Sydney Swans co-captain Adam Goodes opened up about breaking the club games record, his junior football days and the battle to fight against racism in the AFL in a candid interview on Fox Footy’s Open Mike last week.

Footballing future:

Goodes, who returned to the Swans side after six games on the sidelines with injury on Friday night, discussed his football future with influential AFL journalist Mike Sheahan and his hopes to achieve more success with the Sydney Swans.

While the dual Brownlow Medallist said he still loved playing football, he admitted there was not a target number of games he wanted to play before hanging up his boots.

“For me it’s not about the number I finish at, it’s about the quality that I play at and the quality games,” he said.

“There was no doubt against Adelaide I was really happy up until I got injured, so I really want to continue that until the end of the year and I really think that with the group we have at the Swans at the moment that really special things are about to happen and I want to be a part of that.

“I think what I’ve been able to do with my body and my mind and the things that I’ve put in process in my routine have definitely helped me stay at a really healthy and fit level and be able to perform at a level that I’m really happy with.

“If it gets me to 400 then we can tick that box when it comes, but there are things that I want to do before then.”

The choice between soccer and AFL:

It might come as a surprise to a few, but AFL was not always Goodes’ sport of choice.

As a junior, Goodes was raised playing with the round ball instead of the oval variety until his family moved from Adelaide to regional Victoria.

“I moved from Adelaide where I played soccer and where I played one AFL game for the school, and that was when my whole soccer team had to fill in for the AFL team because they didn’t have the numbers,” Goodes said on Open Mike.

“I then moved to a small country town, Merbein just outside of Mildura, and went to school and was talking to people about where the soccer team was.

“I was a 13-14 year old kid and I went down to the soccer pitch and as it was only senior football and they didn’t have junior ranks, and it was just a very vicious and violent game and my mum was looking at me like ‘there is no way you’re playing this’.

“It just so happened that on the field right next to us there was a junior game of AFL going on and the Merbein Magpies were playing over there, and we went over and I towered above all of the kids that looked like my age group and my mum said ‘I’d much prefer if you played footy’ and the week later she enrolled me to play with the Maggies and that’s where my footy career started.”

Racism in the AFL:

A proud ambassador for the Indigenous community, Goodes also spoke openly about the state of Indigenous affairs within the AFL.

Goodes spoke positively about what the league is doing for its Indigenous players.

“They’ve got more opportunities than ever and I think the clubs are becoming more culturally aware of their Indigenous players and we’re recruiting Indigenous players from more different places and a lot more remote communities,” Goodes said.

“I think we are doing a lot, but we can always do more.”

Goodes said there was still work to be done to eradicate racism from the AFL.

“(Racism) definitely hasn’t (been eliminated) and it’s something that we’re continually talking about at our Indigenous camps that we have every second year,” he said.

“We talk about what can players do better themselves to stomp it out and not letting it go on.

“A lot of players don’t report it because some players it does affect and other players it doesn’t and that’s their personal decision, but what we say in an educational forum to the boys is to stamp it out, we’ve got to put our hand up and go ‘Do you know what? That’s wrong.’”

Watch the above video for part one from Adam Goodes, who also discussed playing with injury, sliding tackles, playing against Chris Judd and the long-awaited 2005 Premiership.

Click here to watch part two of Open Mike with Adam Goodes.