On the night of his 250^th game two years ago, Callan Ward had dinner with a large group of family and friends. His milestone games had almost slipped by him in the past because there was still so much left to do, but he wanted to mark this one with the people who mattered most to him because it felt very different to the others. His GIANTS had lost that day, to Richmond by six goals. They would start the 2022 season with just two wins from their first nine games, leading to a bunch of feelings Ward had never really experienced before: uncertainty, mostly, and a strange lack of motivation.

‘Enjoy this milestone,’ he told everyone, ‘Because there won’t be another one’.

“It was a bit of a strange night. I wanted to celebrate it, but I was also thinking ‘this is it, there isn’t going to be a 300^th game, no way’,” Ward said. “The club wasn’t in a great place at that time. We weren’t playing very good footy and, for me, getting from 200 to 250 had been really tough. I’d done my knee, I had a few other little injuries, I broke my finger. It was just getting hard. It was a real battle, and I didn’t see it getting easier anytime soon.

“I wasn’t enjoying myself very much and looking ahead, I didn’t see how I was going to be able to play for much longer. You need to feel motivated to play and feel good about playing, but my greatest motivator was to win a premiership and that just felt unrealistic because of where we were at and where I was at.

“It’s just funny how quickly things can turn around. Everything feels different. Another 50 games have gone, and I’ve hardly even noticed them, to be honest. Back then it was, celebrate the moment because this is it. Now it’s, enjoy the moment because we’re in such a good spot as a team and every week, every game, there’s something to look forward to.”

Read the full interview with Callan Ward at aflrecord.com.au.