Chris Yarran takes you behind the scenes of Carlton's trip to the Gold Coast to take on the Suns.

Thursday

With only two games to go in the minor round we were all pretty keen to get up to the Gold Coast to get the job done against the Suns. Coming off a great win against Essendon, the mood around the cub during the week was really good and with a solid training session on Wednesday the boys enjoyed having Thursday off before flying out on Thursday night.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side and we were forced to spend an extra hour and a half in the Virgin Lounge as our flight was delayed. Myself, Eddie, Dennis, Jeffy and Andy McInnes kept ourselves busy by playing Uno. We are all pretty competitive, but Dennis managed to keep himself in the game by cheating his way through each hand.

At about 8pm we took off from Melbourne, I had the exit row next to Andy Carrazzo and Andrew Walker and passed the time watching a few old episodes of Entourage on my laptop.

Everyone was pretty wrecked by the time we finally got to the hotel, about 11pm, I grabbed a sandwich and two Le Rices and headed up to my room. I generally room by myself when we go interstate, everyone has different sleep and rest patterns so it is good that I had the option to be by myself.
 

Friday

I didn’t have the best night sleep, getting used to a new bed and new pillows is always an issue when we travel, but that is the reason we fly up an extra night earlier.

I headed down to breakfast about 9am and had three pieces of toast with jam, two bananas and a glass of orange juice before getting ready for our opposition meeting at 10pm.

Our Senior Assistant Coach, Alan Richardson took us through Gold Coast’s match analysis and we talked through their key player’s strengths and weaknesses.

We had free time for the next two hours, so Eddie, Jeffy, Walks, Scotto, Ed and I headed down to a coffee shop around the corner. Would love to have got out and hit the beach for some sun, but we were all pretty aware that the sun can zap your energy and with training scheduled for the afternoon we were under instruction to keep it all pretty low key.

Lunch was back at the hotel at 1pm, it is pretty standard when we are on the road and this time is no different - carbs and protein. We had our choice of chicken and fish as well as rice, pretty basic but the best food for our preparation. I then went up to my room and watched Battleship before getting ready for training at about 4pm.
Metricon is a great venue, we had a good half hour session to get the body moving then spent some time signing autographs with the fans before heading in to our final team meeting before the match.
We then went back to the hotel for dinner, I had a big bowl of pasta and some chicken then went had some treatment from  ‘Turtle,’ one of our team physio’s.

Before going to bed I made sure I drank plenty of water, I normally try and drink up to about 4 liters the day before a game to make sure I don’t run out of steam come game day and of course with the Gold Coast weather, water is the best way to prevent cramping.
 

Saturday

I had a really good night sleep, and woke up feeling good about the game. I headed down to breakfast at 9am - toast, banana and yogurt then went into the defenders meeting, led by coach Gavin Brown. We are a pretty tight group and spent about half an hour discussing our defensive strategy to make sure we were all on the same page and no one had any questions.

Once the midfielders and forwards had finished their meetings, we all met in the lobby and went for a 20min team walk down to the beach to stretch the legs.

I stopped off and got a coffee on the way back to the hotel with Eddie before going back to the hotel for lunch. I never normally eat much on game day, so I just had a salad sandwich before heading up to my room to begin my match preparation and get myself focused. I just like to chill out and listen to some tunes, I don’t like sleeping on match day because I don’t want to feel sluggish - it works for some guys but not for me.

At 3.30pm we had our pre-game meal of pasta, but I just made myself a roll and took a banana to have before the game. Gavin Brown, Alan Richardson and Patty McCarthy were absent from the team meal, as they were special guests at our official interstate function at the Sebel Broadbeach.

By 5pm we were on the bus to Metricon to begin our match preparation of strapping, massage and warm-ups, before the 7.40pm bounce.

No doubt the result was not what anyone was expecting, and the mood after the match well and truly matched our performance. We were incredibly disappointed in the way we played and after the match some of the boys were inconsolable, especially Andy McInnes who went down with a knee ACL in the first 15seconds to a knee injury. After debuting earlier this season he had well and truly proven he deserves to be playing AFL footy and this injury is a heartbreaking way to end his season.