GOING into the 2002 grand final I tried to keep things as normal as possible. It is not just the day, but you have got things going on the whole week that are different to a normal game of footy. Still, you try to keep it as normal as possible.

As captain it was important to have the appearance of being cool, calm and collected for the rest of the group.

My favourite part of the week was the 36 hours from the last training session up until the game started. To that point you had done all of your work physically, you had done all the research on your opposition, and there was no more preparation that you could do. At that point the best thing to do is relax your mind, body and spirit.

I had no trouble sleeping the night before because I felt like I had prepared and it was just a matter of relaxing and waiting for the time to come.

When your eyes open on grand final morning it probably takes a few seconds to get your bearings. Then you understand that you are going to play in the game of your life in five or six hours. It is an awesome feeling, but looking back it was all a bit of a blur because there was so much going through your head.

I find comfort in routine and when you are unsure of things and there is pressure, the most important thing to do is to go into auto-pilot and do what you normally do. For me, I used to go to bed late the night before around 12-12.30, because I would like to sleep through and shorten the morning as much as I could. That way I wouldn’t feel like I was hanging around waiting for the game to come.

I probably got up around 9-9.30am, had a couple of pieces of toast, make sure I was really hydrated by drinking a two-litre bottle of cordial, then headed to the game.

Players have to be at the game two hours before the first bounce, but I was always there pretty early, and then I’d like to get a footy in my hand straight away.

Usually I’d like to get out on the ground but that’s a bit different on grand final day because there are only certain times when you have access to the ground. So I wasn’t able to do my normal pre-match on grand final day, but I would kick a footy around the change rooms and make a general pest of myself by having shots at doorways and having a kick with anyone that wanted to have a kick. I’d have 300-400 kicks before we even got to warm-up.

Running out onto the ground for my first grand final was brilliant. It was about 10 degrees and drizzly and I thought it was terrific because it was right down our alley. We liked it tough and hard and we thought we could really compete with the Brisbane Lions in the clinches and we were just prepared to fight for four quarters.

Once you are in the game of footy, you just play. There was plenty riding on it, but I wanted to win every game of footy I played so I didn’t approach it differently. I wanted everything to be perfect; I wanted to do everything to the best of my ability and I wanted the team to do the same.

Looking back, we never contemplated losing. I thought we were going to win that game right through. At no stage did I think we were going to lose; even when Aker kicked his goal I believed we could get the ball forward and kick a couple of big ones.

After we lost it hit me like a sledgehammer. It hits you that all the work you had just done, not just the last couple of hours, but the whole season had come down to a missed opportunity. You look at guys that have worked so hard and sacrificed so much and they are not going to get the ultimate pay-off.

Nathan Buckley is a former Collingwood captain and will be watching today’s grand final from the Channel Seven commentary booth.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of the clubs or the AFL.