know, you look
at rock contests, and I think tagging is almost the same.
It's sometimes it's like what you can get away with. Yeah, right,
So like taggers, you know, you talk about like pinching

(18:20):
someone or stuff on someone's toes, or you hold muff
ball or like hitting the whenever it's not even there.
It's there's so many little things I feel like that
people do and like, you know, there's an umpire will
sit there and go, I can't call ten free kicks
against this guy throughout the whole game, you know, So
you'll call it one or two and hopefully the guy subsides,
but most of the time they don't, so then you
just have to fight through it. Which find it. I
find it weird. It's like, well, if it's a free kick,

(18:41):
it's a free kick. I don't care how many times
you have to call it. I don't care what it
looks like. Like it is what it is. It's a
letter of law. But yeah, it's it's not something that
I think as a spectator you want to see. It
is kind of coming back, which, like, like I said,
I can understand it, but yeah, what do you what
do you do?

Speaker 5 (18:57):
Like, it's it's part of the game.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
It's part of you know, trying to, I guess, mitigate
other people's game styles and mitigate other people that are
playing well. And it doesn't excite me, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
I can't wait to see that he's tagging this week.
Oh he's my favorite tagger. Have you ever heard someone
say that that bloke's my favorite tagger. Oh he shuts
them down like no one else. Oh maybe like Crowley.
Crowley was all right, that's about it. But anyway, I
won't ask you.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
For the history of the game, but for you, I
feel like saying that, how.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Do you stop him? You say you can't really stop him.
How do you help a teammate out when he's being tagged?
Because you guys are going to have to help Nick
out because there's no doubt it's going to keep popping
up over the course of the year. So how do
you help out a teammate.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
I might I'm playing at the bat. I always ask
him to tell me if he's getting tagged, because you
get caught up in the rock stuff. You don't really
notice the tag stuff. You know, you're kind of one
on one with your guy. But I gets similar to right, Like,
if you have a target on someone, like their target
is obviously him. So then if you do run past
someone who's tagging him, you just give him a bit
of a bump, just let him know, like it's going
to be a rough day for you too. Yeah, I
think it's you have to get into him and let

(20:04):
him know that, Like, I don't know, you look at
like hockey, right, Hockey has like an enforcer that goes
out on the on the ice and sometimes like protects
the best player that's there, the goal shooter. So yeah,
sometimes I like to think like a ruckman is kind
of an enforcer. At times you have to go around.
If someone's tagging your best player, you let him know
that as a man that's probably twice his size, that
shit ain't gonna fly.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
The big go on the weekend, big O fired and
he never fires up.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
He's got to be a spark This year. We're a
little bit of a little bit of tussle on that
round one this year around to whoever it was. He's
got a little bit of fighting. I love it. I
love it big I keep going.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
We had a black eye at the time. He looked tough.
That was good.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
So it's always gentle like kind of quite a giant.
But he's getting a little bit of sparking him. I
like it.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, So well, at least we know because if you've
watched this game, you know the pattern that this will take.
Media will call for taggers. Taggers will come in. The
next step is has the tagger gone too far. The
media will talk about that for a chunk and then
we'll talk about the greats of the game learn how

(21:09):
to overcome the tag. But by the time they do that,
the tag is gone and we all move on. The
twins finally got a chance to play against each other,
Charlie v.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Harry.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
We saw them together on one frame in the TV.
They were definitely I still think it was a time
we've been wondering if there is actually two of them
to exist, see because even on their podcast they sit
on opposite sides of the studio, so you can you
can duplicate that. But yeah, they finally got a chance
to go against each other. They played on each other

(21:44):
for most of it, at times indirectly. Harry kicked one goal,
eight touches, Ben six touches. It's not a lot for
the mackay family to get up and about.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
It was a lovely moment, though, and they showed the
mom of the crowd and was.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Shook hands at the start.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
It was cool. It would have been cool experience. I
mean that's I mean, they've been playing for a decent
amount of years in the league, and the fact that
they haven't lined up against each other is pretty crazy
to this moment, so it was kind of a cool
family moment. I'm sure they would have a photo of
that hanging up somewhere in their house. And the mom,
you know, she's got a podcast. I think of the
moment with the AFL and she's yeah, it's in the
moms with Mike's or someone that I shout out to

(22:19):
that we love moms, we love them on this podcast,
so all all about it. But yeah, they were seen
in the same screen. I still think it's ai. I
don't think it's real. But yeah, they play each other
for the weekend, which was cool, and yeah, it was
it was interesting. I think everyone's been waiting for this
moment for a long time.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, and it came and it was cool.

Speaker 5 (22:42):
It was cool.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
We kind of move on.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah at least, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
I will say this now. I had an embarrassing moment
the other day. Now, you know, then the wrong thing.
You know? The Brown brothers, said Nathan Brown that played
for Collingwood and his brother miss.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh yeah, for those that don't know, and there they
are like the same guys, dad ring over each other.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
One of them came in the other day and gave
a speech and stuff, and I go up to him.
I said, it's so good to see you, Nathan, like
how you've been such and such.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
A rog what it's just no, it's just looked at
me and goes, nah, I think you've got me mixed
up and you're just in the hole. At that point,
you're going, how do I dig myself out of this?

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Fuck?

Speaker 5 (23:23):
I'm so sorry? I uh uh, damn it.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
That's rough. That's why I never talked to people. That's
why you don't. I don't refer to people as their name.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Mate.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
It's good to hear it.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
Stot real vague, you know, and then you then you
narrow it down.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Did he not introduce himself or do we just not?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Was it was? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (23:44):
It probably yeah, just early anyway, My question off the
back of this, if you're going to build a team
from scratch, say it's in Tazzy. Say you're the coach,
coach Cocks rolling down to Tazzy, you're going through your
list management meeting, who would you pick out of those
two two start a team and build the team.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Around jeseus A good question.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Are you thinking more offense or you're thinking more defense?
Do you build from the back or do you just
stack them up front?

Speaker 1 (24:11):
You know, I think the larger thing to do is
build from the back. But fuck that, Yeah, we're going
straight to offense. Maybe go straight to the offense, Big
Harry out the front. Yeah, Hey, Tasmania needs some people
shoved games, So we go get h We give everything.
Everything goes through a head. All ten goals we're going
to kick are all going to go through Harry. And
that's the way we're going to win games, all one

(24:31):
of them throughout the whole year.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, because you're going to convince all these blokes to
come down play for coach Cops and Tezy.

Speaker 5 (24:37):
We're gonna have Jack Reewalk coming over to retirement.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Goodness, we're talking about good teams.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Mate.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
We talk about the Sydney Swans because there's a bit
of a dilemma. I feel. One, there's streets ahead.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Two they've got a game in hand so that there
are two games up and they're still played one game
less than everyone else.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
So they're out front. They're leading the.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
Race going well, but they've got these pesky little midfielders.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Well, we'll go with Golden Warner HENI right, yep, and
just pick those three random ones out because they've got
about forty good midfielders. They've got midfielders that are playing
in the twos that could captain other teams, and they've
kicked five goals again between them, I feel like they
do that pretty much every week. So how the hell
is anyone gonna stop that Mace?

Speaker 1 (25:25):
It's a very good question. No one's No one's found
out that Brandon. We don't figure that out yet.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
We just a midfielder Tagers and we just shut them down.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
They're absolute freaks. And Brody's like a really good ruckman too,
that's given that to him. So yeah, almost chuck Brody
in as a fourth med and it's it's incredible what
they're doing. And like another thing is like they haven't
really had I feel like too many injuries going through
there either, so they've been dominant and like together kind
of group there for a while. So they know how
each other players, and they're playing off each other really well.

(25:55):
And I think everyone knows a Sydney's you know, top
of the table for a reason. So how did how
to get back? I have no idea. I don't know
the answer. I mean, there is some guru out there
that's probably sitting there crunching stats, figuring out something that
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (26:08):
But at the moment it is, it's impressive to watch.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
It's impressive watch what Chad Warner has been doing this
year is incredible. He is just blowing my mind. At
the moment I was watching the other day, I was
just like, this guy's a freak. I don't always getting paid.
I assume it's not enough, but he is an absolute gun,
just rolling through changing the game like and you stick
him anywhere in the field and he's just going to dominate. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
I think it's wild to look at that Sydney team
and think that their forward line is probably not the
strongest I think, to be fair, but they're like dominating.
They gave Geelong a six goal head start and beat
them by five goals.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, it's just like when they wanted to turn it on,
there was a patch there and the I think it
was the second where they just blitzed them. And it's
just scary how quick they can put it on the scoreboard.
And it's been case they can just kick them from
fifty five from any situation, whether it be a stoppage
or on the run. But Yeah, there was one goal
where Warner he was I reckon, he was twenty meters

(27:11):
behind his opponent and just put the jets on, blasted
past him and sealed it and it was It's scary,
But I don't think I need to put that on
the agenda because I think everyone out there is trying
to figure out how to beat this Sydney team because
you know, at times like Geelong did get a six
goal head start, so they you can catch them sleeping.
But I feel like it's going to have to be

(27:32):
one of them. You get them on a good day
in finals and somehow you get across the line Collingwood,
Richmond Speck where a big Mason Cox kicks out like
just comes out of nowhere and just.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Seals the game.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
It's going to have to be something along that because
I feel like they're gonna get there, so it's going
to be scary to see how they go in finals.
We jump into the big winners from the weekend and
it's not your usual suspects. We did just talk about
Sydney who had a very strong win over Geelong, but
it's not them. It's not Carlton who had a big

(28:08):
win over Essendon, who I don't know, question marks. We'll
put that back on the agenda. But what I'm going
to pick off the top, I'm going to pick the Hawks,
which over the last two weeks I've been saying it,
but I haven't had a podcast to say.

Speaker 5 (28:21):
It, just not publicly.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Can scream it.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
In the dark room at the back.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
They're not that team that everyone goes like, oh, they're
going to be a hard team. They're going to pick
some teams along the way. They're just a good team.
They've won what five hour of their last six. The
one game they dropped was the game they had a
convincing lead over Port and lost it in the last
second when DBJ kicked that soccer goal. So they could

(28:48):
have had six of the last six. They lost their
first five and now they've just turned it around. It's
like the GWS of last year where they started slow
and then they were a freight train coming home. In
that five of the last six, they've beaten the Bulldogs,
Saint Kilda, Brisbane, Adelaide and GWOS. So they're not you know,
beaten West Coast and North and the likes. They've beaten

(29:11):
some pretty convincing team.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Now you look at you have you let the dust
set all you look back in hindsight, and I think
Sam Mitchell is just going to be one of those
coaching appointments that, like he guarded that club, the whole
leadership group was gone, and he's been able to coach
this group of young misfits. He's given them an attitude.

(29:36):
They're confident, their cocky. Like I've said in the past,
they embody Sam Mitchell as a player when he was playing,
and now they're putting the wins on the boarders.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
They turned into a scary little team.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
I mean like we barely beat them over and gather around. Yeah,
like they're they're a good team. And I think people
just always had this mentality around you know, Hawthorne is
still building, still building, still building, But I think this
year they're kind of showing like now we're past that
stage and it's it's I mean, I think Sam's been
there for two or three years, if not more, and
he's like a new coach. He's a younger coach. You know,

(30:10):
he's got the energy and everything else, and you know
it takes a bit of time with a younger group
and then but there's a certain point where it just
starts to click and you get the experience in them,
you get everything else in them, and then they have
the trust in you as a coach, and you really
kind of start that connection and you know, you can
really kind of build a legacy from that from that
club standpoint and be able to be back in the
top eight. And they now are really showing, like you said,

(30:33):
over the last five or six weeks, they're really kind
of showing exactly what they're capable of, and they're beating
some good teams. I mean, GWS. We know obviously I've
struggle in a bit at the moment, but you know,
they're a really good side who do incredible things and
the fact that they're putting it to them is it's
a credit to the Hawks. It's not you know, it's
one of those things. Now they're not they're not looked
at as a North Melmour or a West Coast or

(30:54):
you know, a person that's going to be on the
bottom of the table. They're right up there, you know,
making a run for the top eight and it's going
to be an interesting little back half of the year
for them. I think their fans are pleasantly surprised and
probably happy at the moment.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
It's a good point you made about, you know, an
untested coach comes in and I feel like externally everyone
is like, oh, like we get to see you know,
if if they're up for being a senior coach, Fly
would though Fly would have been a bit different because
you had some experience with him personally, But was there

(31:28):
any of that when he walks through the doors or like,
how's how does he get the player's attention to be like.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Well, the thing is with Fly rights like you you
have him come through the doors who had been there previously,
probably five years before or something like that, and the
players go, I know this guy. I trust this guy.
I know he's a good person with good values, and
that instantly makes you connect and want to play for him,
or as the failing, if you're a new coach coming
into something, you have to introduce yourself and don't know
who you are and stuff like that, and you know,

(31:54):
and you have to kind of, you know, figure out
kind of where you stand on things, and you know
where you kind of you know, agree disagree on whatever
it may be. And it takes a little bit for
that kind of connection to start where whenever Fly came in,
because he had already kind of coached some of us
in our younger years, it was like instantly like all right,
let's go look, we know what we're doing. We trust you.
Just like tell us what to do and we'll be there.
And I think that's one of the reasons that we

(32:15):
were able to turn around so quickly. Yeah, it's just
the you know, the knowledge of who he is, what
he was about, his morals, his ethics, all the kind
of stuff that we kind of aligned with, and that
allowed us to somewhat fast track, you know, that transition
phase of a new coach into a new system.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, right, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
And it looks like Sam Mitchell's past that phase now
and he's got them playing for him. And I think
it's another big tick for you know, when players wrap
up and they go to another club, they do one
year they're kind of half playing, half coaching. He went
over to West Coast, started off playing there, but like
started learning the coaching role, and I think, you know,

(32:56):
I reckon, it's just another massive tick for that that
you know, these players that are a bit more senior
don't have to wrap it up straight away.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
They can definitely go.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
You probably have to leave to go somewhere else because
you know, if they just started trying to treat you
as like a player coach relationship.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
But it's also good to experience different styles, right, Like
he's been half on for a very long time, so
it's good probably for him to see something different, see
how it's run, and see different facilities things like that.
Like I think about myself, I've only experienced Collingwood. Yeah,
like I have no idea how another club is run.
Like we might be the best, we might be the
worst at it. You know, I have no I have
no comparison to it, right, So like for him to

(33:29):
go to another club see how the coaches do things
and things like that, Like, you know, I think it's
a it's a massive development thing for him as a coach,
and I think it's good for people towards their back
and then the end of their career if they want
to get into that, to experience something different.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Pendals has actually said that he wants to get into
coaching and he wants to try, like he wants to
experience another club after some time off.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
And you know, if Pendalls is saying it must.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Be like Hilary someone underneath.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
And the other big win from the weekend. None of
the North Melbourne Football Club, it was. It was only
just that they won this week when we were having
the podcast back they went over to West Coast and
beat West Coast. Did they lose the draft pick again, Well,
we'll have to wait and see, but they had a

(34:14):
big win. They held on because they got a nice
juicy lead and then they lost that and then they
showed a bit of resilience. Claughter Back got the win.
In the end, Laki ended up going out there the
big soup. He ended up kicking five. And Yeah, So
what it would do, you'd assume is massive pressure release
from the playing group. They get to celebrate, bit of joy,

(34:37):
bit of happiness, all the hard work it paid off
for at least a game. But I imagine it would
be a massive pressure release for Clarko.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah for sure. I think like there's been a lot
of media around him and the club and everything else
and transition with him becoming a coach there and his
time off and all that kind of stuff. But at
the end of the day, I think that first went
on the board, You're like, all right, everyone like is
looking at that going is this going to be a
season where we don't get a win? Yeah, but then
once you get the first one and you're like, okay,

(35:06):
that the monkeys off the back. We can now just
like not feel that pressure from the outside coming in
and be able just to play our brand of football.
So I think they'll win more than one game this year.
I really do. But you know, it was I think
it's really good for them to be able to get
this on the board. A little bit of like, you know, revenge,
I guess for the Harley Reed kind of situation that
everyone keeps talking about. But he was he wasn't even

(35:27):
playing all the day, so one of those things. But
it was it was great to see. I think, you know,
the North Melbourne fans out there would be pretty stoked
at the moment and wearing their scarves around town with pride.
A few people text me the North Melbourne fans were
like we're back baby.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
That and Tasmanians that's where the dms are at. But no,
it was good to see them go over there get
the win, and just some of those older guys because
they do have to convince people like LDU to stick around. Yeah,
so you got to you've got to have some wins
to remember, like remind those players what the wins are like.
Because I look at someone like Ben McKay who have

(36:06):
said had eight wins in nine years or whatever it was.
Now he's moved to Essenon and he's had eight wins
in a season. It's pretty hard to convince people to
stay in those teams.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
So you need to be sure.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
But let's get into, you know, part of what people
are most looking forward to. We obviously were going to
get to your update. We're going to do a bit
of a welfare check. Well you know, see what is broken,
what's broken, see what's okay. But we will get into
the Collingwood Melbourne game in depth because massive game, massive
win for the Big Pie boys.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Firstly, what did you do for the game? Obviously you
didn't run out there because that cup would have been
in danger.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Crispy might have lost it because you're you're a Queen's
Birthday specialist. I wonder if it carries over to the
King's birthday. But what did you do for the game.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
We've got to go in, like as we have people
go in early before the game, do that, which is
always a grind. It's a real grind because then you
go to rehab into the game, so it turns into
like a full twelve hour days. And yeah, so it
did that. In the morning, went to the game, you
kind of go down to the rooms and talk to
the boys before the before the game and stuff like that,
you know, and then at like halftime you go down

(37:16):
there and after the game too, and you try to
you know, if anyone has any questions or you try
to give some advice to people, like you know, you
think about like Nathan Crue or Billy Frampton having to
playing the rock and you know, if they had any
questions or something like, they can ask me.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
And you just kind of there for for supports for
a speech, like what speech to give when.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Me just thank everyone? Mate. I never gave a speech actually,
I was just given to it in the middle of
the ground, like we're not going to give that guy Mike,
that's probably Basd anyway, Yeah, this guy will take over.
You sawt it brother helpful with Dusty Martin. But yeah, no,
it was. It was a big day, a big day
for myself to do that for the full day. But yeah,

(37:54):
as a person that's in rehab, you have those those
those game days become very long, become very long. But
it's great. It was an incredible win for the club obviously,
like an amazing, amazing trailable cause that we do it for.
And you know, to have that many people show up
and be at the game with their beanies on. It's
such a cool visual there. And see how many people

(38:14):
go down the slides. I will say best on ground
for the slide. Aaron Phillips dresses pink, unreal Ringer so good.
So everyone was very good this year. Pat Rafter sitting
on the edge back knows if he's like one of
the one of the fans in the crowd and then
rolls down. He was hilarious. I didn't get to watch

(38:35):
out this year.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Didn't they like they would have got professional help. They
all look too good.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Nick Nat was like Jamaica and is Bob Marley then
turned into the Jamaican bobside team.

Speaker 5 (38:45):
It was just I feel like everyone was banging on me.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Everyone did such a great job and uh, you know
back in Neil and the rest of the Danahir family,
it's it's a pretty incredible experience and what it's kind of,
you know, built out to become. You know, it's a
credit to them and everyone else that's got involved, and
how willing people are to be charitable towards it and
get around the cause that is. It's one of my
favorite things about Australia.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
I will say, you've been around for all ten yep.
So what are some memories. What are the best memories
from it? I remember being at the club when Neil
would come through and give you speech and you couldn't help,
but you know, you could hear a pin drop the
room and you'd take so much from it.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, every year it was I think like he would
come and he would kind of give you just an
incredible perspective of life, right like in someone who's so
willing to give his time. You know that he knows
as you know, most people have twenty seven months I
think is the average after you get diagnosed, and he's
so willing to give his time and energy to still
fight this beast, and you try to raise as much

(39:47):
money to be able to make sure that no one
has to go through this in the future.

Speaker 5 (39:50):
Like he's had to.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
So it's such an incredible life respective he gives whenever
he comes in.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
He's a little cheeky.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, people like some people know that, some people don't,
but he's a little check out. Love it because it
shows a bit of his personality too, and but most
of it is just such an incredible, you know, view
of life and to be so grateful for what you've
got and everything else, and it just kind of, you know,
it makes you kind of emotional and you know, like
you said, you get this kind of overwhelming feeling every
time he comes in of just how incredible this guy

(40:18):
is and what he's doing. And it's wild to think
that he's not been in Australian of the Year. I
actually put in a bid for him to be Australian
in the Year like two three years ago because I
just think it's crazy he hasn't hasn't been that yet. Yeah,
I hope I hope he does, you know, in the
next few years. But it's something I think should happen,

(40:40):
just given what he's been able to accomplish and do.
It's it's amazing and I think it'd be a great
honor to him to have that bestowed on him. But yeah,
every time he comes in, it's an incredible week. Amazing
to see so many people get around it some of
the big businesses like Coals and Bunnings and everyone else
sell the beanies and help raise that kind of money
and give you know, their their time, energy and finances

(41:02):
to it is just it's it's awesome.

Speaker 5 (41:05):
It's awesome. It's what Australian spirit's all about.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
And I think it's an incredible, you know day, an
incredible journey with him and what he's been able to accomplish,
and you know, we hopefully can carry that on.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
He was always cheeky when he would come in do
his speech and he would always say like that he
didn't want it to be too much of an inspirational
speech because he wanted Melbourne. I want Melbourne to win,
but I got to come down here and give you
guys a speech, so I hope it's not too good.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
He talked a bit of about his scooter, Scott's Elwood,
so that was good fun.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
So we move into the game itself. Christian Petrarco, I
will say, off the top cop the hellish knee from
Darcy Moore in the contest went down in agony. He
was screaming, came back out for a little bit. I
don't know what they must have been given him. But
she's must have been produced because he came back out,
played a couple more minutes, went off at halftime, subbed

(42:05):
him out, and then yeah, straight on the stretchers, straight
out to the hospital.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
So pretty, you know, devastating injury.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
Spleen Brothers, he wouldn't believe that he got a lacerated spleen,
same as yourself. So there's none better to give more
insight into this injury, because you know, I feel like
you're one of those charts in the doctor's office and
you've got something. You've got the craziest injuries.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
So I went to the eye doctor today. She like
opens the chart and she like was like, oh, just
looking at all your you know, surgeries and passed this sense.

Speaker 5 (42:37):
Then she had a flip to a page two because
it was so long.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
I was like, shit, all weird ones.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
But anyway, let's we're zoning in on the spleen. How
did you go through this process? How much pain were
you in?

Speaker 2 (42:50):
What did it mean for you?

Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's it's the most pain I've ever been in my life.
It is incredibly uncomfortable, especially when it first happened. I
wasn't or what it was like. We thought it was
just a rib. So we played out the rest of
the game and I didn't actually get diagnosed for it
for another, you know, a few days. But yeah, it's
it's a weird dynamic. And this is going to be
kind of gross. So you know, if you're eating or

(43:12):
something like that right now, just be just be aware.
But whenever it happens, it's like you need a puke
and take a shit at the same time. And there's
like it's to the point where it's like uncontroll of
and it's just that terrible nauseous feeling and you just
like your stomach just feels like it's like about to explode,
and you just like everything is painful. You have so

(43:32):
much abdominal pain everything else. And yeah, it's it's rough.
It's rough. I can understand why he you know, a
halftime went out and he's I think he's got like
four broken ribs.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Display like he's he's had a few things punctured.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
That's I think the partially punctured lung would be really
tough too, because you couldn't be able to breathe, right, Like,
that's the that's very rough. So he's had a he's
had a tough little go but yeah, the spleen thing
is it's quite serious. Like, I mean, I was out
for seven weeks and I couldn't do anything, like I
couldn't do any kind of working out, and I had
one of the most wild surgeries I've ever had in
my life, where, you know, the day after I kind

(44:05):
of got diagnosed, he kind of calls me and he goes, look,
can you be at the hospital in like thirty minutes,
And I said, yeah, like, I'm just at the cloud.
I can do it. And he goes, We're going to
do a surgery right away on you. So that night
I was essentially was put not under, but like you're
awake for this whole thing. There's a massive X ray
kind of CT scanner over your chest. He puts you

(44:25):
in a cross position on your back and he cuts
your artery on your wrist and goes through with a
wire and the wire goes all the way This is
disgusting if you're listening, but the wire goes all the
way through your artery and he finds your spleen and
you're watching on a live television to the left of
you while you're awake in the cross like position. You're
watching this wire go through your internal organs, and he

(44:48):
eventually gets into the spleen. You're sitting there looking at
a visual of the splane. He goes, you're gonna feel
a bit of pressure, and he put in this little
coil that essentially blocks off blood flow to the part
of the splane that was last rated, so it kills
that part off. So you feel that pressure, and then
he just strips the wire out of you, and then
he you know, puts the thing to make sure that,
you know, you don't bleed out of your arteries. So

(45:09):
it was one of the most bizarre, crazy things. And
you're sitting there fully conscious, like you're not under any
kind of real heavy medication, and you're having a casual
conversation with the doctor as he's doing this.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Is it like when you get a haircut and you
really don't want to sneeze or something.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Oh, you wouldn't want to do that. I thank But
you're talking to me like this is a medical mobil.
I do like seven of these a day.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
I was okay, cool, don't fuck it up, don't fuck
it up, don't FuG it up.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, so I'll have to send a message of track
and just say, look, it's going to be an interesting
next for.

Speaker 5 (45:35):
Hopefully you're on. I know some people that can look
after if you need.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, because I think from you know, a standard person
that hasn't had you know, lacerated spleens, punctured lungs. Yeah,
it's wild to see him go back out there with
the pain that he was screaming in and quite clearly
in pain. I think Pendle said a while back that
he doesn't really like to take painkillers because if you

(46:00):
what he's telling you, you shouldn't be up and running. Yeah,
you probably shouldn't be up and running. There's obviously a.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Line that you need to draw with that, like whether
you know a game is more important, like if it's
a Grand Final, if it's a final whatever. But yeah,
with the with the sub sitting there, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
He's I mean, he's a competitive person and he would
want to be out there on the ground on a
big occasion like that.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Let's stick with the injury theme we're going into. Nick
Dakos subbed out. He had a bit of a gimpy
leg coming off. He was limping all over the joint.
I think after the game he said he had a
dead leg which I don't dead anything doesn't sound good. Yeah,
so I'm thinking that sounds like a bit of a corky.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
But is he all right?

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Have you heard any we all want to know?

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, yeah, we're at the you know, the quick facts
from me. No, I mean, here Ice on his lego
where it was after the game. But I don't know
the situation. I don't know anything that's happened.

Speaker 5 (46:53):
So yeah, take this as you want, but we've got
to get you in the rooms game with the little
roaming cocks.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah. I think like at that point we were you know,
probably it was like forty points, I want to say,
and you look to like someone like neck right, like
we next got a lot of you know, a lot
of weight on his shoulders as far as how well
he's going at a young age and him playing every
single game. Like you look at Harley Read who's getting
a few weeks off, and you know, you know, they've
rested him at times and things like that, Like we
probably haven't been able to do that really with Nick

(47:24):
as much. So whenever you have an opportunity like that,
maybe to say, okay, we feel as though we've kind
of been able to wrap this game up. We can
finish this game. We might be able to give him
a quarter off or you know, be able to wrest
him a little bit, especially if you know there's a
little niggle wherever it is that's wrong with you know,
his leg, Then you take the opportunity, right Like you
have the sub there, you might as well use it.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Yeah, which they could have done in Petruck's case. But
I digress. We move into Nathan Krueger.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
He's had a rough run with injury, played a handful
of games, been out of the AFL team for a while. Yeah,
and you know he's battled his way back into the side,
kicks three goals on return.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
What a good story.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, it's at incredible story of resilience. I think more
than anything, he's he's had his fair share of injuries
and you know, having to play in the VFL and
everything else, and you know, the opportunity kind of came
up over the weekend. He grabbed it by the horns.
It's a credit to him. It's an easy thing to
do up in there many at times, and yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
It was.

Speaker 5 (48:20):
You're just so happy for him, like he's a very
happy to go, like a.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Guy, A funny guy around the around the club, makes
everyone laugh and smile, and it was good to see
him get a big game and do it on a
big occasion like that too. Is also great to see,
and he was he's I felt like he was just
kind of he's just everywhere, you know, like every time
we went into the forward line, I felt like he
kind of went through him at.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Times and brings intensity.

Speaker 5 (48:40):
He's just he puts his.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Body on the line.

Speaker 5 (48:43):
Oh, we'll tell you that man. That man will bust
through a wallf you ask him.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Through a pack.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
I remember seeing him at at VFL level and he
was the same, like celebrating everything, just crashing packs.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
It's good to see.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
We move into Crispy, who won Best on Ground, and
I feel like he needs, you know, some credit for
the way that he's been playing. You know, Collingwood been
down on midfield stocks in recent weeks, and you know
he slotted straight in, racking up big numbers, kicking goals
on the run.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Chrispy of old.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
It's been great to see and then rewarded on the
weekend with the Neil Denna Trophy.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, he's he's an incredible player. You know, everyone talks
about his consecutive games played. I think he's now second
on the old time he's getting out there. Yeah, So
it's it's an incredible, you know, experience thing for him.
He's he's always been such a consistent player, and I
think that's one of the things people will probably the
word they will attach with him, you know, in his career.

(49:42):
But he Yeah, he's shining whenever the opportunity has come
to him. And I think it's like we have, you know,
some amazing midfielders that go through there, and a lot
of times, you know, they sometimes have to sacrifice part
of their game whenever other people are playing because you know,
it's you know, you give that person in that role
for the day wherever it is, you know. And now
that there's a few people that he's had to step
up and fill the role and shoes of you know,

(50:03):
he's shining quite bright. So it's a crazy to him
and know what he is, what he can accomplish, and
it's something that I love saying. He's a guy that
just loves football, just loves football guy. So it's his
whole family. He's got a million family members. They're all
they're all hilarious, they're all quite funny and yeah, it's
great to see him when the the Neil Danna Her Trophy,

(50:25):
and you know, I thought it was pretty deserving on.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
The day, speaking of someone who played out of their skin.
This bloke, Oh my god, Brandon Maynard. Yes, And if
you thought you were a Melbourne.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Fan and you were going to boo this bloke, well you.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Were doing a lot of that because he had twenty
one touches and when he has touches, oh, he's kicks.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
They're darts, They're like bullets. And speaking of bullets, he
was hitting blows and frosty.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
So it was awesome to see those boos slowly, you know,
simmered down and they turned to cheers as the Collingwood
Faithful took over and every time he was getting the ball,
he was getting, you know, a big standing around of applause.
It was good to It was great to see because
you know, looking back, it affected Brandon Maynard what happened
last year and in the finals, and yeah, to come

(51:16):
out and you know, be so in the game and
you know, be able to push the booze to the
one side and have the game that he did. It
was a special performance.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
It was really good.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
It was so interesting to be in the crowd and
see because whenever you're playing, you're so you know, entrenched
in the game, you don't probably see and acknowledge what's
going on in the crowd as much. Right, And at
the very beginning you see all these booze and stuff,
and like, I kind of forgotten the whole thing, like tuite,
a bit of time has kind of passed, and you know,
you're just watching the game. You go, oh, that's that

(51:48):
sounds a bit different. That's been interesting, and then you
kind of put two and two to go, oh yeah, right,
and then all of a sudden that turned into cheers
whenever he just started dominating. He had one or two
where he just bounced off one person and then that
then it hits a kick and you're like, oh man,
this guy's on. He played so well over the weekend,
and you know, I'm happy for him, like his his

(52:09):
mom was sitting behind me, and I was, you know,
I was just sitting there smoking the whole time, thinking like, oh,
she's and she's the most proud mother you'll ever mate.

Speaker 5 (52:17):
Yeah, she's such a lovely woman. She's done a few
things with the calling.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Of media over the years. Yeah, yeah, she's She's done
a few interviews over the years. She's lovely. She always
checks in on my mother, which I really appreciate. So, No,
it was good and he had a he had an
amazing game yesterday. And it's cool to see defenders get acknowledgment.
I think we probably look past defenders quite a bit
because they're not the The overall is not the sexiest
thing at times. But you know, I think him over

(52:41):
the weekend, it was. It was quite evident, you know
how well he was playing, and yeah, he got the
the credit he deserved.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
I thought we'll do a couple of quick moments from
the game, because did you see Steele's hanger.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Dude, what in the world, how did you get up
that high?

Speaker 1 (52:54):
I have no idea. I'm still to this day questioning
if it actually happened, because that.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Is what's doing turning back the clock.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
He's kicking goals from sixty in the granny and now
he's taken hangars.

Speaker 5 (53:04):
He did spray the goal after. Yeah, it was incredible.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
It was that was wild. It is I feel like
that kick where it goes from like one side feel
to the other and like someone's running back and you're
like kind of don't have You've got the perfect visual
of the ball and the guy sitting under you. It
was just yeah, it was an awesome moment. I was like, Holy,
he still got it. Dude, still got it.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
And there was one other moment that had just jumped
into my head. Bobby Hills, don't argue on picket. Oh
my god, he's he's got to be lighter. I reckon,
Bobby's got to have a lighter frame. And somehow he
just pushed him through the earth. It was like something
out of Dragonball Z. They go into the earth and
they're like smashing through the mountains or whatever.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
He that was.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
I thought we could have called the game off there,
just let's stop this. There was only thirty seconds in
Steel broke two tackles and then Bobby just sits him down.
I was like, wow, that's that's you know, I haven't
seen that.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
I think you're always backfooted with Bobby because you're always
worried about what he's going to do next. It's just
so unpredictable, so you never really get a good, good
angle on him because you're like, oh, we could shift
and go the other way. I'm going to be a
bit more hesitant going after them, and then you don't
really have good footing, and yeah, he threw them to
the ground. I was like, all right, Bobby hitting the gym.
Love that big fan.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
He's got that in his kit bag, which is wild.
It's like, you can't It must be a pretty deep
kit bag. But we will get into you know what
everyone's wanted to know. We haven't done the podcast for
a couple of weeks. People been DM and S hassling is.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
And people messaging me like dude, what are you doing?
What am I supposed to do? I'm like, I'm trying,
all right, I physically mentally can't do a podcast. I'm
not allowed. So it's been a long two weeks.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
So let's jump into that. You haven't been allowed to
do the podcast.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
You haven't been allowed to do media until you pass
your concussion tests, and that's taken a while.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
So let's get into the welfare check. How are you feeling.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
We're getting there. We're getting there at day by day.
I passed the first kind of concussion test and a
gamut of things to make sure you're okay and ready
to play again. So this is my first concussion so
I'm going through all the protocols for the first time,
which is interesting. But yeah, I've got a few things.
I've got a broken rib, bruised rib, and had a
broken cheek boner's like goma as they call it. Had
to get surgery on that last week. I had the

(55:21):
concussion and then a Grade two MCL, so partially to
one MCL. So it was it was a long week.

Speaker 5 (55:29):
It was a long couple of weeks, Brandon, it was
a long time.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Slug.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
Oh man, I just I left there and I was
There's so many things that kind of happened. Yeah, it
was wild, Like I mean, I even had to go
to the Perth Public Hospital on a Friday night at
eleven pm. You can imagine the riff raft they're going.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Through that jump into it.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
So the incident itself, you know, I feel like you
got hit in the head a dozen times before it,
and then it was like a moment I was watching
you going like, ah, he's gone, ah fuck it, I'm
going to this put me down. So you run recklessly
into this big pack, you get a hit, and immediately

(56:06):
when I'm watching it, you fold up like James Brown
doing the splits.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
And I was like, ah, that.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Doesn't look good. The back of your foot almost hit
the back of your head, and then you know they
cut back to you. You're getting helped off by like
two or three the Collingwood stuff, and yeah, it was.
It wasn't until they were like, oh, you subbed out
with concussion that I was like, ah, I didn't even
think of concussion because the knee looked so bad. But

(56:34):
talk us about what happens from the moment that we
don't see you anymore. You get taken from the ground,
you go down into the rooms, what happens there?

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah, I mean at that point I'd been my face
had been super good twice and two separate interests from
the doctor.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
So the doctor had a fair day. We had a
lot of connection on the day.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
So you don't need a doctor, you need a panel.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
It's like, I need a help. So you get taken
down like this is you know, I was. I was
knocked out in the air and that's kind of why
my body kind of folded and toward it in the
way that it was like I didn't brace for impact
of the ground, and that's how my leg got caught
behind me. And the next thing you know is you're
kind of like staring up at the sky and you
kind of get off the ground. The doctor's there and
you you know, get helped off and you're in a

(57:13):
bit of like a haze and you're in so much pain.
You're going like what's kind of what's going on? And
like you know, you're kind of trying to figure out
what's next, and you're like okay, like I've been injured before,
Like is this enough to you know, get back on?
Like how do I how does this work out? So
doctor goes, look, you've been concussed. You need to come
down to the rooms. And you know that's part of
the protocol procedures. So go down to the rooms. He
starts checking me out and stuffy, and you know, the

(57:35):
decisions made pretty quickly, you know, especially if you been
knocked out. He goes, look, substitutes on, stop stressing about
trying to play again, Like it's the decision has been made.
You're not going to be back out there. So then
you kind of sit there and you're like, okay, well
you know what all's wrong with me? So then they
kind of start, you know, testing your knee and then
test you know, touching your cheek, and your face and
everything else, trying to figure out everything that's wrong with you.

(57:56):
At that point, I had the you know, the broken ribs,
so I was really struggling to kind of breath.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
And did that happen in that incident?

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Yeah, in the same incident, So I'm pretty sure is
that one it might have been there was another time
before that. It might have happened then, but yeah, I'm
not really sure exactly where it all kind of happened
because I was unconscious. So you're checking the rib finding
out that's you know, you get the X rays of
stuff later, but like you know, they check out your

(58:22):
full body and you sit there and then the medics
kind of come in, you know, they sit there Andy, okay,
like we'll wait for the ambulance to get here and
then you know, we'll take you out there. So way
to the end of the game, get taken in the
ambulance out to the Perth hospital and had to go
to the Trauma Award because they're worried that maybe lascerated
like a liver or something internally. So a lot of
times the trauma awards or public hospitals. Yeah, so that

(58:44):
was the same thing in Melbourne. You have to go
to Alfred I think it is, and so they took
me there. It's a Friday night, eleven pm, Perth hospital.
It was an experience, to say the least eight times
it was people screaming up and down the hallways. Police
like having to subdue people and like you know, sit
them down and like scream buddy murder. It was just

(59:07):
it was pandemonium in the er and I'm I'm in
full Collingwood kid, you know. So they've kind of manipulated
me to go into the corner, put the sheet you know,
in front of it to make sure that no one
sees you, and so you don't really visually see anything,
but you hear a lot and you're like, oh my gosh,
like you almost kind of think you're like in an
insane asylum, you know, you've got There was like one

(59:28):
lady that was there and like in front of her
she was just like for ten to fifteen minutes, she's
like talking about her family and like just wanted to
have a chat, you know. And then there's another person
that's like having to be like physically held down because
she's like screaming and you know, maybe on drugs or whatever.
It is, and then another person trying to the toilet
and they're like busting everything in the toilet and You're
just like, this is just crazy. And you're sitting there
like feeling in pain, but like, you know, nothing like crazy.

(59:50):
So like I just like I just wanted to scam.
I just wanted to scan and go home. That's all
I wanted to do. So and I will say this,
like the doctors and nurses that work in ear you know,
in hospitals and stuff, I have the full amount of
respect for them because it is incredible. What they deal
with is incredible, you know, helping people in such dire
circumstances and situations and you know, having to deal with

(01:00:13):
what they have to deal with. I don't They're They're
absolute angels, and they have the most patience in the world.
To be honest with you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
The patients is like, how do you have man, I'm
looking at.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
These people, and I said, I was like, I just
I don't know how you do it. I really don't.
She goes, look, this is actually pretty quiet night, and
I was like, are you kidding me? So anyway, so
I had a really good experience with the doctors and
everything else there, and They got me through and got
me out, and you know, I figured out I had
the broken rib. They said, look, nothing internally is wrong,
but you've got the broken rib, bruise rib, and you

(01:00:44):
know you should be okay to fly tomorrow, you know,
because that was a big question mark being in Perth.
But can you get on a plane? Did you puncture
along or something? Because if you puncture along, I think
you can't fly for like two weeks because of the
pressure in the cabin.

Speaker 5 (01:00:56):
So so Petruck is probably pretty lucky.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
It happened in Melbourne, right, So.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
What happened at this stage? What happens with your parents? Like,
how do your parents find out? What time is it
in Texas?

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Oh jeez, it's probably probably three or four in the
morning at that point. That no not, I mean my
parents are always up because I was watching the game.
So yeah, the club was amazing the way they dealt
with it. You know, they had an employee come with
me and sat with me in an ambulance, that sat
with me in the emergency room. It was with me
the whole night and then I got back home or

(01:01:26):
sorry back to the hotel and you know they kind
of said, look, you know, We've contacted your parents and
we've let them know. I've been in constant communication with them.
They know everything that's going on. So they were incredible
with that. You imagine as a mother being half a
world away from your son who's zero understanding and contact
with what's going on and what's happening. They're amazing with that. So,
you know, I'm very, very fortunate that the club looked

(01:01:47):
after me in that way, and Alex was an amazing
person to do that, and you know, it's it's an
unselfish thing, you know, it's part of club culture, I think,
to care about people like that, those tough situations.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
So you're not allowed to anyway at this do you
while the game's on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Right, what's this?

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
So use your phone?

Speaker 4 (01:02:06):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Well, I mean like they are allowed to text family
and stuff, and they had their contacts and whatnot. Like
I was giving my phone after the game was finished,
but you know, I was kind of concussed and I
was like, I don't want to be on my phone.
There's a million messages, you know, asking if you're okay
and everything else. You're like, look, I'm not in the
kind of mental capacity to deal with this so much.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
That goes into an injury. Yeah, that you don't think
of the extra shit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Well, I mean I get back to Melbourne and so
we fly back the next day and I'm heavily on
you know, medication of painkillers because I'm broken, red barey
can breathe. I feel like at this point having to
go on an aeroplane uncomfortable for a big guy myself
as a normal person, much less of all these injuries.
And so I get on there and then you get
back to Melbourne and I've got a couple of days,
and then we get back into the club and I said, oh,

(01:02:46):
I can't really close my mouth, Like my jaw is
not really able to like chew things. It's very painful.
And at this point we had already had I think
two mriys or sorry to see T scan MRI on
my knee. He goes, look, we'll just see T scanning.
You know, you're John. He looked at it and that's
when I both figured out I broke my cheekbone. So
then I was like, oh, that makes sense. So then
two days later you see it, you know, that day
you see the specialist in like two three days later,

(01:03:08):
you have the surgery and you know, they pop your
cheekbone back out, then cheekbone pop back out. Now they
go through the side of your head, so like I've
got I've got the stitches out the other day, so
you can't see this much, but they go down there,
down on the side of your head and then pop
your cheekbone back into place, kind of like it's kind
of like that, yeah, and instantly you kind of feel
as though your jaws aligned again. So I'm just now

(01:03:29):
kind of getting to the point where I'm recovered from that.
You have to sleep. The worst thing is you have
to sleep on one side, so you're not allowed to
sleep on that slide. But the problem is the other
side is where my broken rib was. I couldn't sleep
on either side. I was so screwedy. So I'm trying
to sleep on the side of a broken rib because
I'm not allowed to sleep on the side I just
had surgery, and I'm just sitting there in immense paint.

(01:03:52):
At one point, I was like falling asleep with my
legs up on the back of the couch and sitting
on my back because that was the only thing that
could actually feel comfortable in. And it was a rough
kind of like two weeks and then you know, I
had an m R on my head just because I
kept getting headaches and you know, I couldn't really focus
and I was a bit worried about the concussion stuff.
And yeah, I'm still having a little bit of headaches
come and go as yeah today, But yeah, it's just

(01:04:13):
been a bit of a process. Like we've had quite
a few things. The MCL will keep me out the
longest out of all the different stuff, I think. So
I don't know if that's a blessing to say, look,
what's not you know, try to push things as far
as your concussion.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
But compared to all your other stuff, how would you
rank them? Give us your power ranking, the.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Power ranking of injuries far out, this would be probably two.
The splain was number one and tie. Like in the moment,
that was one of the worst experiences I've ever had
because I think I broke a rib and I did
the splain too, Yeah, and that was like full, like
you just you were bloated all the time. You had

(01:04:50):
that abdolminal pain ever where you went. It was because
you had two leaders of blood insidea and it was
scary because like that's something that can be life threatening. Yeah,
so that was that was probably pretty crazy. I mean,
the eye injuries are tough, but they weren't probably physically
hurting as much because there's not many nerves in your
eyes and stuff. Is more the inconvenience and not being
able to see that was probably the annoyance.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
But your knee, So the m c L is going alright,
So the.

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
M CL is on the inside of your knee.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
So if you look at it, there's the m c L,
there's the A c L and then the p CL
and so the medials inside of your knee and it
allows you to kind of cut and things like that.
So it's kind of a bit of a stabilizer, which,
let's be honest, I don't do too much of that.
So I might be all right, yeah, no more, no
more candy selling, but no, it's about a six week injury.

(01:05:40):
Four to six weeks as well. I say, I haven't
probably been able to do too much because of the
concussion protocols, so I've been limited in that sense. But
now that we're kind of two weeks on from two
and a half weeks on now from the injury, you know,
I'm starting to put a bit more kind of weight
through it and stuff like that and be able to
do a bit of weights and it's it's gone. Well,
it's it's just getting the move in the range and
everything else through it. So it was really really stiff.

(01:06:02):
You couldn't move it, you know, probably two weeks ago
where you're sitting there looking at it like I couldn't
sit on the toilet without like having to like hold
myself down, you know, like it was that bad. And yeah,
you just see the little progressions every single day and
then you know, hopefully we can get into running and
you know a few weeks time or whatever it is.
Whmember they say rehab people say it's okay, but they've

(01:06:22):
been through a lot more of this. So Darcy Cameron
had this last year, yeah, and he was out for
I think it was about six weeks, so they've had
experience in this, and you just go through the processes.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
Every time you move this left knee, it clicks. So
maybe we should get that one checked out too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
I don't want to know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Actually better off not knowing, So that's good.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
So the road to recovery, it'll be your stock stand
and start jogging, start playing footy and then back out
there which is good to see, and especially with what
you did, I think that's actually not too bad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
The way the way I fell and everything else, it
was scary. It was what's come out of it is
probably not nearly as bad as it could have been. Yeah,
that's the way. I'm like, have you seen it back?

Speaker 4 (01:07:03):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
I didn't. That was in the hospital and the lady,
the doctor goes, oh, do you know what happened to you?
So can you tell me what happened to you? And
I said I don't really know. It was knocked out.
She is okay, well you know. And then the Alex,
the lady from Collingwood, was like, oh, do you want
to see the video and I said yeah, yeah, and
she shows it to me and I go, oh, that's
why my knee hurts, because at that moment I had
not even known that my knee was like and my
leg was caught underneath men mover. I fell because I

(01:07:25):
was knocked out, and I woke up and my leg
was in front of me, and I was just kind
of like, Okay, we're all good.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
It's it weird as seeing yourself get knocked out.

Speaker 5 (01:07:33):
It's a little odd.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things
like there's so much research and you know, media and
stuff around concussions that you don't want to see it
definitely for anyone. And whenever it happens to yourself, you
you definitely get a lot of information probably told to
you about these things and you you're a bit worried
about it and stuff like that. But I've been very
fortunate where this is only the first one I've ever had,

(01:07:57):
and a lot of people come out and they go,
oh my gosh, like I've six, I've had seven, I've
had x amount, you know, and it's one of those
things that ever happens to you and people want to
talk to you about their experience of it. Yeah, and
then you hear kind of like the extremes of what
could happen, Right, that's kind of, I guess somewhat heroing
at times. But yeah, I think, like, you know, for

(01:08:17):
ten years, to only have one, you know, yeah, it's
one in ten years, it's not terrible. I feel like
comparably to other people.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
I know, yeah, did it give more? Does it put
more weight behind the discussions that you have about you know,
concussion now?

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
Yeah, I think we've always been pretty stern on concussion,
like whatever we've talked about on the podcast, and I
think it's pretty obvious the stance we have around it.
It's interesting now to know what it feels like and know,
I guess some of the symptoms and everything else and
exactly how you feel, and if anything, it just makes
me stronger about the way we've talked about it. Yeah,
and you know, I think I think we're moving and

(01:08:58):
progressing in the right direction. I really do. You know,
everyone obviously would hope it's a faster pace to be
able to get this thing sorted as quickly as possible.
But I think with the information that we'll probably give in,
you know, we're trying to make the best educated gas
of it, and that's that's all you can do with,
you know, the situation. I think that is at the moment, well.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
One of us was bound to get one, probably not me,
But I was saying, when you're watching your highlights back
and you get concussed. The closest thing that I have
is when my mates show me videos and me pissed
and I'm like, fuck, I can't remember any of that.
But we do want to end on a high note.

(01:09:38):
You did say one concussion in ten years. You have
been here for ten years. Happy birthday, Thank you ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
I was there a day dit.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
That's it, Luke Mason texted me. I didn't realize it,
but Luke Mason texted me ten years.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Luke Mason has just switched onto all that kind of stuff.
But yeah, ten years, been here, we skyped ten years.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
That's that's what he sent me, the article of like
my shitty skype in my kitchen table.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
When you're out of date Collingwood stuff, we may just
say go pass.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Back in the days of like Star Athletic and I
remember they'd sent me a fake jersey with my name
on the back of it, and I was wearing that
around Europe thinking I was a cool fella.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Yeah, well imagine outside they're like, oh we found this
seven foot basketball bloke from the States.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
He's going to come over and play for us. It's like, okay,
that will never work. We'll do one article years later.
But how do you do you reflect on it or
do you still you're in it so you don't reflect
on it all.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
I think, like any milestone, you know, I got put
something up on social media. You know it's been ten years,
and you look back on a decade, like at decades
a long time. You know, it's a third of my
life really, I've spent dedicated to his country and doing
what I'm doing, and you know, you kind of look
at it as a whole and you're okay, like, you know,
what are the greatest moments, one of the one of
the worst moments, you know, and kind of how you've

(01:10:58):
gone to grown as a person. But yeah, ten years,
it's a fair amount of time. It's a fair amount
of time he's committed to something. And you know, I'm
so fortunate last year to be able to experience the
full thing, you know. And also I'm grateful for the
opportunities of you know, twenty eighteen and losing it and
knowing what that feels to try to motivate you to
win the thing in twenty twenty three. So yeah, I
think I'll look back on my whole career and I

(01:11:18):
just look at I'm like, I don't know kind of
what I haven't experienced, you know, Like the only thing
that I think that you know, there's a few games
you'd love to play in and things on those lines,
like you know, the Anzac Eve game is a really
cool game. I've never experienced, never seen that that'd be awesome.
But I look at playing I'm so fortunate to play
for such a big club, to be playing in such
big games like you know, the Big Freeze and Anzac

(01:11:39):
Day and you know that the Final Series and everything
else in front of big crowds, And I look at
I'm like a guy who didn't even know what this
was ten years ago. To experience the things that I've
experienced and be able to have done, I'm so fortunate
to do that. And then to have done all that,
and you know, you continue and strive to be able
to experience more experience things again. Obviously, you know, whenever

(01:12:00):
it came to like ten years I just thought back
on everything that kind of happened and thought, shit, I'm
so fortunate. And you know, you couple a lot of
criticism throughout your time, you know, I still do, and
you know it's it's part of Australian culture and the
tile poppy syndrome and stuff like that. People don't want
to see other people successful at times, and you know,
it is what it is. But I think there's plenty
of supporters out there, and people look at my journey

(01:12:21):
and everything else and think that that's a pretty incredible
thing to have done in you know, a huge risk
that's somewhat paid off.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
Yeah, I always think that the people, the sad people
out there that do chip away, it's just because like
you've really it's a dream for a lot of people,
and you've come over here pretty much on short notice.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
You did.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
It's one third of your life so far. But when
you stand back once it's all said and done, it's
going to be a wild ten year chapter that you're like,
can you believe that that happened? Because the first third,
first two thirds of your life so far, you didn't
even know it existed. And then you've had one thirty
your life playing this game. On the other side of
the world, there's literally no one on the face of

(01:13:02):
the planet that's done. It's the way that you've done it.
There's no one that's you know, played college ball like
you did and then gone to a combine, flown over here,
first game, Anzac Day, first goal with your first kick
like you played on Joel Embi. That would have been

(01:13:23):
someone's dream dream just to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
You did that, and then you came over here. You've won.
Neil Dana her trophies.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
You played in, the prelim, tore the Richmond Footy Club
to pieces you played in and lost, the Grand final
you played in, you won a grand final. You've pretty
much done everything there is to do in a tight,
tight ten year period. But it's also opened up so
many doors and avenues to do anything you want to

(01:13:51):
do going forward from this, including what you've already done
with all your travel and all of that stuff. So
anyone that does speak ill is just bitter and twisted,
and I would love to do one of those things.
If you could ask most Ozzies that are fanatic football fans,
and they're the ones that there are a lot of
those that are negative ones that come out and try
to chip you. They would have been happy with your

(01:14:12):
first kick versus goal Anzac Day knockoff. I know I
would have, But you've done a hell of a lot
more than that. So I do want to say congratulations
ten years and jeez, we'll see. It is weird that
you after this, you're going to step back and go like,
did you know ten years I went to Australia and
I played this weird, weird game.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
I always think of ever like end up in a
different country or something, or God knows what my future
is going to look like, but who knows. To try
to explain what I've done, It's going to be impossible,
which is awesome because it's like, you know, like and
to be honest, I don't think anyone will ever do
anything remotely close to what I've done. Like, I don't
think an American will come play AFL anytime soon. I
don't think that the AFLLL invest in that. I don't

(01:14:51):
think that, like, you know, this is something that you're
probably ever going to see in a very similar manner. Again, Yeah,
it's cool to be like to say that, it's like,
you know, you done something that you know is not
normal for people to see. And sometimes it's shocking and
people don't like it because it's you know, it's not
you know, it's not what they conform to and it's
not what they agree with because they haven't seen it before.
But yeah, it's cool to be able to somewhat break

(01:15:13):
a barrier that people didn't think was possible.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
You would have had a story I replaced Marcus spar
Marcus Smart and played on Joel and b that's a story.
Now you're just taking the piece, so let's wrap it
up for a podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Yeah, no, I appreciate that, but it is at the
end of the episode. I just want to say a massive,
massive thank you for everyone for tuning in. Apologies, that
has been two weeks of nothing. We have had obviously
circumstances of being knocked out and can cust and everything else,
and we take that very seriously. But I want to
say a massive thank you for everyone for continuing to
tune in, sending well wishes and everything throughout that period.

(01:15:47):
And we are back on regular programming, so make sure
you do download and you know, click the like button,
the bell and everything else to make sure that you
can know every single time we come out with the
new episode every single week. So massive, massive thank you
for everyone that's listened and this thus far, and thank
you for being part of the community as always. So yeah, cheers.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
M

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