[Under editing] You and I - Marcus Bontempelli

One Hundred and Sixty Three

^^More content of 2016 Bont🥵

The next few weeks fly by and before we know it the 2021 AFL season has come to an end. We had an amazing season, to say the least. Starting the first 6 rounds with wins, being undefeated, before falling to the regaining premiers in Richmond who were just too good for us on the night, but we'd usually be able to beat them. 

Then winning the next three rounds before losing to Melbourne in round 11. They completely smashed us through the centre and exposed our weakness. We had just lost Adam Treloar so I guess we found it hard for someone to cover his role. 

We then went back on the winners list in round 12, defeating Fremantle over in Perth, our first ever victory over there since our famous 2016 elimination final win, but that was at Subiaco, not Optus. But still a great achievement. 

Round 14 we fell short to Geelong with Gary Rohan breaking our hearts by kicking a goal after the siren, which never should've happened in the first place, but it happened. Round 15 was one of my favourite games, beating West Coast at Optus, with Marcus playing arguably his best game of the season, and kicking one of the goals of the year. 

Round 16 we managed to shrug off the Kangas who got some good form, then fell short in round 17 to the Swans who were just too good for us on the day. 

Round 18 was special, Dunks came back from injury and we beat Gold Coast by 19 points at Metricon in an average game. 

Round 19 was even better when we beat Melbourne by 20 points, then beat Adelaide down in Ballarat by 49. Before everything went to shit and we lost the last three games of the season to Essendon, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide, which also caused us to lose our top 4 spot. 

But it didn't matter because we went and beat Essendon in the Elimination final, by a comfortable 49 points, then flew to Brisbane to take on the Lions in the Semi Final, what a thriller that was, beating them by 1 point. Although my heart dropped when Marcus had hurt his knee, but it turned out he had no structural damage as the next day we made sure he got scans before flying to Perth, quarantining, then flying to Adelaide to take on Port in the Prelim. 

Well, no one was expecting us to win the game, let alone by the margin we did. We went and absolutely smashed Port by 71 points. 

Nothing could be better, being the under dogs and proving everyone wrong, we deserved to celebrate what we achieved, and that's what we did. We turned the rooms of Adelaide Oval into a western suburbs night club after the Port game, and celebrated the fact we defied all the odds, and proved everyone wrong. 

But, if we knew what was coming in the next 2 weeks, we probably would've rathered a loss to Port. 

Marcus and I attended the Brownlow with a few of the other boys. All was going good with Marcus leading majority of the count, until the last three rounds, where Ollie Wines took over and basically stole the medal from him. To make it even worse, Serong also stole Goal of the year off him, which was even more heartbreaking. 

We were all shattered and heartbroken for him, but he brushed it off not long later and told us he now has his focus on the grand final. 

And if you think that was the end of the heartbreak, well... you're wrong. 

Present Time: 2021 AFL grand final