It felt a bit weird at the start for me last Saturday, playing against my old friend Nicko, that’s Nic Naitanui.

I met up with him at Coogee Beach the day before the game but then seeing him in a West Coast jumper was strange.

We played for Swan Districts Colts (U18) together in 2007 and won a premiership. There were lots of boys in that team who are in the AFL now.

There’s Alex Rance at Richmond and Chris Yarran, David Ellard and Jeffrey Garlett at Carlton, and Todd Banfield, the redhead ranga who’s at Brisbane, so I’ll probably be playing against him this week. And then there’s also Michael Walters and Clancee Pearce who are at Fremantle.

In 2007 I was in the south west league in Bunbury, but when the Swans came down to play against Peel Thunder, I got invited to play in the Colts and so did my cousin Neville Jetta. He’s at Melbourne now.

They said it was the best Colts team they ever had in history and lucky for me I was in that side. I travelled up to Perth three times a week to train and play, me and Neville.  Sometimes we would get there and they would be just finishing!

I moved to Perth last year but before that I spent two years travelling up and down for training and games, and it’s180 km each way.

Anyway, that year, in 2007, we beat Claremont in the grand final by over 100 points. They also had a player who’s in the AFL now, Cale Morton at Melbourne.

It was a bit weird when we played Carlton in the pre-season cup this year. Me and Jeffrey (Garlett) were just having a good talk on the field during the game, and when I went over to Chris (Yarran) to man him up, we did the same thing. Just asking ‘how is life’, just talking about how is Melbourne treating you and how is Sydney treating you.

We focused on the game but we also had a little chat during the game! 

Chris and Jeffrey played well the other day when Carlton beat Geelong and I keep an eye on my old team-mates from Swan Districts.

That year we were all together, we had Chad Morrison coaching us, and he used to be at West Coast so we had good coaching and we had lots of good players.

Nicko was in the ruck and I was half forward and on the wing. I was so skinny and small. And I still am a bit skinny but I was even smaller back then. I weighed 40 kilograms...ha. Nah I’d say it was really 60 kgs. Now over the last two years I’ve put on 10 kilograms.

I haven’t found any problem being skinny so far. I just stick to my strengths with my speed and skills and I can baulk people, so I just use that against the opposition.

Roosy says he is just happy the way I’m playing my role in the team and fitting in, he is pretty happy with that.

We’re on top of the ladder but I really haven’t taken notice, I’ve just been playing footy and haven’t worried about the ladder or where we stand, I’m just worried about getting a kick out there against Brisbane and my old team-mate Todd Banfield.