Richmond ready for huge week ahead of 2019 Grand Final, defender Nick Vlastuin writes
Whenever the Grand Final rolls around, text messages and calls fly around begging for tickets and the players competing get bombarded. Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin reveals the truth behind some people’s requests.
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We are back again.
It’s the start of Grand Final week, my second one as a player, and it is something we at Richmond are keen to firmly embrace and keep it fun.
There was a pretty calm feeling around the club during the week leading up to Friday’s preliminary final.
The aim is to hold on to that feeling and take it into the big dance.
We were there in 2017 and played in a preliminary final last year, so you get used to all the messages from family and friends and the big build up.
And, of course, the ticket requests.
I’ve managed to get 13 tickets this year to distribute. You get three for free and then you have to pay for the rest.
You sometimes get a mate who will ask for one and then when you tell them it will cost however much, the reply is often: “Oh yeah, don’t worry about it.”
You’d love to be able to give tickets to everyone and you do feel bad asking people to reimburse you, but if you end up shouting 12 people it quickly becomes an expensive day.
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Sometimes you get a flurry of late requests, which means you’re sending out messages to the other boys asking if anyone has a spare ticket.
It’s that kind of week.
Internally, our mantra is just to embrace it all.
Not getting uptight and stressed about the game too much is key.
In that vein, I will look to get down to Torquay during the week for a surf with my mates.
It’s part of my routine that I enjoy.
It’s good to get out of Melbourne and it breaks up the week well.
Teammate Dan Butler also likes to surf, so we often carpool down there.
I’m also building on a block of land down that way, so I love to drive past that on the way and check on the progress.
I would have been there on Sunday but a group of us will be at Ikon Park to watch our boys in the VFL grand final.
Then the week will roll into Monday night, with what will be my first time at the Brownlow Medal.
I was near the bottom of the pecking order, but then the likes of Dusty Martin and a few others got reported and we had a few big injuries this year, so I somehow snuck on to the list.
Hopefully I’ll scrub up all right.
Everyone keeps asking if the beard is coming back, but unfortunately it is too late now to bring it back.
I haven’t been clean shaven for years and I don’t think that will change, although I may get a tidy up during the week.
My suit is sorted and my partner, Georgia, is getting the fake tan on Sunday, so she’s set.
She has work the next day and I’ll obviously be on the waters, so it will be a tame night. But there are no complaints as we have a Grand Final to look forward to.
It wasn’t the best start against Geelong on Friday night and sometimes you can’t help but think “not again” given what happened in last year’s preliminary final.
But the boys are really good at pulling each other out of that and if you’re having a tough patch, often a teammate is there to pull you into line and vice versa.
You literally can’t switch on for 120 minutes without having a single negative thought, but I feel we’re often able to drag each other out of those moments.
At half time there was no panic.
We spoke about how we were not playing anywhere near as well as we could and we were only 21 points down.
“Dimma” Hardwick talked to us about being more aggressive in our defence and with our ball movement.
He put it on to us go out and win the game rather than playing not to lose.
The message was clear — don’t sit back, take the game on and be aggressive in defence.
When the coach almost takes away the angst of losing, it fills you with the confidence to have your best possible crack.
And we did.
Jack Graham was unbelievable for us.
When he came off he couldn’t use his right arm and couldn’t move at all because he was in so much pain.
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Yet he was still able to play on and lay three or four tackles after he went off with that shoulder dislocated.
Jack Riewoldt actually mentioned it on Saturday morning that it was an act that will stick with us.
Just the effort and courage to still be out there to help us with rotations, we’ll never forget that.
Nathan Broad was a bit rattled on the night after his knock, but he was feeling good on Saturday so fingers crossed he’ll be OK.
It will be a huge week and there is such a big carrot up for grabs that you can’t help but think about the prize.
You do catch yourself thinking about how good it would be if we could do it.
There have been a fair few conversations around the club about it.
Nothing formal, but just a bit of chat where you might say to each other: “Remember 2017 and when this happened.”
But we all know we still have a big job to do.
Originally published as Richmond ready for huge week ahead of 2019 Grand Final, defender Nick Vlastuin writes
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