Around the happy tears shed by Western Bulldogs people as their team booked a place in a historic grand final were those of a 23-year-old Bulldog player grappling with having his world rocked by a close-range tragedy.
Out of protectiveness, the Dogs concealed the details before their spine-tangling six-point preliminary final win over Greater Western Sydney. But within a camp that could ill-afford to lose yet another trooper, Clay Smith was hurting.
Smith knows what it's like to be brought to his knees, having overcome three knee reconstructions. But this history of physical challenge was put into fresh perspective when Smith learnt - five days before the Dogs met the Giants in a match in which he eventually proved a match-winner – about the death of one of his closest mates.
Dale Walkinshaw, the prankster sidekick with whom he'd gone through high school, was in a road accident in Darwin on September 15. His AFL footballer mate was informed of the crash - by mindful mutual friends - only after the Dogs had made it through their second final the following day..
In a coma for four days, Walkinshaw was on life support until last Monday. Before the machines keeping him alive were switched off, Smith had asked his coach, Luke Beveridge whether, after Saturday's preliminary final, he could fly to Darwin to see his friend.
Until he learnt, later last Monday afternoon, that Walkinshaw had passed away, Smith had naturally wrestled with feeling not only helpless but too far away.
When he left the field at Spotless Stadium on Saturday night – the Bulldogs grand finalists, he a four-goal hero - Smith was a raw mix of big emotions.
"It has been a different week," he told Fairfax Media in the rooms afterwards.
"I lost one of my best mates on Monday. It was pretty tough. He was in a car accident. That was a tough start to the week. He was in a car accident last Thursday. He was left in a coma and he didn't pull through and he left us on Monday. He'd just moved up there. It's just so unfortunate.
"We grew up together. We went right through high school together. He came up to Melbourne once I moved here, he came with all the boys. We've been mates for 10 or 12 years.
"I didn't know he'd been in the accident until after the game last Friday. The boys didn't tell me until after the game … they weren't sure how he was going to be.
"I was going to fly up there probably after the game this week if he was still with us but …"
With lips trembling, Smith couldn't, and didn't need to, finish the sentence.
Though some members of the wider Bulldogs team did not know of Smith's loss until they arrived at the ground on Saturday, Walkinshaw's passing was the reason the entire team – players, coaches and support staff - wore black armbands.
Mid-week, Smith got together with close friends away from footy to start the group grieving.
"A couple of us caught up on Monday night after we found out the news. My fiancé, Sarah, has been unreal. She knew him," he said.
"Then on Wednesday there were probably 25 or 30 of us who just got together. Got around each other. You can't really do too much, it's just a tough time.
"We had a barbecue and tried to tell some stories and have a laugh and remember the good times. That put me at ease a little bit.
"He'll live with me forever. He won a bet against me about a year and a half ago and I ended up getting his initials tattooed on my arse. So his initials are there, he's going to be with me forever."
What was the bet? In a private corner of the otherwise ebullient Bulldogs change rooms, Smith cracked a smile and chuckled at the memory.
"Trying to chip a golf ball into a bucket in the backyard having a beer," he said. "And he got it in so I'm branded for life.
"What I'll remember most is probably just his little smart-arse attitude. He was such a respectful kid but he was always the one up to something: he stole the hubcaps on my old Ford Falcon probably a good 10 times and I'd have to go back to the reject shop and buy them again. And I ended up spray painting the rim on his car yellow."
Smith told Beveridge about the life-and-death situation he was grappling with week ago. He checked in again last Monday to say he "wasn't in too great a state and that I was probably wanting to go up and see him if he was still with us after the Giants game.
"Then I got the news when I left the club Monday arvo," Smith said. "A couple of others at the club knew early in the week but not everyone, I just sort of tried to deal with it."
Beveridge, Smith said, "was very supportive".
To have kicked four goals in the biggest game of his life – not to mention such a milestone moment for his club – felt like some kind of crazy, otherworldly magic to Smith.
"I knew he would have been looking down, I knew he'd be proud. That game meant a lot. It meant a lot. To get through for the club, for the team, for me, and for Dale and for my mates and my family," he said.
"I don't know if he helped me out and helped me kick straight, or what he did, but that was a good one that one, and it was for him."
