Geelong Advertiser |
BELL Park premiership players Steve Brown and Rowan McSparron drew the curtains on their careers after bowing out in Saturday's preliminary final.
The Dragons duo were carried off the ground by teammates after announcing their retirement on the field following the heartbreaking 27-point loss to Grovedale.
In the rooms post-match the pair both delivered emotional speeches.
Bell Park co-coach Ben Armstrong had nothing but praise for the retirees.
"They are champions of the footy club," he said.
"They aren't the first champions of the footy club to go out on a loss and most do. But it's disappointing
"They are both hundreds of game players for the footy club, premiership players and both played in a lot of grand finals with us.
"Steve's our captain and the soul of the joint and Rowan is very much the same, he has been fantastic and is just a great man around the club."
Brown said his body had made the decision for him.
"My body just doesn't allow me to do the things I want to do any more. You don't have much of a choice when your body starts to fail," he said.
"When you aren't even feeling OK to train Thursday nights after the weekend, I think the writing is on the wall.
"I think that's when I made up my mind. I haven't trained Tuesday nights for probably three years. But when you are still sore on Thursday you know are in a bit of trouble."
Though Brown's career didn't finish how he would have liked, the veteran said the start to it and the eight years and more than 130 games that followed were a complete contrast.
"It's been my life for eight years. Footy has always been my number one, taken precedence over work and everything like that," he said.
"I came to Geelong and didn't know a soul, rocked up to Bell Park and I had at least an instant 40 mates.
My best friends are standing in the room right now."
McSparron, who played his 150th game with Bell Park during the year, said retirement would allow him to spend more time with his family.
"There comes a time," McSparron said.
"Obviously we would have loved to have won and that would have been four grand finals in a row for us at Bell Park," he said.
"It's been huge, I started at Ammos (Amateurs) and came here to play a better standard of footy and I wanted to go to a club that had a bit of on field success and a good culture.
"Bell Park has been fantastic, we played in four grand finals and finished top three since 09.
I couldn't have asked better club to come to."
McSparron's son plays for Bell Park's under-16 side, a side he is co-coach of with fellow teammate Ben Johnson and said he will continue to do that next season.
