When Sydney won through to the 2012 grand final, Gary Rohan was in the players' race at ANZ Stadium wondering what might have been.
He should have been out there amid the backslaps and happy faces celebrating the moment and looking forward to the wondrous week ahead. But he wasn't, cut down by a broken leg just as he was about to make his mark. "I was in the race when the siren went, it just hit me, I was going to miss out on a grand final. I walked in here ... and had a bit of a tear and that," Rohan recalled in the Swans dressing rooms on Friday night.
This year he will not be a hardluck tale but a feelgood story. The story of a boy from the western districts of Victoria who came to the biggest city in the land, struck adversity and, with the help of his mates, will be there on the game's biggest stage – the MCG on grand final day.
"Out there when the siren went my emotions flew," Rohan said.
The first person he turned to was Ben McGlynn, the courageous midfielder who was denied a premiership medal by a dodgy hamstring. "I said 'this is ours next week'," Rohan recalled.
The road back for McGlynn was far shorter than that for Rohan, who has taken more than two years to return to his best. In February last year, 10 months after his sickening injury, Rohan still walked with a limp.
He surprised the Swans by returning to the senior team for the finals but it was a case of two steps forward one step back.
Rohan started this year in the seniors but battling nerve pain could not play more than half a game.
He was sent to the reserves and given a multitude of tasks. First, he had to build his fitness up to play out a whole game. He also had to learn to play in a new position, in defence.
"I couldn't get over half-time. When I ran out in the third quarter I was sore and couldn't get going," Rohan said.
"They just said I had to push through the pain and it got better and better. I get these little knocks I used to pull out and be a sook but now I can push through it."
As the pain dissipated, his conditioning improved, so too his form but there was a small problem of breaking back into a rampaging team which had won 12 on the trot.
"I was down on myself and in the reserves it felt so long, then I thought how am I going to get in the side?" said Rohan, who now plays pain-free.
Rohan's fears, however, were ill founded. He had a coach, John Longmire, who believed he was on the cusp of big things two years ago, and injury had not changed that view.
"I didn't think I was in the best 22, my confidence was down, Horse kept telling me 'We want you in the team, we can swing you forward, we can swing you back'," Rohan said.
"When he said that, and the boys were saying that as well, it boosted me up and I felt like I actually belonged."
There can be no doubt of his place in the Swans' team after playing what he believed to be the best game of his career last week.
His 23-possession effort against North Melbourne, which Longmire described as a "terrific offensive/defensive game", was in contrast to his error-laden qualifying final.
"We've been working on that all year, we played him in the reserves to teach him a few things for a number of weeks and he was able to do that," Longmire said.
"I just saw his family and saw them a couple of years ago against North Melbourne. He was sitting in hospital with a broken leg, they're pretty proud people at the moment, it's terrific."
Rohan can now dismiss the qualifying final with a grin but admitted he had been "devastated" with his blunders.
"But I stuck to it and the boys got around me and kept my confidence up, everyone makes mistakes, I just pushed it away and kept going," Rohan said.
That has come to be the Rohan way.
"I knew it was going to be a long time but I didn't think it'd be this long, it's taken a good two years to get it fully back to 100 per cent," Rohan said.
"It's been a very long time, I stuck to it and the rewards are here."
