Penguin Books Australia

'I hope you win It'

It was one of the most touching moments of my football career – Robert Harvey and I embracing as we came off the MCG in 2008. 'Harves' gave me a bit of hug and said, 'I hope you win it,' as he headed off into retirement. I was going into my first grand final after so many years of waiting. I felt for him because I knew that he had given everything he possibly could over 21 seasons to reach the pinnacle in football. He came close once, in 1997, but the Saints lost, and now he was going to miss out altogether. Footy can be so cruel. My chance was still alive. Hawthorn had just beaten St Kilda by 9 goals to reach its first grand final since 1991.

That must have seemed an eternity for Hawks supporters. It did to me. Back in '91, I was a fresh-faced kid from Assumption College with dreams of making a living out of playing AFL football. Hawthorn gave me the chance by drafting me at the end of that season. It was the beginning of an amazing ride for a kid who grew up with his mother and two brothers in the tiny New

South Wales sports-mad town of Finley. From that moment on, I was lucky enough to experience the highs and lows that only AFL football can bring about. Through it all, the thing that kept me going was the dream of winning a premiership. I had every reason to think it would be achievable, as when I first joined Hawthorn they had won five flags in the previous nine seasons. But for years, we came up short. Instead, there was a small taste of team success, some incredible individual honours, a messy near-merger, and a succession of coaches, administrators and players frustrated by not being able to attain the long-awaited flag.

Several times I was offered the chance to leave Hawthorn, to chase my childhood dream elsewhere. Only twice was it even a consideration. The first time, I was thinking about leaving, but I could not face the people of Hawthorn and tell them I was going elsewhere – to Collingwood, of all clubs. The second time, I had made up my mind to leave. I was headed to Sydney because I felt the Hawks had lost direction. However, the result of a game – a nail-biting grand final – changed my mind. Looking back, I can only say how happy I am that I retired as a one-club player. My heart was always at Hawthorn, even in the bad times.

No person in the history of the game has waited as long as me before winning a premiership. I never stopped dreaming of what might happen, even when the task looked hopeless. At times, the club was so far away from being competitive enough to challenge that it wasn't funny. And then, when the club was ready, my body threatened to let me down for almost the first time in my career – and at a time when I needed it most. My battle with knee tendinitis throughout the 2008 season almost cost me the chance of achieving the ultimate in football. Finally, when it almost seemed a lost cause, we came up with a few solutions and I pushed my way through the pain barrier. I don't know how the conditioning and medical staff achieved it, but they did, and it was just in time.

That's why I did something I had never done before in that preliminary final win over the Saints – on a few occasions, I actually ran away from the ball. Admittedly, it didn't happen until after half-time, when we already had the game in our keeping, but it was a strange thing for me to do. I had been driven by my competitive nature from the time I was a little kid, but this time I was trying to play safe. I did not want to get injured and I did not want to miss the grand final appearance that had been teasing me, and the club, for years. After everything that I had been through, that would have been almost too much to bear. The 2008 Grand Final was to be my 305th game, and quite probably my last.

I have never been so relieved to hear the final siren sound as in that game. Hawthorn was finally in a grand final, and I was going to play in it. In the lead-up to the premiership play-off against Geelong, I think the people around me were waiting for me to crack. But I didn't. I was calm and composed. I had finally got what I had waited for all my life, and I knew my team-mates only needed that opportunity to turn our dreams into a reality.