My grandma, Liz O’Sullivan, and I have a special routine. The day before I play a game, she rings me. “Leave the stress at the back door,’’ she says. Then she asks me if I’m ready to go, and I always say, “Ready and raring’’.
She is just one of the people in my family who has given me the most amazing amount of support over the years, right from when I played junior footy.
Of course I get most support from my dad, Matt, my mum, Geraldine, and my sisters Molly, who is 21, and Alice who’s nearly 13. Having this diary gives me the opportunity to let them know publicly just how appreciative I am of everything they’ve done for me since I was drafted, and in the years before that when I really decided I was going to have a crack at AFL and try to do my best.
In the week since I dislocated my shoulder they’ve been on the phone every day, and Dad was there when it happened at the SCG.
Dad always says he’s not coming up to games in Sydney, and then at the last minute he always does. Dad can’t remember more than three or four games he’s missed in my whole football career so far, including juniors, and Mum never missed a junior game.
And it’s not just my immediate family, but my extended family who have all gone out of their way to help me and support me with time, effort and advice.
I come from a big footy family. My dad played for Footscray, and Mum says she put me in the Bulldogs creche when I was a baby. And three of my uncles also played senior footy - my mum’s brother, Luke O’Sullivan, who played for Carlton, my dad’s brother, Mark, who played for Collingwood, and Ian Aitken, who is married to mum’s sister, Libby. He played for Carlton too.
After every Club football game or every school game or every TAC Cup game before I got drafted, my dad and my grandpa Brian Hannebery - we call him Barney - would always critique my game and tell me what I did well, but they’d also focus on the areas I needed to improve. There’d be heaps of arguing back and forth but at the end of the day it was always about helping me get better, and they still do it.
And mum has been amazing. She was always there trying to make sure that it was a calm household and she was always the one saying, ‘It’s all good, it’s all fine, don’t worry about it’. She puts a softener on it all!
Molly and Alice are football heads, they have grown up with it, they love it, and they have turned passionately to being Swans supporters.
It is a massive support base and I’m so lucky. All the calls and texts I get on the day before a game really help me to be at ease and confident when it’s time to play. I just want to say a big thank-you to them all.
