IT'S been a long wait for my first goal but now it’s over...

When I woke up Saturday morning I thought this is the day it is going to happen.

My little brother Brandon, who’s 16, was here last week, over from our home town of Bunbury with his school, Clontarf College.

I’d seen him through the week and he and his mates were doing their training out here across the road from the SCG on Wednesday.

Brandon was standing on the boundary and saying this is how you do it, this is how you kick it through, and he smashed it, a drop punt from the boundary line.

I was thinking you little dog, stop teasing me, I’m trying!

He and all the little boys with him were snapping goals, kicking bananas, so I was watching their style, thinking I will try to do that.

So there was something about the day when I woke up on Saturday. I felt really good, it must have been the sunny day.

When I got to the ground I starting getting real nervous because my little brother was watching and I knew if I played bad or didn’t kick it, he would get into me. 

So then in the warm-up I was practicing my bananas which were going straight through. Drop punts and snaps were missing but bananas were going well so I figured it’s going to be a hard one and it’s going to be a banana.

I built it up though. I missed a couple first.

Then in the last quarter when Marty (Mattner) kicked it over I was thinking this is it, this is my chance here right now, you can’t get any easier.

I was running in to do a drop punt and I figured, hold on, I’ll switch it to a banana to make sure.

I booted the stuff out of it, perfect banana, straight through and it was the best moment ever. I got so excited I just ran and kept running for 30 metres and then all the boys were there around me.

Some people might have thought I was crying but I was just wiping all their sweat off me!

So it was a long wait, till round 19, but I didn’t let it get me down. I learnt don’t give up, keep trying, keep practicing, keep having a crack and don’t have self doubt. At least I was having a lot of shots at goal in my first year of AFL.

That’s out of the way, and now I just want to keep playing good footy and taking them on.

So we go to Perth this week to play Fremantle. I’m excited to be going back home but also nervous because my family will be there, and when I say family there will be more than 200 of them at Subiaco, easy.