AFL finals season is a time of triumph and a time of absolute tragedy. Trust me, I know — I’m a GWS Giants fan and those blokes have lost finals for the past three years running, including a semi-final against the Collingwood Magpies last Saturday night.
For the losing team it is, as Western Bulldogs legend Bob Murphy said on AFL 360 this week, “like getting impaled”. And GWS Giants player Adam Tomlinson, who joined me for this week’s episode of PEDESTRIAN.TV‘s podcast Balls Up this week, agrees that the sudden end to a season can be tough to deal with.
When the game finished you could see how upset the boys were. Bob’s right — you’re on such a high and then you go into such a low and it can be a pretty tough thing to deal with.
Tommo goes further into finals heartbreak from the 03:30 mark of this week’s ep, which you can hear below.
As for which of the three losses has hurt the most, including the GWS Giants losing by just a goal in the 2016 prelim against eventual premiers the Bulldogs and by 36 points last year to other eventual winners the Richmond Tigers, Tommo says: “This [year] has been the saddest for me. This has hurt the most.”
“Third year in a row and we thought we had a really good chance this year. For it to finish the way it did was pretty upsetting.”
For more of Tommo’s thoughts on playing / losing finals and who he thinks is going to win this weekend and next weekend, check out the full ep of Balls Up.
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