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Emma Quayle
The Age 4th February 2012
WHEN Justin Sherman first moved to Melbourne he borrowed a car and set out on each afternoon off, exploring. He worked out where he wanted to live, found places to eat, some good spots to hang out and the easiest way to training with his new team, the Western Bulldogs. He wanted to know what the city felt like in the middle of winter, when it became absorbed in football, but he didn't plan to be the focus of all that talk. Not in the way he did, anyway, sitting at a media conference, surrounded by cameras, wishing he could shrink and asking himself why he'd done what he had just done.
In the days, weeks and months after he was suspended for racially vilifying Gold Coast teenager Joel Wilkinson, Sherman didn't want his teammates to ask him about what had happened. He still doesn't. He was still getting to know some of them, seven months after moving down from Brisbane, and wondered, in the back of his mind what they would be thinking. He sensed their sadness and disappointment, but he also felt supported by them, from the very start. He was sad, deeply disappointed by what he had said, and nervous about facing the camera. But he didn't want his teammates, still trying to keep their season ticking, to feel as if they had to look out for him, to be preoccupied by the ''massive mistake'' that he needed to come to terms with on his own.
''I had so many thoughts in my head, but it was all remorse. I was gutted, basically, gutted by what I'd done. I was sad about what I did. I didn't know why I did it,'' Sherman told The Saturday Age. ''Every feeling I had about it was bad, about what a big mistake it was and I didn't want to push that onto anyone around here. All the guys were so supportive, they all came up to see how I was going, but no one really spoke to me about what had gone on. And that was good. They all had their own things going on and I didn't want them to put that all on them. I knew I was the one who had to fix things.''
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The Age 4th February 2012
WHEN Justin Sherman first moved to Melbourne he borrowed a car and set out on each afternoon off, exploring. He worked out where he wanted to live, found places to eat, some good spots to hang out and the easiest way to training with his new team, the Western Bulldogs. He wanted to know what the city felt like in the middle of winter, when it became absorbed in football, but he didn't plan to be the focus of all that talk. Not in the way he did, anyway, sitting at a media conference, surrounded by cameras, wishing he could shrink and asking himself why he'd done what he had just done.
In the days, weeks and months after he was suspended for racially vilifying Gold Coast teenager Joel Wilkinson, Sherman didn't want his teammates to ask him about what had happened. He still doesn't. He was still getting to know some of them, seven months after moving down from Brisbane, and wondered, in the back of his mind what they would be thinking. He sensed their sadness and disappointment, but he also felt supported by them, from the very start. He was sad, deeply disappointed by what he had said, and nervous about facing the camera. But he didn't want his teammates, still trying to keep their season ticking, to feel as if they had to look out for him, to be preoccupied by the ''massive mistake'' that he needed to come to terms with on his own.
''I had so many thoughts in my head, but it was all remorse. I was gutted, basically, gutted by what I'd done. I was sad about what I did. I didn't know why I did it,'' Sherman told The Saturday Age. ''Every feeling I had about it was bad, about what a big mistake it was and I didn't want to push that onto anyone around here. All the guys were so supportive, they all came up to see how I was going, but no one really spoke to me about what had gone on. And that was good. They all had their own things going on and I didn't want them to put that all on them. I knew I was the one who had to fix things.''
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