New St Kilda full back Nathan Brown admits it felt ‘weird’ preparing and then playing against Collingwood, where he spent more than a decade and won a premiership at in 2010.
The 28-year-old defender crossed to Linen House Centre as an unrestricted free agent last October, and after strong showings against West Coast’s Josh Kennedy and Brisbane’s Josh Schache, Brown produced another impressive performance on athletic Magpies forward Darcy Moore.
“It was a weird one, I wasn’t really excited or nervous or anything like that. I was just focused on the game,” Brown said at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
“When I ran out there for the first time in the warm up, just seeing all the old faces and old mates, it was a little bit different.
“It was good to get out there and start playing and get into the game.”
Monday Wash-Up: Round 4 v Collingwood
Brown said there wasn’t too much banter out on the ground or from the crowd on Sunday. And after a winless start to 2017, Brown is happy the Saints have squared the ledger at 2-2.
“Everything is so serious these days, there wasn’t too much out there and there wasn’t too much slack from the crowd or anything like that,” he said.
“It was good to get a win; they are hard to get these days (because) the competition is so even.
“It was good to square up the season 2-2 and against the old side you always like beating your old side for the first time.”
Confident Webster off and running in 2017
A week after Collingwood laid the second most tackles in their history, St Kilda won the pressure factor battle, recording the second highest reading (1.869) of Round 4, on the back of a comprehensive (+31) tackles win.
Brown said St Kilda must continue to bring their pressure game across all four quarters if they are going to challenge the best sides in the competition.
“We all know that the great teams have that pressure and they can deliver it every single game, every single quarter and we’re no different,” he said.
“We know that our strength is pressure. We know that if we bring that we can give ourselves a good chance of winning.”
