Glenelg forward Josh Scott went about his business as usual in lead up to grand final
Glenelg forward Josh Scott was forced to battle the odds and work his way through the system to emerge an SANFL premiership hero for the Tigers.
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Less than 12 hours after Glenelg’s preliminary final triumph over Adelaide, gun Tigers forward Josh Scott was back on the tools hard at work.
There was line marking to be done and Scott had to be on the job early. His boss gave him a few extra minutes sleep as reward for the victory, so didn’t pick him up until 3.30am for the drive to Victor Harbor.
The Tigers had not won a flag for 33 years. They hadn’t even contested the finals since 2011.
In seven days, Scott would be on the big stage at Adelaide Oval in front of 40,000 fans hoping to snap the premiership drought against bitter enemy Port Adelaide.
That challenge, and any rehab on his sore body, had to wait, however, as Scott went about his lot marking lines to earn a pay packet. Four more days of work in the sun followed, while there were also the training sessions to prepare for an assault on the season finale.
“After the win over Adelaide I was thinking ‘how good is this’ and the boss called and said he would pick me up at 3.30am,” Scott said.
“I’d started a new job line marking and it was a new business so we had to work hard to get clients onside. I worked every day in the week of the grand final, pretty big days.
“We mark roads, carparks, basketball courts, anything. But the boss had been lenient with my time during the season, especially with my arm injury.”
Just to be playing in the title decider was an achievement in itself for Scott, having feared his season was over in August when another small fracture was discovered in his arm.
It is not easy to forget the tough, uncompromising Scott’s screams of pain when he broke his arm in the round 3 draw with South Adelaide at the Bay.
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A plate was inserted and he missed five games, only to hurt the arm two weeks later when heavily tackled late in the clash against Central District. Swelling in the arm hampered his progress, before scans revealed a small fracture near the plate.
“It took five weeks to realise I had a broken arm and the specialist said my earliest return date would be grand final day,” Scott said. “I understood completely I was not going to get fit for the grannie if I missed another 10 to 12 weeks of footy.
“My year was done. I had a chat to Stoney (coach Mark Stone) and questioned whether I pull the pin, have surgery and get ready for next season, or have a crack and hope it heals quicker than expected.
“Obviously it healed quicker. But I did not want to come back and be the a bad difference if you know what I mean. That played in my head.
“It was always going to take a couple of games.”
The initial plan was to have Scott return to action in the reserves against Sturt at Unley Oval in the final round. But with top spot on the ladder already locked away, and leading goalkicker Liam McBean rested, it was decided to give Scott a run in the league game with its superior intensity.
Scott lamented feeling out of place, then said he “could not get near it”, could not find the ball in an honest assessment of his efforts in the second semi-final loss to Port.
“There was one moment (25 minutes into the third quarter) in the preliminary when I took a contested mark,” Scott said. “I remember how it felt and everything came back to me.
“I remember that exact moment and felt I was back. After kicking the goal everyone rushed to me, even the defenders, and it gave me confidence knowing the boys had backed me in.”
It also restored his confidence for the grand final. But first things first and the five days of work marking lines. Not that he was bothered.
Scott had been recruited from Victoria after playing with Gippsland Power in the TAC Cup. His second season in the under 18 competition was as an over age player and he worked part-time as a life guard at an indoor swimming pool.
The move to Adelaide meant a massive lifestyle change and five or six days a week working on scaffolding as well as training.
“The body adapts and gets used to it,” he said. “Doing scaffolding for six years, there is nothing harder on your body than that.”
Sitting in the changerooms after the stunning grand final victory, when Scott bagged three goals and had a significant influence, he recalls saying to the likes of Matt Snook, Max Proud, Andrew Bradley and Chris Curran, teammates who had been through plenty of dark times at the club, “we would not have picked this two years ago”.
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“It was unreal,” he said. “It was my sixth season at the Bay and in my first three seasons we were bottom or second bottom.
“Just to sit in the changeroom and have a drink, our group is so tight, there are no divided groups.”
Scott’s natural instinct is to attack the contest without concern for his body. It is the same approach he took to the long overdue grand final celebrations.
The party stretched into Tuesday for the traditional West End chimney unveiling and the boys kicked on until 4am the following morning.
Then it was back to work later that day, more line marking to be done.