Josh Bruce has almost moved on from the heartbreak of a knee injury which will cost him a shot at the AFL premiership this weekend.
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Almost.
Occasionally the devastation of the Canberra junior's ruptured ACL suffered in the dying moments of the Western Bulldogs' round 21 clash with Essendon last month still creeps in.
"There might be moments where I'm sweet with it and then five minutes later I'm about to cry again," Bruce told The Canberra Times.
"I'm pretty good at accepting and compartmentalising things as they pop up but this was one that I've had to continually work on.
"It was a huge blow just in terms of timing, with it being in my 150th game, 10 seconds to go. Essentially in the top four, definitely going to play finals and in probably career-best form so I mean it doesn't really get much worse, and now we're in a grand final."
Bruce played a key role in propelling the Bulldogs back to premiership contention this season, before his left knee buckled in his milestone match.
His 48 goals during his second season at the club remains a team high for the season, and second throughout his own AFL career - just two majors shy of the half century he notched in 2015 with St Kilda.
Without Bruce the Bulldogs slid to fifth on the ladder, but still managed to progress to a second decider in five years with strong finals wins over Essendon and Port Adelaide straddling a one-point nailbiter over Brisbane at the Gabba.
"That was the one that really kind of got to me - the Brisbane game, it was just an emotional rollercoaster," Bruce said.
"I thought we were going to lose and then we ended up winning by a point with 30 seconds to go, I just broke down emotionally. I had a good cry again, I was like f***ing hell I'm missing out on a prelim, I couldn't believe it.
"Then I was just so happy for them to win the prelim and go into the granny.
"The trials and tribulations, mate."
Bruce had surgery in Melbourne after the injury, and if there was a silver lining it was that his wife Pip and two children, Poppy and August, came out of quarantine the day after allowing for a timely family reunion.
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The 29-year-old has been confined to watching his Bulldogs teammates from the couch during their surge to the grand final, but was included in the preliminary final celebrations after the win over Port Adelaide thanks to Aaron Naughton dialing Bruce in on FaceTime.
"I was pretty much in the team song, I was on Facetime when they were all jumping around so that was pretty special," Bruce said.
"A lot of guys say 'Oh, we wouldn't be here without you' and things like that which is true in terms of the sense that I have played a significant role this season, but at the same time it kind of almost makes it worse.
"It's kind of like out of sight out of mind for every day of the week until game day, and then game day it's obviously really hard for the two hours they play, and the post match stuff which is what I live for.
"The 20 minutes, or two hours after a game where you can just chill out with your mates and have a beer, and just talk about what happened."
Bruce will watch the grand final from his couch, almost 3000km removed from the Saturday night action at Optus Stadium in Perth.
Everything going to plan, there'll be one last FaceTime for a winning team song.
Longer term, he's targeting a return to the field before the halfway mark of next season.
"I haven't spoken at length with the medicos because they've been away," Bruce said.
[ACLs] are between nine and 12 months, and just because it's tracking so well currently, I'm a bit more optimistic. I'll probably miss just less than half of the year if everything goes well."