“I don’t think you should get too used to it. I’m not one to do too many flashy things too often but I don’t know what happened there to be honest. We’ll just let that go,” he said.
“I’ve been copping it all week. It came up on the vision this morning.”
Under pressure in the goal square, McQualter baulked two Swans opponents to slot through the goal to rapturous applause from Saints fans.
It was the latest highlight in a career that looked as good as over 18 months ago when McQualter was delisted by the Saints.
After a summer training with Hawthorn, he was taken as a rookie with St Kilda. He was soon elevated to the senior list and managed 12 senior games, including all three finals last year.
He admits he had a lot to work on when he was originally delisted.
“I needed to improve in a lot of areas. I wasn’t the only one, the whole team needed to improve. We’ve got a lot of flexibility in our team now. We’ve got a lot of blokes who can go through a variety of positions,” he said.
Far from being carried away by the St Kilda win, McQualter said the game needed to be seen in the context of the season.
“It’s a long season ahead. There are still 21 games to go,” he said.
“Historically over the last few years we haven’t had a great first half of the year. To come out and have a win in round one is important to us. We look forward to Adelaide next week who had a good win over Collingwood.”
McQualter said the trip to AAMI stadium to take on Adelaide would be difficult, but not impossible.
“The Crows have implemented the rolling zone a fair bit, similar to Hawthorn. They had a great win, Collingwood are a good side and for Adelaide to come across to Melbourne and beat them was a really good effort. We know we’ll have our work cut out for us but we’ll try to get our structures right and have our effort up and give it a good shot.”
