Sat next to Brent Guerra (Hawthorn No. 18) on the plane to Adelaide
My four-year stay in Australia taught me one thing. Sports is a religion and professional players are gods.
I learnt the rules and watched my share of weekend cricket, rugby (union & league) and footie just so that I could understand conversations on Monday mornings. Seriously, no one speaks to you if you're not talking sport.
One of my favourite sports was AFL (Australian Football League) or footie. It's like no other game on the planet (a bit like American football played on a cricket oval without protection). The players are usually tall, fit and wear tight jerseys, which probably explains why it's my favourite spectator sport :-)
To my delight, I found myself sitting next to a professional footie player on the plane to Adelaide last Friday. He was actually all over me (ahem!). Probably because he had to climb over my semi-comatose form to get to the toilet!
Brent Guerra is a Hawthorn forward and has been playing for 11 seasons, starting at age 17. He and his girlfriend Rachel were heading to a wedding in Adelaide. We had a nice long chinwag about footie, travels and plans for the future. Looks like I've got to start following Hawthorne now, in addition to the Lions, Swans and Cats.
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