Two-time Premiership Captain Mark Bickley has plenty of never-before-told stories, following a 13-year AFL career spanning across 272 games, and three years within the coaching ranks.

This year, Bicks will be lifting the lid on those stories with us, taking you inside the four walls at West Lakes, with an aim of giving an insight into football life.

The Crows will play Brisbane for a second time this year on Sunday afternoon and Bicks recalls when he coached the Club against the Lions back in 2011.

I had just taken over the role as interim Senior Coach and this was my second game in charge.

There was a bit of pressure, as our season had not gone the way we had hoped, and with four games remaining in the season we really wanted to finish strongly.

A road trip to the Gabba is always tough and it was no different back then.

Despite an encouraging first term which gave us an eight-point lead at the first break, we went on to trail by 13 points at half-time and then 20 points at three-quarter time.

I remember speaking to the players at three-quarter time, telling them to look over at Brisbane, so many of their players were getting their calves rubbed and they looked tired.

I said to our boys ‘we just need to really attack this quarter and we’ll run over the top of them’.

We also needed a bit of a spark up-forward and at the time Graham Johncock was playing in defence.

It was our then forward coach, David Noble’s idea to switch Johncock from defence into the forward lines to give us a bit of speed and creativity.

Johncock had started his career as a forward but across the past two seasons had only kicked five goals.

We decided to roll the dice and the move proved to work.

Johncock kicked a goal within the first 90 seconds of the final quarter.

Nathan van Berlo, who played an incredible game, took a courageous mark going back with the flight of the ball, before kicking another much-needed goal.

I remember sitting in the coaches’ box just in awe of VB. I was so proud of the game he put together, which included 26 disposals, two goals, nine tackles and six clearances.

Scotty Thompson was also super, he finished with 38 possessions - 13 contested - and 10 clearances.

Johncock hit the scoreboard for a second goal at the 28-minute mark of the final quarter to put us five points in front and we held on for the win.

It was a really great day.

Taylor Walker, in just his 41st AFL game, kicked four goals and Jack Gunston, who was only playing his 11th game, booted three.

We’ve played 38 games against the Lions across our journey, we’ve had some cracking contests and won 18 of those encounters.

I’m keen to watch this week’s game.

Go Crows!