Bulldogs vice-captain Jordan Roughead writes a fortnightly column for the Ballarat Courier. The following excerpt is from a piece published on 16 May 2015. For the full column, visit the Courier website.
“How many steaks do you reckon they keep out in the kitchen?”
Forty-four of the Western Bulldogs playing group were sitting in the dining room of the Prince Albert Hotel in Williamstown on Monday night and I wasn’t sure if they would have enough meat to feed us all. It was a gathering of the pack, but it wasn’t a celebration of football.
In round five we flew to Sydney to tackle one of the great teams of our generation.
Last year’s grand finalist, we knew we would have to be on top of our game to beat the Swans.
After falling behind in the closing stages, Easton Wood managed to sneak home a goal that Mr Miyagi would have been proud of, and on the back of Liam Picken’s desperation and Lin Jong’s courage, we survived their late surge to record our best win of the season.
The pure elation that overflowed in the 20 minutes after the final siren was incredible. Looking around the change room, there were surreal grins on the faces of most of my young teammates.
UNSUNG HEROES: Read the first of Roughie's fortnightly columns.
It’s wins like those that instil a belief and confidence that our best is good enough.
But, just like a rollercoaster, you can’t see what’s around the next corner, what the next quarter or the next game will bring. We went from the emotional high of a great win in Sydney to holding a 49-point half-time lead against St Kilda the following weekend.
Credit where credit is due: St Kilda came at us strongly in the second half and our team defence, which had been so good for five-and-a-half games, didn’t hold up. We forfeited a lead that grew to as much as 55 points and lost the unlosable.
But we lost so much more than a game last Saturday. We lost a teammate who inspires us all.
Unless you have been inside the Kennel watching the blood, sweat and tears that have poured out of Clay Smith over the past two seasons, you can’t begin to imagine the hours and effort required to get his body to a level that can stand up to the rigours of AFL football.
To see that work come undone was heartbreaking.
That brings me back to the dining room at the Prince Albert.
Sitting in front of the open fireplace, Clay was surrounded by 43 of his best mates. The disappointment and anguish felt by us all had brought us together.
We hope the love for a teammate who has been dealt such a poor hand will make another 12 months of rehab just a touch more bearable.
Injury is a confronting and almost inevitable part of our game, and while each week we cope with the highs and lows of winning and losing, injuries like these cut us to the core.
