After playing my local junior game in the morning, the afternoon agenda was simple -- it'd be either down to Kardinia Park to watch the Cats or off to the local footy to watch my club's senior side play.
There were plenty of guys at Bell Park who I looked up to. The great thing about them is that they were so good with the junior players. And they really used to take an interest in my footy, too.
Guys like Ray Sarcevic and Brad Stacey are just a couple of names I used to love watching play. They kicked plenty of goals those guys.
Another fella, Peter Burke, was a terrific clubman at Bell Park.
As I got older and my career progressed, I didn't get as much of a chance to drop by local footy but I still like to get back there when I can, but that depends on when I play with Geelong.
Obviously the day on which AFL clubs play varies from week to week so that dictates what I get up to at the weekend. My preference to play is probably on a Friday night, as we did last week against Hawthorn.
That way you get up the next morning, have a bit of a paddle at recovery and then you've got most of the weekend free to do as you please, whether that be go and watch some local footy or whatever.
But when we're playing on a Saturday, or Saturday night as it is this week against Richmond, my routine is always pretty much the same.
After flicking between a movie and the footy the night before, I normally have a pretty big sleep-in on game day.
The couple of days leading up to the game I normally try to stay up a bit later so I can have a good lie in on the day of the match. This also gets me in the habit of being up
and about at 10 o'clock at night, when usually I'm starting to relax and thinking about heading off to bed.
On game day though, I might not get up until 10 or 11am. Then, if the weather's okay I might take the dog for a short walk just to get the blood moving.
There isn't a great deal to do in the afternoon when you're playing at night. You're wary of not expending too much energy, and with our night games always being in Melbourne, we obviously have to start heading up the highway late in the afternoon.
It's a matter of pretty much keeping off the feet and relaxing.
I normally like someone else to drive me. This isn't something new that's just been happening since I won a certain medal last year, either! It's always been the case.
I just don't like the stress of driving up to Melbourne before a game. On top if that, if something happened at a game and I got injured, I wouldn't want to have to worry about my car coming back.
This year Ryan Gamble, my housemate, has done the bulk of the driving to games in Melbourne. We've got a good little set-up working as we, and the side, have been playing some reasonable footy this.
I hope it works again on Saturday night.
