Nirranda’s Hugh Porter chats to The Standard after the 2024
WDFNL grand final.
WDFNL grand final.
Category
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SportsTranscript
00:00Joined by Hugh Porter. Mate, you're a Premiership player in your first year with
00:03Niranja, how does it feel? It's a good feeling, very good feeling, very happy. All the boys
00:07I'm sure will celebrate hard. I think we all played a great game and credit to
00:12Merrowvale, they just kept coming, kept coming, but we're lucky to hold on, so
00:15pretty good feeling, yeah. Yeah, it went right down to the wire, how were you
00:18feeling towards the end, were you confident? Got nervous there in the
00:23last few minutes, especially because it was only 4.7, they just kicked one, they had
00:27their tails up there and I was singing for Si and I'm blowing the next minute, could be a
00:30different story, but we're pretty lucky to hold on, so yeah, we'll definitely celebrate it.
00:34And is this your first senior flag? Yeah, it is, yeah. It must feel pretty special to have that team name?
00:39Yeah, it is good, definitely. Good group of boys, good group to win one with. Yeah, couldn't be more
00:43happy, really. And how have you found this whole season coming to a new club, it's
00:47not always easy? Nah, at the start it was sort of tough, you know, I didn't do a full
00:50preseason and then round one come and I sorted my ankle in round one against
00:56Merivale and they did us that round and then I come back and next round I sort
01:01of only played one quarter and then had a couple weeks off and then I ended up
01:04having a back injury and I got some scans done and found out that my back was no
01:08good and had a few little issues with it and I missed nine weeks there, which was
01:12pretty hard to get back into it because, you know, I felt a bit like an outsider
01:15but all the boys and the coach and that were really supportive and really good
01:17and encouraged me back and they all got around me, so I was lucky enough to grab
01:22a spot back in the team and keep playing on. And then, yeah, I got to the
01:29semi-final against Merivale and then, yeah, did my AC, joined my shoulder and
01:35things like that and missed against Creaky last week, which was a bit
01:39unfortunate. The coach just said, you know, it'd be good to have you back in the side and I said, yeah, I'd love to play, so just did a
01:46fitness test at training, yeah, I got one of the resi's boys to line me up a few
01:50times, said if you get injured here, you're not playing, but if you don't, then you're good to play, so I managed to pull
01:54through, which was really good and all the boys were really supportive and really happy
01:56about it, so ended up getting the game and it was, yeah, a pretty good moment, especially on that final siren blue.
02:02Do you always have faith you'd get back in some of these tough times?
02:06After I did, like, my back and I was out for, like, eight or nine weeks, I thought, you know, I was pretty close to pulling the pin on footy altogether and then I thought, well, you know, I'm only young once, this might be me last year, I still might have to have surgery, but I figure I might as well play the season out and see how it goes.
02:20So I was pretty happy, well, I was lucky to get back into the team and a lot of good boys, you know, there's a few unfortunate boys that missed out, but, you know, that's part of life, isn't it?
02:28Yeah, so how is it back here? Unsure if you'll play again or?
02:32I'm on medication for it at the minute, just as a short-term sort of solution and then, yeah, I'll go for scans to see if my little traunomas are growing any more, if they're growing, I'll have to have surgery and get some steel rods put in so no more contact sport, but, yeah, we'll just wait and see.
02:50But I'm sure it would be disappointing, but if you don't get back, at least you've done this.
02:54Well, I've won a flag now, so I'm pretty happy about it, either way I'm happy, got the flag under the belt, so, yeah.
02:58Sounds good, go and enjoy, mate.
03:00Thanks, mate.