Brad Bootsma had just completed a two-hour half-ironman bike ride in Busselton when news came through that son Josh had got the call up for his first senior game against Greater Western Sydney.

“When I got the word I was on my pushbike,” Brad said today. “I’d just about finished the ride and had cycled past my wife Sandy when she shouted out ‘When you get off your bike we’ve got to get back to Perth”.

Husband and wife duly completed the 229kilometre drive back to the family home in Perth, caravan in tow, then called on babysitters to tend to their two younger children. They then booked flights to Melbourne and boarded “the redeye” for the 2720-k trek to Tullamarine, arriving an hour or so before the first bounce.

Father said he somehow suspected his son was a chance to make the cut, but was kept in suspense until the death when it became clear Josh would be a late inclusion as sub for the injured Ed Curnow.

“I didn’t have any real inkling, but I knew he’d played a couple of good games in the VFL and I thought that with the game coming up against GWS he might get a look in,” Brad said.

“As the week unfolded and Friday came along I thought ‘No, he’s no chance now’, so you can imagine my surprise when I was told... and obviously I’m really proud of the boy.”

Brad said that he coped reasonably well with the waiting process, knowing that the sub wasn’t normally activated until the final quarter - in this instance 90 seconds in to the final quarter.

“The pleasing thing was that when he did come on he made an impact on the game... and good luck to him,” Brad said.

“He got seven possessions, which was almost half of what he got in the full VFL game the week before.”

So how did Dad fare watching on and how did the 23-game former Fremantle player cope with the strains of “BOOOOOOOOOOOOTSMA” reverberating around Etihad Stadium?

“There were a lot of goosebumps,” Brad confessed, “and I was quite amazed at the crowd’s response to be honest.

“I’m not normally one who gets roped into the crowd, but when you’ve got 20,000 people screaming your surname you get quite taken aback. “I don’t reckon I had 20,000 people screaming my name for my whole career!”

As an assistant coach (midfield) with WAFL outfit Peel Thunder, Brad envisages he’ll only manage to get across to see Josh play on a bye weekend though the remainder of season 2012.

But he looks forward to returning to Melbourne in late June for the Hawthorn match “and if he (Josh) is lucky enough to play in that game then I’ll be there to watch”.