RAY BARTHOLOMEW PLAYER COLUMN – ROUND 23

A WEST Perth premiership player will be writing a column for the club's website every week of the 2014 WAFL season. This week's edition is Ray Bartholomew's latest offering discussing the retirements of Dan Hunt and Anthony Tsalikis.

OBVIOUSLY at first it's disappointing to hear that the boys are going to retire but in saying that at the same time you understand their reasoning for it. Obviously with Anthony he has more work commitments and wants to travel more with his girlfriend so it gives him the opportunity to do that and with Dan, he has a young family and with his position with work he wants to spend more time with that and obviously his family. Whether or not both of them play somewhere in the country next year I'm not sure, and they might, but if they don’t I'm sure they will stay in reasonable nick.

I started playing with 'Slick' way back in 1998 when I was in Year 8 and he was in Year 10, and just by chance we were at the same school. We then came through to play league footy together here at West Perth and now to be a life member of the club alongside him is a huge honour for me. I've known him since I was about 13 so it's 16 years that we've built a friendship together and not only is 'Slick' a great footballer, but a great mate of mine as well. He's always there if you need a hand and that's what makes him such a great character.

On the other side you have Dan who I played my 100th game with on the same day that he did and last year we were pretty close in the race to 150, and we both got there. We then played in a premiership together and now at the end of this year we will finish on about 170 games. Obviously I will move on to next year, but with Dan he first came to the club in 2005 so I only missed out on playing one year with him. In my 11 years here, he's been part of the team for 10 of those and I've played a lot of footy with him. He's always willing to help the guys around him and he's always been someone you can talk to and he's there to lend a hand.

At the end of the day, it is sad to lose two good mates to retirement because then you know it's not too far away for you either. With these two retiring, it makes me think about how long I can go on for but those two boys are great servants of our footy club having achieved great things along the way.

I would rate 'Slick' as the best forward that I've played with and Dan as the best backman. For 'Slick' to now need just one more goal to be the third highest goal scorer at our footy club is such a big honour and he didn’t even know that he was rated that highly. Down the opposite end, Dan has played week in, week out on the best forwards in the game and I have such respect for him for doing that. 'Slick' always took the best backman as well so both of them took the opposition's best players at either end of the ground and I have so much respect for them because they play on the best, and have continued to perform. They have had such great consistency throughout their careers and you can't say a bad word about either of them.

They are two guys who I'm very close with and I would like to stay in touch with them. We all obviously have our own affairs to tend to away from the club, but we will catch up as often as we can. I'm sure both will remain very close to this football club over the next few years and it will be different not having them here anymore like it is without Jason Salecic here now.

I remember one funny story when we went to Foxtel Cup with Dan. 'Slick' is more of a prankster so not much happens to him because he's usually the one who has played a part on doing things to other people, and Dan is the one you try to do it to. That's why he is called 'The Fuse' because whenever something happens to him he arks up. I remember we were over in Melbourne for Foxtel Cup and the boys had got into his room and tipped all his gear upside down. He was rooming with Luke Tedesco and he thought Teddy had done it, but he had no idea about it. All trip nobody owned up to it, but at the end of the day it was Jay van Berlo who did it. He sent Dan a text message owning up to it and he didn’t find the funny side of it at the time, but at the end of the day he was amused by it and then he started to plot some revenge.

With Dan and 'Slick' now retiring, we lose well over 300 games of experience so it's important that myself, Guady and Keuns keep playing next year. The three of us have over 450 games of experience and then we've got Teddy and Strijky who are approaching 150 games, and Jay van Berlo, Jordy Jones and these guys are experienced players now. It is important to keep some experience around the footy club and for us to go forward we do need some of that experience to guide these young men at our club to the next phase. Then when we walk away from the game, if we can say that we had a helping hand in the development then I'll be very proud of that.

Another thing that caught my interest recently was my former captain and coach Todd Curley getting the job at South Fremantle. Todd was here as a player when I started my career and he had a huge influence on me, and then as a coach he got the best out of me in a different role. I sent him a text when I found out he got appointed the coach of South and I told him that he can't recruit me because I'm still contracted to West Perth, and that I look forward to seeing him next year. He messaged back saying that it's hard when half of my salary is on the veteran's list anyway so he can't compete. He's done his time and had a great career on and off the field, and I think maybe second time around he will do really well. He had the experience first time around coaching us but that was straight after playing so I think being there and now having that gap before coaching again it will be different for him. He's got a great bunch of players to work with at South Fremantle and it's a traditional club, and he likes tradition. He is the type of guy that if you do all the right things and can play, he will give you an opportunity to impress and I wish him all the best except when hopefully we get a couple of wins up on him next year.