My brother Graham came up to stay last weekend. It was great to have Graham here, I felt so relaxed to have him in Sydney.

It made me think of the times we played football together when we were younger.

Graham is two years older than me, and then I have another older brother, Peter, and two younger brothers and a little sister.

When we were kids in juniors I remember when one of the opposition players head-butted me out of the pack, and my two front teeth went through my bottom lip. I’ve still got the scar like a tooth mark.

Anyway, our trainer pulled my lip off my teeth and patched it up and I went back out and played. I told Graham what happened and he asked me who did it, and in the next five minutes that guy went off after Graham tackled him!

To be honest we used to fight each other all the time but we always got over it, and out on the footy field we always protected each other.

Two years ago playing down in Bridgetown, about an hour from Bunbury, one of my teammates got hit and tackled pretty hard and two guys were on him so I went over and helped out. Then the guys came towards me and then all I see is my two brothers running fill tilt to come and help me!

I was playing with Peter and Graham for Bridgetown. There were a few Jettas in that team. In our scratch matches we had my cousin Neville and his little brother and me and my second youngest brother Aaron, and Peter and Graham.

As the year went on, our Dad decided to play as well. So in our team we had four of the five boys in my family, and our Dad, who was 42 at the time, and he kicked a couple of goals. We made sure he was right.

I miss them sometimes but Cambo (team-mate and house-mate Campbell Heath) makes up for it. Just wrestling and fighting with him all the time reminds me of home.

I had a chat to my second cousin Leroy Jetta after the Essendon game. Now I can’t wait till we play Melbourne and we get to play against my cousin, Neville. He will try to take me out for sure. He always tried to do that when we were kids but mostly we played with each other.

Growing up playing footy with cousins and brothers has really helped me. The normal stuff you do in the park with all your brothers and mates and cousins, you can bring to the game.  Kicking the ball around trees, kicking it into bins, simple muck around stuff. We don’t realise it but we actually do it in an AFL game without even noticing.

People say it is magic, but it is just practice and practice and having fun as a kid.