This year’s Jack Dyer Medal winner, Daniel Jackson, has revealed that a mid-year break with some old schoolmates was the catalyst for a positive change of attitude towards his football.

“I got to the split round and I was playing better footy that I had been, and we were winning games, but, for whatever reason, I wasn’t enjoying myself.  I think I still had a lot of pressure every week that I went out there.  I just felt too tense,” Jackson said in a special one-on-one Roar Vision interview with Matthew Richardson.

“But I went away, caught up with my old schoolmates, and spent a bit of time up in Sydney . . . all of a sudden, I just came back with a relaxed attitude.

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“I thought, you know what, if this doesn’t work out, well, I’ll just go and do something else.  But for the time being this is what I want to do.  I’m going to have a crack at it.

“And, for the second half of the year, I just really went out there and enjoyed myself.

“It’s funny, it was in the Brisbane game – I don’t know what part of the game it was – but something clicked in my head and I thought, you know what, if I want to get the footy, I can get the footy.  If I want to use it well, I could use it well.

“For 10 years, I could only just hope that I could not stuff it up.  That’s pretty much all I’d been hoping for.

“But, from then on, I finally had some confidence that I could actually play this game and, geez, it’s a good feeling when you know that you’re at least at the level.

“And, then, in a winning side, and to play in that final . . . I’m just super-excited for what comes next.”

Jackson also spoke glowingly of the part his teammates played in turning his football fortunes around.

“There’s just one thing I love more than anything else, and that’s my teammates,” he said.

“It’s like being at school.  I’ve been here for 10 years, so I don’t know anything else.

“I’m 27 . . . that’s basically more than half the life that I remember, I’ve spent at this footy club.  From when I walked in with my school uniform, my socks up and my flaming red hair, all those years ago.

“Well, I’ve still got the red hair, but I’ve ditched the school uniform.

“I genuinely love my teammates, and that’s the thing that got me through the last few years, when I was really struggling.  I did consider that I was just going to play this year out and go and do something else.  But they were what got me through, so I couldn’t thank them enough.”