Patrick Dangerfield on how he wished he could go back in time
GEELONG star Patrick Dangerfield says he couldn’t sleep after the Cats were last night unceremoniously dumped out of the finals by Melbourne and he wishes he could turn back time in the hope of changing the result.
Patrick Dangerfield
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THE last time I looked at my phone it was 5am.
We’d stayed up in Melbourne after the game and, as is the norm following night games, the mind was still racing.
The problem this time and the reason it wasn’t allowing sleep to come was the fact there wasn’t a next time.
Our season was over. Done. And it was doing my head in.
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To try to find a distraction I started watching a series called “Outlander”. It’s an interesting story about a woman in 1968 who stumbles across a time portal which all of a sudden takes her back 200 years.
So I’m watching this show which goes from the ’60s to the 1700s and I can’t help but think, “Why couldn’t I be taken back in time?”
Go back six or seven hours to the pre-game and change some things like maybe starting a bit differently and executing better.
Losing any final is such a hollow feeling.
The reality is that unless you win the Grand Final this is how you will feel. The difference is as you get older the more it stings.
At the start of your career you’re genuinely just pleased to be out there and you enjoy it for what it is because you’re backing yourself in to have a long career. It’s not wrong that you’re thinking it’s not the end of the world that things didn’t work out this year, as you’ve always got next year.
But when the realisation hits that your career is closer to the end than the start, your thinking changes.
I was talking to Robbie Gray about this at the All-Australian dinner. Once the hour glass is starting to win the battle of time then any other feeling other than the ultimate success doesn’t rate.
You can’t feel any sort of satisfaction. The only reason you do this is to be there on the last day and be triumphant. It’s not all or nothing but as you get older you’re immediate feeling is that it’s all for nothing.
How long? A simple question but one which will be asked a number of times in the next few days. How long is the wait going to be?
There are players who have waited until the last couple of breaths in their career to get premiership success. I think of Matty Boyd at the Bulldogs and Shane Crawford who did all the hard yards and then were finally rewarded at the very end.
Then of course there are the players who win a premiership early in their career and then continue to win them. The envy towards that scenario is almost indescribable.
It’s an opportunity lost.
There are now another 22 games next year which you have to put yourself through just to get in a position to compete and then not squander it like we did on Friday night.
The problem early against Melbourne was our disposal was horrendous and we didn’t put any scoreboard pressure on them. They’re a good team in terms of their list demographic and once they started well we knew they’d be very hard to stop.
Every game has dozens of sliding door moments and they’re the ones that will continue to haunt us for the next few weeks.
What drives us all nuts is that the game had a feeling of Groundhog Day about it. We knew about our slow starts and our poor record after the bye, but despite searching for answers to both we again failed badly.
The disappointment and pity is strong now but at some point everyone at Geelong will broaden the focus and look at what we got out of the season.
We played 40 players which is the equal most of anyone in the competition and the only way to gain experience is to experience.
Over this season we have got experience into a lot of different players which is a real positive. One example was Esava Ratugolea who is going to give Cats fans a lot of excitement over the next decade.
At least someone in the Dangerfield family experienced some September success. My wife, Mardi, yesterday won the netball premiership with the Geelong Amateurs.
That means it must be my turn next … 2019 sounds good to me.
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