By DAVID NAGEL
AT THE end of the day, they are premiership team mates, but the match day preparations of Thomas Jok and Shaun Pollard could hardly have been more different on Saturday.
Jok’s story is one that will go down in football folklore … seriously … it’ll make you shake your head in amazement.
Imagine the surprise of Beaconsfield coach Clint Evans, when at 1.15pm, just 75 minutes before the scheduled bounce of the ball, he realises that 17-year-old Jok is missing, that’s right, only 21 of his starting 22 for this year’s grand final are present, staring him between the eyes as he starts his pre-game instructions.
“Where’s Thomas?”
A quick phone call is made, and Jok explains that there have been some difficulties and that he and his family are on their way -“No worries boss, I’ll be there shortly,” that type of thing.
Jok arrives safely at 1.45pm, Evans isn’t in the mood for explanations, something must have gone seriously wrong, but all’s OK, we’ll soldier on now.
But it’s only after the dust had settled on Beaconsfield’s first premiership win in 10 years that Evans realises what had really happened.
Jok had been playing NBA Basketball on his PlayStation, he started his session mid-morning, but having got through to game seven of the World Championships, well, time started to slip away as the clock ticked towards 1 o’clock didn’t it.
We warned you … amazing!
At the opposite end of the scale is Pollard, a seasoned veteran at 33 years old, a man who has been craving the ultimate success in a senior career that has spanned 16 years. His Saturday morning consisted of paying a visit to St John of God Hospital, to pick up his wife Rachel and their three-day-old son Ashton.
“I had a big week, my wife had a baby three days ago, so it’s been a really big week trying to acclimatise to today,” a jubilant Pollard said after the match.
“You’re really nervous going into a grand final, so maybe having so much going on was good for me to take my mind off things. You want to win, you want to win a premiership so bad, you want to share something with the 22 blokes and the coaching staff -and now we get to do that- rapt … absolutely rapt.”
Pollard said it was dream result in what is the twilight of his career.
“Definitely … I wanted to finish my career off at a local club and you always want success, I’ve played 16 years and this is my first taste of a premiership,” he said.
“It’s been a long journey and I’m definitely going to enjoy this, it’s a great group of kids, with some older heads as well, and we just gelled as the year went on. Our pressure today, the way we went about it, we’re just a hard working side that never gives in.”
The key forward said a round 11, 114-point thumping at the hands of Narre Warren had been the catalyst for turning their season around.
“We were embarrassed by that and they really showed us what footy is about,” he said.
“We just weren’t confident, not instinctive, blokes were going into their shells, but we just turned things around by gelling as a playing group. We set some goals, set some non-negotiables that we had to stick to, and every week we had 22 players just abide by that. We got better and we earned what we did today, there was no luck involved, we really earned it and we played hard for it.”
Yeah … but not as hard as Thomas Jok on his PlayStation!
