SYDNEY Swans forward Barry Hall's return from a seven-match suspension encourages him to feel like this weekend's clash with St Kilda is his first of the season.
In front of a media throng at the SCG, the 31-year-old said he'd worked hard during his suspension – physically and mentally – and was looking forward to playing the Saints on Saturday night.
"There were a few things we worked through and it's been an ongoing process," he said on Thursday.
"I'm confident it won't happen again and we got to the bottom of the issue."
Hall suggested other pressures could have forced him to snap and strike West Coast's Brent Staker in round four's highly-publicised incident.
"It was a few little personal things that got under my skin," he said.
"And I'm putting steps in place to make sure it doesn't happen again ... but if I do a silly mistake again, it's going to be pretty costly for me."
The 31-year-old added that he didn't expect to be provoked from now on.
"But there's always niggle out there. And I've been baited for 13 years of my career," he said.
Hall noted that he met regularly with a club sports psychologist "to put things in place in case something pops up.
"But we're really confident that if things do go wrong, we've got the steps in place to counter it," he said.
The former Saint said the process was not a temporary measure.
"It's going to be an on-going thing for the rest of my career that I'm going to have to keep on top of. I don't want it to happen again and I've expressed that to the players."
The big forward said he hoped he could reinforce the positive aspects of his playing reputation from this point in.
"People call me a thug and all that stuff... which is fine and it was a thuggish thing to do [on Staker]. But I certainly from here on in want to be known as a footballer and not as a thug.
"I can't promise it's not going to happen again, but I'm doing everything I can so it doesn't ... but now I just want to play some footy."
As for the "Big Bad Barry" tag, he said it was a tag that is hard to change. "But I've got to try to change my image. I know it's going to be hard work and it will take a long time.
"From here on in I certainly want to be known as a footballer and not anything else."
Coach Paul Roos said he expected Hall to play around 80-90 minutes on Saturday night.
"I've been doing plenty of running, believe me. But it's not like match fitness and I'll still be blowing, there's no doubt," said Hall.
The storied spearhead said that one positive to the break was that he could get himself really fit. "I think I was a bit underdone going into the season. And I suppose the last seven weeks have gone really well with no injury concerns.
"It's sort of like a pre-season and a first game again," he said.
