2012 was a year of incredible highs and unexpected lows for Swans co-captain Adam Goodes.

The season culminated in the 32-year-old becoming a dual premiership player, and along the way he also became the Swans games record holder when he overtook his great mate Michael O’Loughlin’s record of 303 games in round five against Hawthorn.

This year also saw Goodes suffer one of the most serious injuries of his career when he suffered a quad injury against Adelaide in round six and missed five matches - the longest lay-off of his career.

Individual achievements and hurdles aside, Goodes told sydneyswans.com.au he always believed this team could achieve the ultimate success in 2012.

How did you sum up your season in 2012?

It was a huge season for us to win a premiership medallion and the Cup … but I haven’t really reflected on my own year just yet because it’s been a little bit crazy up here in Sydney since we won the premiership. When I go away for a couple of weeks and spend some time with family and friends, I think that’s the time that I’ll really reflect on my year and come to a conclusion on whether it was a year of personal success and whether I achieved the things that I wanted to do personally.

Obviously winning the premiership was the ultimate as a team but as an individual I missed six games this year, so I’d really like to not miss a game next year and probably have some more consistency over the whole 22 rounds.

You reached a club milestone, playing your 304th record-breaking game in round 5. Have you had the chance to reflect on the meaning of that moment?

No, not really. I think it was such a great game down there to beat Hawthorn, who we ended up beating in the Grand Final as well. It was just a really big tick for our group and it was just a great thing for us to be part of down there in Tasmania and the support we had in Tasmania was fantastic as well.

It is a pretty big milestone, but it’s something I haven’t sort of patted myself on that back for.

You missed six weeks with injury this season. What did you learn from that experience?

I learnt that I could still just contribute. As a leader you can always find ways to contribute and obviously while I was not playing I was able to do things off-field to help the group still. It also just gave me an insight to what life might be like without football, so it was an interesting time, but I’m still very passionate to play and I don’t want to miss any more games.

What improvements have you seen in the team over the last 12 months?

I think the biggest improvement has been just the consistency of all players. We used about 34 players this year to get us to the Grand Final and we’re going to need that again next year, and if we can keep getting improvement from the guys then there is no reason why we can’t go back-to-back.

As a captain and a leader of this club, what players have impressed you this year?

We had guys like Luke Parker, Alex Johnson and Sam Reid who last year really came on in leaps and bounds, and those guys were just as consistent this year, which is what you really need. You then had guys like Lewis Jetta that have taken it to the next level, and boys like Josh Kennedy, Kieren Jack and Ted Richards who are just consistently playing up to a standard and that’s what you need from your middle-tier players. Also to have the older guys in the group still performing well like Ryan O’Keefe, Jude Bolton and Rhyce Shaw just gives the younger guys the role models and the inspiration they need to be successful.

How does it feel to be a dual premiership player?

It feels pretty good. It’s an awesome feeling and something that I said at Jumper Presentation earlier this year that I really wanted to be a dual premiership player, but more importantly with the group we had, I wanted them to be able to taste that success. We have now and now I’ve got 40 premiership brothers instead of 22 and it’s just an awesome feeling.

You showed a fair bit of resilience playing on in the Grand Final with a knee injury - how is the knee and how tough was it to play on?

It was tough, but at the same time it was Grand Final day and I thought if I could play a small role I’d stay out there, but if I thought I would be letting the team down I would have put my hand up and said ‘Sub me, get me off and get Luke (Parker) on’. Luckily enough I was still able to play a role out there and I was out there when the final siren rang because that’s a pretty special moment when that happens.

There were plenty of memorable moments out there, one was your goal that you kicked over the pack and bounced through. How did it feel to see it go through?

When I kicked it and I saw it bounce, I actually thought it bounced too high and it was just going to sit there and (the Hawthorn defenders) were going to run in and get there. It was an awesome feeling when I saw it go through. I actually thought it only put us up by a goal, but it put us up by seven points, so to know that (Hawthorn) had to score twice to win gave us a little bit of an advantage. They then locked it down in their forward line for the next five minutes and had numerous shots on goal, so I was quite nervous, but we stuck at it and to get that result on the day after what people had been saying about the game was just amazing.

How would you describe the feeling when the siren went?

It was a different feeling to ’05, that’s for sure. Obviously winning a premiership is an amazing feeling but I just felt the way we played this year and the way we played our finals campaign and the way the game twisted and turned, I was just like ‘Wow - we were part of something really special today’. They were a fantastic team, Hawthorn, and they just kept coming at us, and to our boys credit we just kept digging and digging in and hitting in and that proved the difference in the end.

A nice long break coming up, what are your plans for the off season?

I had to cancel a few of my plans to go to the States and to Bali because of my knee. I don’t have to get an operation on my knee, which is a massive plus, but I do have to stay around and look after it a little bit so I can be right to go for the start of pre-season.

No doubt I will go along to the Gold Coast with my brothers for a week and then I’ll spend a fair bit of time with my family.