Gerard Whateley

And it just, it was a fitting finish because I was finishing, Trav was finishing it.

It felt, you know, it felt really nice.

And Trav had accepted where he was at and knew exactly where he was at.

He knew his back and his body wasn't going around one more time.

He'd squeezed the lemon really dry.

Now, do some of the Collingwood players think like that or don't think like that?

So they're the challenging ones, the ones who still want to compete.

Because I remember having this conversation once with a great player at Geelong and the conversation went along the lines of,

We ask you to compete for 15 or 16 years and be a real dog after a bone style person.

And then when we tell you it's time to finish, we expect the competitor to stop.

Well, it just doesn't happen like that.

They will always, always think that they're good enough to play another game or another two games or another season of games.

I remember Jeff Parker telling me once he was a head recruiter at Port Adelaide.

He was a cricketer and he said, if you gave a great batsman another 10 innings, they'll get another 100 because they've just been so good for such a long time.

But the 100 will be 1 in 10, not 5 in 10.

So I thought, yeah, it's a pretty good analogy, Parks, that if we think about that, you give great players another hit, they're a chance to hit you over the fence.

But they're also a chance to get clean ball on the first ball.

Yes.

So there's a bit to work through for the retiring champs.

It's a really, really challenging and difficult position to be in.