Shane Edwards on a third flag at Tigerland, his baby daughter meeting her grandfather in the stands at the Gabba and why he wants ‘100 coffees’ this week
Shane Edwards’ baby daughter met her grandfather for the first time in the stands at the Gabba on Saturday night, and an Adelaide trip to see the rest of the family is next.
Richmond
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Shane Edwards missed the moment his baby daughter Mya met her grandfather for the first time in the stands at the Gabba while he was busy winning a third premiership with Richmond on Saturday night.
But the silver lining was that his mum Tara didn’t make the trip to Brisbane from Adelaide which is where Edwards is going next.
“My father (Greg) met my daughter for the first time in the stands tonight, so I had enough emotional baggage going into the game as it was, and I’m glad Dimma didn’t fall back on using family as motivation because I don’t reckon I could have handled it,” Edwards told The Advertiser.
“I got to see my old man and brother Kym after the game, but my mum didn’t come over which I’m rapt about now because now I actually get to see her meet our little daughter Mya.
“I missed my old man seeing her, and I would have loved to see him shed a tear over something, it’s their first grandchild but now I get to see mum (in that moment).
“We’re going to Adelaide now and are going to stay there for as long as we possibly can.
“There’s two things I want to do - I want to hug my mum and see all my family, and I want to sit at a cafe and have 100 coffees because we haven’t been able to sit down anywhere for months.
“We’re not having a mad Monday with beers, we’re going to a cafe and have breakfast for a few hours.”
As the Tigers went into the Queensland hub in July, Edwards stayed home in Melbourne with his pregnant partner Sam with the full support of the football club.
“I wasn’t torn to start with because every player they all just embraced that I was staying back,” Edwards said.
“I thought it was just going to be a month and it ended up being all year.
“The call was easy in hindsight but really hard on seeing the boys winning, then losing and you feel like you can help but you can’t, and I didn’t know what a bubble or a hub was like.
“But at the same time you’re in lockdown at home, I couldn’t leave the hospital once the birth happened, if I left I couldn’t come back, I stayed there for about five days and we had a week-and-a-half to figure out how to look after a baby and we were in quarantine (in Queensland in late August).
“But it was the best thing for us because we had all the families in quarantine helping us out. We had to understand how to feed a baby and getting to the hub was awesome because we were around families who had a lot of kids.
“I’m talking about being in a situation with Anna Betts, Jordan Ablett, Elisha Grimes all helping us out at some point with our baby.
“Anna Betts is a lactation consultant, they were there to have a chat, they reassured us if we thought something was going wrong, it was actually awesome.”
Edwards, 31, played in Round 5 then missed 11 games before returning to the Tigers’ side for the last minor round game against Adelaide in Round 18.
But he lost none of his class and in Saturday’s grand final against Geelong he had a game-high 27 disposals and nine clearances.
“The doubts and concerns were there the whole time but at least I was allowed to train (in Melbourne), so I thought ‘I’m going to train as hard as I can and put myself in the best position possible if Dimma wants to pick me with one game to finals’.
“And the least I could possibly do was train my arse off while all my teammates were sacrificing in a bubble.
“I had coaches like Sam Lonergan and our chief Benny Gale and list manager Blair Hartley were my training partners, they all got injured at some point and made it as game-like as possible and they didn’t hold back on the hard work but kept me confident and upbeat.”
“I was surrounded by great people who didn’t give up any hope.”
Nearly two hours after the final siren on Saturday night, Edwards stood on the Gabba and the euphoria of a third AFL premiership for the kid from Golden Grove in Adelaide’s northern suburbs had not worn off.
“I can’t believe it, I feel like the last four years have just gone so quick,” he said.
“I never would have thought. I remember looking at Hawthorn and Brisbane Lions and thought ‘how the hell do they do that?’
“There are so many things stopping you winning a premiership and somehow we’ve gotten there and done it and I can’t see us dropping our hunger any time soon.
“But hunger can only get you so far in a game, we’re trying 100 per cent all game every game and we’ve had a few players come in over the years and have given us a spark, and we always feel like the team is a new team.
“This year we found Noah Balta, Shai Bolton, Liam Baker has gone to another level and they’re under 21, you could argue at certain points of the year they’ve been our best players.
“Next year they’re going to be a year older and some other guys will come up from underneath and us old guys better watch our backs.”
reece.homfray@news.com.au