The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…

Tom Stewart has always known disappointment isn't a detour - it's part of the journey. His circuitous path into AFL football taught him that early. Friday night was just another reminder of the game's capacity to humble anyone, anytime.

To be known as a ‘big game player’ means you are respected. No, it's even more than that. It means that you are trusted in the moments that matter by the people who know when it matters most.

Isaac Quaynor and Collingwood won deep.
It is time for the game to win deep.

Like all great coaches, Chris Fagan is someone you feel good about, but his ‘secret sauce’, if I can boil it down to one thing, is that he also makes you feel good about you.

By living the game your entire life, you chose growth over fear long ago. It is the minimum expectation of elite sport as you navigate the many difficult transitions the game expects of you.

'Learning to surf' from a leadership perspective means accessing the best part of yourself at the crucial moments, those times when your emotional state could well betray you.

Yes, the pure talent, the specky, the kick at goal which could not have been more precise. But then the craziness, and the sense-making of the Saints players. Faced with a unique situation, they contrived a unique solution, knowing that if we could just get the ball in the hands of Nas, well, he would do the rest.

As leaders, we seek to create the conditions for organisations and teams to perform at their best. As part of this, we are often required to simultaneously hold two contradictory ideas, and the rascal/villain will present as this. In doing so, we potentially become complicit in their story, and need to decide whether we are okay with that.

If you were to recruit a person based on one characteristic, what would it be?

The point of departure was the moment Noah Anderson gathered the ball from the centre bounce, carried it, gave it off, got it back, kicks it slightly across his body, celebrating from the moment the ball left his boot, marking the place where the Gold Coast Suns’ ‘so far’ story met its ‘not yet’ story, creating an ‘us story’ for a club that, until this moment, has never been able to find it.

As leaders, we get to draw the outline of a future, something that inspires, knowing that others will need to colour it in. Most of the time, however, we are colouring in the outline of a future, which at the time existed only in the imagination of a courageous and inventive few, but now so familiar that we almost forget who drew it for us.

The most important person in a club is the one with the ball in their hand.

I have learned that discomfort marks the place where the old way meets the new way. It is a place of vulnerability and courage. If it doesn’t challenge you, it will not change you, and whenever in doubt, back the new way and all its uncertainty.

Your attitude towards the notion of ‘role player’ will also reveal a great deal about you as a leader, what you truly value, the behaviours you reward, and how you build trust, as well as your personal commitment to establishing a sustainable team ethos.

The way he sees life is that it will continually deal us hands of cards. Some hands are better than others, but it’s up to us to choose how we play those cards, and whilst we think we know, it is our response in the moment which is the measure.

Steele Sidebottom is pure footballer, has the ‘footy chip’ as we like to describe it. The game chose him. He plays with a pure love of the game and with joy in an often joyless world that seems keen to retire him, or at least reduce what he still brings.

But they went about redefining both the question and the answer, creating a different dialogue, if only to take the conversation forward, driving a wedge between the old and new way, and those caught in between.

Wallsy's journey reminds us that the game's greatest gift is the people whose paths we cross, and I am grateful, as are so many others, for the conversations we got to have.

The game is at its best when it leads, finding the collective courage to forge a new way. It is at its worst when it lags, but can often get lost in between.