Travis Varcoe says a Collingwood Grand Final win would mean the world to his family

GRIEVING Collingwood star Travis Varcoe has spoken of his determination to honour his sister and share his emotions with teammates in the lead-up to the AFL Grand Final.

Travis Varcoe says he wants a Grand Final win on the weekend to honour his sister Maggie. Picture: AAP

GRIEVING Collingwood star Travis Varcoe has spoken of his determination to honour his sister and share his emotions with teammates in the lead-up to the AFL Grand Final.

Varcoe’s sister Margaret died in hospital last month after sustaining a head injury while playing footy in Adelaide.

Varcoe shared a letter his sister wrote as inspiration with teammates at training this week and said her memory continued to drive him.

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Travis Varcoe says a grand final win would honour Maggie. Picture: Getty

He said a Collingwood Grand Final win would mean the world to his family in honour of “Maggie’’.

“A win to everyone’s family in this side is going to be massive, obviously for me it’s just a little more emotionally fuelled than anything given the circumstances,’’ he said.

“But everyone is going to be touched in different ways in this fight.

“I want to do it for me and my family and obviously Maggie overwrites that and sits over the top and watches down.’’

The midfielder, 30, said he was trying to remain positive, as his sister would have wanted.

“Maggie and I were pretty similar,’’ he said.

“You can’t be sad forever, life rolls on.

Maggie Varcoe died after a head clash during a game.

“We have just got to do what we need to do and the rest will take care of itself.’’

Varcoe said he pulled out a photo of his sister and some inspirational words she had scribed to lift his teammates at Thursday’s open training.

“It was just a couple of words that really helped out,'’ he said.

Varcoe said his teammates responded wonderfully.

“As anyone would be, they are so supportive and they wanted to go out and train well,’’ he said.

“I thought we did what we needed to do out on the park and trained the way we needed to leading into this.’’

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