Dan’s Diary

My first final was an elimination final against Carlton a few years ago at ANZ Stadium. The stakes are high, the pressure is a lot more intense and it takes you a little while to get into it and get a feel for it. But once that first 10 minutes goes, like any game I suppose, you sort of get into the groove of the game and get going and just play it as you see it.

That’s two years ago now and I think, like our whole list, we’ve matured as a footy club and as a side. Things have changed a little bit but nothing much has changed in the way you want to prepare for a game.

You do your same homework earlier in the week, you do two sessions, you make sure you recover well and mentally prepare yourself for a tough game of footy and give yourself the best chance to play well and play your role for the team. Nothing changes in that respect and I’ll just go out and try and do my role for the team.

I’ve played in four finals and this will be my fifth this week and I think it definitely helps knowing how to prepare. I think our last few weeks playing good sides is pretty much what finals footy is going to be about, a really contested game and fierce pressure around the footy.

It was a good opportunity last year for the younger guys to get a taste for it. Reidy (Sam Reid), Gary Rohan isn’t playing this year, myself and even Parkes (Luke Parker) got a few games as well so it was good for us young guys to get another feel and taste for finals footy. We have still got a few young guys on our list but a lot of the guys have played a few finals now and know what it’s all about.

Even though I did have an injury, I was disappointed with the Hawthorn final last year – the way I sort of probably almost let a few guys down by not being able to fulfill my role for the whole game and play the way I wanted to play. I do have a bit of fire in the belly to make sure I give a bit back this finals series and make sure I can help my teammates out and have a good impact for them.

Obviously the loss was disappointing on the weekend but as soon as Sunday came at recovery, everyone was pretty up and about and feeling really good about the opportunity we’ve got this week so the feeling this week has been really good and really positive.

I think the whole year we’ve had our set structure on how we want to go about our weeks and prepare ourselves for games. It doesn’t really change much for finals even though it is a massive game for us, we’re making sure we prepare as we usually do and that’s to prepare to play good footy.

You don’t want to get too swept away in the whole week of finals. It’s just, as they say, another game of footy and there is a bit more weight to it but we prepare like we just want to play good footy this week and go about our business as we usually do.