Stafford calls 'cut' on career
Emma Quayle
The Age
August 5, 2006
GREG Stafford suspects he will work as a builder next year, not a footballer, and will leave the game and its unpredictable reporting system at what he believes is the right time.
Stafford, who has not felt like an integral member of the Richmond side lately and intends to retire on his own terms, took a line from Tom Hanks to describe the tribunal appearance that threatened to lop two late games from his career this week.
The ruckman will play his 200th game against the Western Bulldogs after the tribunal overturned the two-match suspension offered him by the match review panel on Monday.
"You never know what you're going to get. It's a bit like a line out of the Forrest Gump movie, with the box of chocolates, isn't it?" said Stafford yesterday.
Asked whether the game had been "soft", the 31-year-old, who has made several trips to the tribunal and received a two-match ban for "jumper-punching" Sydney ruckman Jason Ball last season, said he was approaching the end of his career at a good time.
"Put it this way, I'm comfortable that I'm leaving the game at the right time," Stafford said. "What is it, October 31 that they can't get their calls in to me? Speak to me November 1 and I'll give you an expose, an exclusive.
"We'll go to town on everyone. At the moment I'm just going to keep button-lipped."
Stafford's reprieve, and teammate Troy Simmonds' one-week suspension for striking, will make the former Sydney player Richmond's No. 1 ruckman for one of the first times this year.
He said the Tigers were still chasing a finals spot and, despite sitting two wins outside the top eight, believed themselves capable of making it to September.
"You don't play to make up the numbers; you play to be an integral part of the whole situation. You talk about football in general, and maybe I haven't felt like I've been an integral part," Stafford said.
"Maybe that's why I'm thinking perhaps this is the last one. You only play to be an integral member of anything you do, and if you're not, you're a passenger and there's no use being around.
"We're still a finals chance and we've got to win. We're still thinking like that. It's only when you're outside of calculation you go down that road."
Stafford, who moved to Richmond from the Swans in 2002, nominated age, form, "the fact that I've been doing it for a while" and his outside interests as reasons he was more likely than not to retire at the end of the season.
In the process of acquiring his building license, Stafford has finally finished a short film script about the day in the life of a 20-cent coin and may yet film it. "Stay tuned, it may just appear one day," he said.
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