Bird found his best form between rounds six to 13, where he averaged over 25 possessions and five tackles, before delivering some equally impressive performances later in the season including his 27 possession, 11 clearances and eight tackles against West Coast in round 16.
Injury struck late in the year, when Bird suffered a posterior-cruciate ligament strain in the Swans round 22 win over the Western Bulldogs, which sidelined him until the first week of the finals.
Despite pulling on the substitute vest for all three finals, Bird told sydneyswans.com.au he was pleased he was able to recover in time to play finals football.
Losing a Grand Final is tough. How are you feeling and how is the group after the Swans disappointing end to the season?
The Grand Final was disappointing, but we’ve had some time to get over it and we need to move forward now and worry about next season. It was obviously a pretty disappointing result, but overall the year was pretty successful.
The Swans had 17 wins – which was a club record – what were some of the highlights of the season for you?
I think just after the way we started the season to bounce back and put all of those games together was good. We really played some good footy at times throughout the year, which was some of the best footy I’ve seen since I’ve been here. A lot of players had really good years and really stepped up this year and led us into the Grand Final. Overall it was pretty positive, even though we didn’t finish the way we would have liked.
You suffered a knee injury late this year but fortunately that didn’t set you back too much. How did you view your season?
I probably started a bit slow, so I was a bit disappointed with that, but once I got over that I thought my year was pretty consistent and I thought I played some good footy. Obviously it was disappointing with that injury at the end of the year, but I was able to get back and play in the finals. Even though I was starting as the sub for most of the finals, it was good just to be a part of it.
How did you deal with the fact you were playing the sub role? Was it tough to play that role during the finals?
It was a bit tough, and it’s sort of hard to get your head around that sort of role, especially when you’ve been playing all year. Getting injured at the wrong time was a little bit frustrating, but it was something I couldn’t worry about too much because I need to worry about what I could control and just try to contribute as much as I could.
It was a hard team to break into this year and there were a lot of players on the fringe. Who were some of the players who didn’t play a lot of senior footy who you see stepping up next season?
Obviously Tommy Mitchell was one who was on the edge all year and played some really good football in the twos, and Shane Biggs is another one. Those sorts of guys are going to be pushing us forward in the next few years.
You’ve got a well-deserved break coming up. What are your plans?
I’m actually going to the States for a month with Sam Reid and his brother and some other friends, and then I’ll probably just hang back in Sydney and may head up the coast back home as well.
