“I still had the same feeling,” Polak said.
“We’ve had some great rivalries over my career but nothing had changed – you just go out there and give it your all. That’s what I was doing. I’m loving Melbourne, it’s a big change but there is a great tradition here (at Richmond) and it’s something I want to be part of.”
The key-position player ran out for only 11 games at Fremantle last year, with form and injuries interrupting his season. Traded by the Dockers in the draft last year, the 22-year-old is hoping for a better fate at Punt Rd. If last weekend is anything to go by, Polak has a successful career ahead with the club. He played arguably the best game of his career against West Coast with 21 possessions and 12 marks.
“They’ve embraced me really well and shown a lot of faith in me getting me over. I want to repay that faith and play some good footy. On the weekend, I played my best game … but more importantly, I want to keep consistant and go through the year having good games,” Polak said.
Tigers’ coach Terry Wallace expressed his satisfaction that the new recruit finally got to play at centre half-back, a position he trained in all pre-season.
“I felt it was very important for us to give Graham some structure. The last few weeks we’ve thrown him everywhere. He was ruck and then all of a sudden he helped turn the game a couple of weeks ago kicking three goals. We trained the whole summer with him center half-back and then it was us who have thrown him around.
“I thought for us to advance and start to get to where we want to go in the structure of our side, we needed to be able to get him back to centre half-back. I thought it clearly showed that’s where he belongs in our side at this point of his career.
“From our structural point of view, it helped us enormously having someone who can mark the ball down back and send it back the other way. I think the other backmen were rapt. It’s been a while since they’ve had someone turning the ball around in the manner which it was turned round at the weekend. It allows them to be able to run out of the back end in confidence when you’ve got someone like Graham marking the ball so regularly.”
