This Sunday when we take on Richmond at the SCG, it will be Rhyce Shaw’s 150th game, and Craig Bird’s 50th.

When I first arrived in Sydney, I moved in with Shawy and Birdy, who lived in Botany. My first three weeks were spent with those guys.

One of the earliest memories with Shawy was when I cut my finger while I was making a salad for dinner. I was in a bit of strife so I rang Shawy to see if there were any band-aids in the house. He brought home a little medical kit for me and really helped look after me.

Shawy does get around all the younger guys. He is a really selfless teammate. Both on and off the field he really makes sure everyone is A-OK, and always worries about everyone else before himself.

A perfect example was the other night when we went to the pub to have some dinner for Gary Rohan’s birthday. Shawy organised a cake for Gazza with all the candles and everything and made sure Gazza walked out of dinner feeling really good about himself.

He always organises all of the boys to catch up and is always the first to put his hand up to drive blokes to the airport and that sort of thing. He’s just a really good team man.

Whether we’ve scored a goal or conceded one, he is always trying to lift the players in the backline.  Playing on a wing like me, he is always looking at you, trying to get you to lift your work rate and your body language. He is a really good vocal teammate.

Since I started here, he has really taken all of the first year players under his wing and made sure they are all at home here in Sydney. If there are any issues or they’re not doing something right, he makes sure he fixes it as soon as he can, or if you’re doing something well, he’ll let you know too.

Shawy actually started a bit of a gang with Birdy. It's basically a group of guys who all live around Randwick, who hang around together.

Those two boys, along with Kizza and Meza (Brett Meredith) are the initial members, and Gaz Rohan, Nipper Gordon and myself have been trying for months to crack into the group. Birdy tells me every day that I’ll only ever be first emergency.

Birdy is an interesting cat and he goes about his business pretty quietly. I get into him a bit on this new application called Heytell. It’s like a little walkie-talkie on the phone and you can send people voice messages. I reckon I send about seven HeyTell’s to Birdy every day, getting stuck into him about a range of things, including his haircut.

Shawy and Birdy have been playing similar roles lately and both are playing really good team footy, playing on some of the opposition’s most dangerous players.

Even if they won’t let me into the gang, good luck to Shawy and Birdy in their milestone games this weekend. Let’s hope the boys can get a win for them in front of our home crowd.