Richmond mindfulness coach Emma Murray has revealed what it was like in the Tigers change rooms at half-time of Saturday night’s AFL Grand Final.
Speaking on SEN's Whateley, Murray said it was hectic in the changerooms, with the Tigers trailing Geelong by 15 points at the main break.
“I pretty quickly went back down to the rooms to see (injured defender) Nick (Vlaustuin) and I ended up staying down there, and I’m always in the rooms for halftime but that was quite hectic,” Murray said.
Murray said there was one player in particular who approached her during the break which she found to be somewhat strange.
“When they (the coaches) break from their meetings is really the first time I start to talk to the players and the first player that called me over was Bachar (Houli), and he’s not one that I would typically speak to at half-time. So I thought that was a bit unusual,” she added.
“He was sort of nearly whispering and he said, ‘Oh, I’ve done my calf, I did it only a couple of minutes after Nick Vlaustuin went down and Dimma (coach Damian Hardwick) has asked me to stay out there’.
“He was sort of speaking like, ‘don’t let everyone know’, so we were just trying to get him ready to cope with that and were trying to put his focus on how he could get back out there to at least still contribute.”
Murray said young defender Noah Balta also come to her for some advice.
“I sought of went from Bachar to Noah Balta, who’s a lot less experienced than the other guys. I think he’d just done that chip kick to one of the Geelong players and was a bit rattled by that,” she said further.
“I was certainly being tested at half-time. I'm not sure what the coaches said at half-time, but it obviously worked.”
Richmond would put the hectic nature of the half-time break behind them, going on to outscore Geelong by nine goals to two to claim a comfortable 31-point victory and as a result, their third premiership in four years.