In the Sydney Swans’ round eight clash against Hawthorn at ANZ Stadium, Tippett booted four goals, and went on to bag three and five-goal hauls against Essendon and Geelong in the next two rounds respectively.
Another knee injury saw the big man subbed out of the Swans’ round 12 clash with the Gold Coast Suns, which subsequently sidelined him for four of the next five games, before returning for the last nine matches of the season.
Tippett, who finished the season with 34 goals in his 14 appearances, told SwansTV his aim was to play more football for the Swans in 2015.
The Grand Final isn’t a topic the boys want to talk about at the moment, but looking back how do you feel about it a few days on?
It was a very disappointing game and personally, and as a group, we didn’t play our best. It was disappointing because you give yourself the opportunity by playing well all year, and then to get there and to feel like we didn’t play our best was hard, but it’s something I think we can use to drive ourselves through the pre-season.
Your own season, it was a bit up and down due to injury. Looking back now, how do you think you performed?
It was a tough season to sort of get a gauge on. Being in and out of the side is something that’s hard and being worried about your body and not having that great confidence is something that can affect you. At times I thought I performed reasonably well and there were other times where I thought I wasn’t at my best, so I’m looking forward to getting my body right over the break and doing a lot of work there so I can play consistently next season.
Is maintaining that consistency your biggest aim for 2015?
It is; and I’ve had some meetings with the conditioning staff and our focus is making sure we do all the things right over the break and then into the pre-season. It’s about making sure I give myself the best opportunity to play as much football as possible.
It was a new look forward line this year. How did you enjoy playing up forward this year?
It was fantastic to play alongside Buddy and Reidy and Goodesy, and hopefully we can all do it again next year. There might be a bit more of a balance next year with me playing more ruck, so that’s exciting as well.
Looking at your team mates, there were a lot of good, young performers this year. Who were some of the players who impressed you in 2014?
There were some great performances this year. Harry Cunningham just got better and better and Jake Lloyd was remarkable and he came on this year. It’s really exciting that we’ve got some great young talent who still haven’t played much senior footy, so that’s something really exciting for the fans and supporters next year.
The off-season is coming up. What are your plans?
I’ll be having a good break and will be doing a little bit of travel with the family and then get back and spend a little bit of time in Sydney and possibly go back to Queensland to see some family and friends.
