Grand Final Loss

I played the Grand Final last Saturday. I'm not sure what hurts me the most. The fact that we lost, or that I only played 25 minutes of the game. Plainly because of my injured shoulder. I knew that injury would come back to haunt me. Played for a few minutes with torn ligaments in my right shoulder, then I got substituted. I went all out because that was my last game. A few team mates said I played my heart out, and may be thats what is most important. I don't have photos.

The journey to the Grand Final was brilliant. The script could not have been written any better. Lost the first match against rivals Barron Trinity. We didn't play that well to be honest. So we really deserved it. after the semifinal loss, we had to play Innisfail, also rivals, in the preliminary finals but in this game we showed heart and I guess we wanted it more than the opposition. The winner would face Barron Trinity in the Grand Finals. If only it could have been a fairy tale ending to beat the ones we lost against earlier, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Now, in the Grand Final aftermath, I can see the difference between friend and family. Those who I thought were my friends or family, really didn't care much about the fact that I reached a Grand Final, perhaps the best achievement in my life till now. Perhaps its not really their fault. They do not know how much this means to me.

He who sheds blood with me shall be my brother.

And as I said time and time again, if you don't play, you don't know how it feels to sweat and bleed for yourself, for the team. For your brothers, the men standing beside you.

People like you, can never understand...