THE changing of seasons is something I've become quite attached to over the years. Hibernating in lounge rooms and coffee shops for the past few months, I've enjoyed the drop in the mercury.

That said, at the end of each season you start to ache for the next part of the cycle. With this winter having been a particularly cold one, I suspect that yearning for change might have come a little earlier than normal.

It can be hard to pinpoint the moment of change in anything, let alone the weather, but the other day as I walked the short journey from my car to the football club I caught a wonderful smell in my nostrils, a scent that I've associated with spring since I was a boy.

Change for the most part is unavoidable and it is sometimes best to just roll with the punches.

In a football sense, last week I wrote about the Bulldogs needing some subtle change to help rediscover the groove that had set our year up.

During the game itself, it's hard enough keeping track of your opponent and the score without being concerned about things like "groove", but with the last quarter against the Bombers well under way I was forced to stop and search for a rare moment of clarity.

As I mentioned, it can be difficult to pinpoint the moment when things change course, but on Friday night that point was pretty obvious, at least to me anyway.

With about 10 minutes left in the contest, I lined up at half-forward in readiness for the umpire to send the ball towards the heavens and, at that precise moment, a smell washed over me.

Chai!

I couldn't believe my nose — as the ball sailed up towards the Dome's roof, I could smell copious amounts of chai tea being served (presumably) behind me in the outer.

It's not as synonymous with football crowds as a cold beer and a meat pie is it? But what I found just as startling was that the scent acted like smelling salts for a punch-drunk boxer, snapping me out of my footy focus for a couple of seconds and giving me enough time to take in the scoreline, and the feeling that the Bulldogs' groove was slowly returning.

It's one thing to talk about rhythm, another to work out how to get it back in a more practical sense.

Groove is really just my word for teamwork. Watching the Olympics I was intrigued, in the individual events anyway, that the emotions of loss or victory fall on the shoulders of one person.

Trying to define teamwork is not easy and the temptation is to wheel out the old cliches about being in the trenches and doing it for your mates.

In the latest assignment of my book club, The Devil And Miss Prym, I came across a little fable that for me sums up teamwork.

The story is about a man who, with his dog and his donkey, trudges for mile after mile in searing heat, with no water for himself or his animals. Then they come to big, beautiful gates and, on closer inspection, the man sees that behind them is a fountain and glorious shade, and lots of people enjoying the fresh water and escaping the heat.

With his mouth parched, he asks the man behind the gate what the place is called. "Heaven," comes the reply.

The man guarding the gate goes on to say: "You are very welcome to come and enjoy the fountain, but I'm afraid your animals are not allowed inside."

"Fair enough," the thirsty man replies. "We'll keep moving."

And despite their plight, he and his dog and his donkey walk on.

After some time they come to a big tree, beneath which sits a haggard fellow with a pipe in his mouth and a hat over his face. The man with the dog and donkey asks if he knows of anywhere he and his animals can get some water.

He points to some trees, saying that behind them lies a stream from which they can drink as much as they want.

"What is this placed called?" asks the man.

"Heaven," comes the reply.

"But we were told of a place called heaven where we just came from."

"We call that place hell," says the man in the hat. "That's how we weed out those who leave their friends behind."

A friend was sitting in Beijing's Forbidden City this week when she heard the news that her Nan had passed peacefully to a new life.

She reckons Nan would rally behind a push for a chai tea tent to be installed at the MCG for the finals.

Who knows? The changing of seasons can bring wonderful things.