In the prelude to Anzac Day the following year, Banks was told that if he got through a reserves game at Windy Hill, he’d be back in front of 90,000 people the following week. He was rewarded with the solitary goal of his career. The only upside being that as the least regarded of four who suffered the same fate for Essendon that night, he was sent back on and ordered to stand in the goal square. Modra was made even more nimble when Banks tore a hamstring. “Modra was too nimble for me, but I was just able to stand in his way and block his run. I think he did that a few times as he didn’t want guys to get ahead of themselves – and back then I had blonde tips and I was 6ft 7in with a fair opinion of myself, like most footballers.”īanks would play his only other senior game that year at Football Park in Adelaide, where he held Barry Stanfield and Tony Modra goalless. The following week, Banks’ senses were numbed when he was sent back to the reserves. And now having kids myself and looking back and imagining your child reaching a level when you’re sitting in a stadium like that, I appreciate it in a whole other way.” Back then I had blonde tips and I was 6ft 7in with a fair opinion of myself, like most footballers Matthew Banks You just want to play reasonably to thank them for all of that. Looking at the proud face on my dad, you just remember all that stuff. “All the years that your parents have driven you around to training in the dark at Ringwood. “That day was a thank you to my family,” says Banks. His parents were sitting in the MCC members and a mate who he’d grown up with prepared a banner that read, “Which Bank? Matt Banks!” Every time he’d lead, I’d try to stand in front of him.”Īnzac Day 1997 was up until that point the biggest day of Banks’ life. “I didn’t really get many possessions, but I just bodied him to try and get him off balance all the time. Rocca would only manage two goals for the game and The Australian would name Banks in the best (his mum still has the clipping). Just big heavy bodies bashing into each other the whole time.” “If you’ve ever seen two gorillas fighting each other, that was us. Should an analogy be drawn to Banks’ game that day, it would not be with a first world war documentary, but a Jane Goodall one. It was helpful because it got the nerves out of my body.” “When that happened, it kind of just brought me down to, ‘yes, it’s just a normal game’. “The two Rocca brothers tried to rough me up before the first bounce and Dean Wallis ran through and laid one of them out,” says Banks. Which isn’t to say the game isn’t brutal in its own way. It’s not saying were going to war, it’s simply not.” It was about perspective, but also what people can get out of themselves – in different situations you can lift the bar. “Sheeds would say you’re about to run out onto the MCG in front of 90,000 people, but there are hundreds of thousands of people that have done greater things under harsher conditions. Matthew Banks is in the back row, third from left. A group of Essendon players by a war memorial around 1996.
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