Collingwood has some of the best medium and small forwards in the game and Mark O’Connor shares how he prepares to take on the opposition in this week’s edition of Inside Word, presented by Morris Finance.
I relish every opportunity I get when Scarlo tells me who I might be playing on each week.
This usually takes place a few days out from a game, so if it’s a Saturday it might be on a Thursday when we are going through opposition stuff and he might hint to who I might be playing on.
There is obviously a bit more pressure attached because if you get beaten well it can be humiliating and all of that kind of stuff, but as a backline we try to put ourselves in those places in training.
Whether it be ones on ones, you try to put yourself in those vulnerable spots, so that come game day you won’t be as nervous, and you feel a bit more confident and that’s what I have been going with up until now.
As a backline group we are pretty relaxed and leave the decision making to Scarlo for the most part.
We do play a lot of team defence, so it is never really a one-man job, Jed and I always help each other on the small forwards, and it is never really a one-man thing, your trying to help each other.
If Harry has a matchup with one of the big guys who is really good in the competition, you want to help out there as well and all of the other boys to the same for whoever is on the best small forward – whether it be Jed or I or whoever – in any given week we try to help each other out and give each other a chop out when need be.
If some fellas are tired or feeling a bit sore you just need to step in, but we are pretty relaxed with all of that stuff and we generally just leave it up to Scarlo to decide or tell us what to do and we will go out and do it.
Hopefully we can get the job done on Saturday night.
