I've heard it mentioned more than once over the past few weeks how well the Swans are going without me, how perhaps it might be better if I come back through the seconds, and that I'm on a hiding to nothing because if we don't play as well as we have been tomorrow night it will be because I have come back and disrupted the team.

Of course, I can't pre-empt what is going to happen and what might be said if we play poorly against St Kilda. I know they are a flooding side, so it's going to be a tough night at the office for all the Sydney forwards. I've spoken with the players and explained a few things, and I'm confident their good form can continue with me coming back into the side.

The message I said to the guys, from a forwards' point of view, was that I will be slotting in around them - it's not a case of them having to change anything they are doing just to fit me in.

I said to them that I don't want them to drop off from organising set-ups or have them thinking to themselves, "Oh, I better not lead here or there because Barry might want to". I've got to slot in around them and we can share the workload. While it's been painful sitting on the sideline watching for the past couple of months, I think our forwards have made really good progress, and I don't want them to drop off just because I'm back.

While I'm as fit as I have been for quite a while, I haven't got any high expectations this week. I want to get out there and play my role. I just want to have a run around and hit a few bodies, and that's the sort message I wanted to get across to the guys, that I'm just another one of those role players, willing and happy to fit in around you guys, and if we all kick one each, and we win the game, that's great. We don't need one bloke kicking six and the rest not doing anything, that's not healthy.

At the club, our main focus towards any game is pressure first. I know it sounds silly - we're a forward line and we kick goals. But while people think that's how you win games, we actually create goals from our pressure, and for us it's more a case of putting on the pressure and doing all the hard things, and the goals and results will just happen after that.

That has been a big focus of ours in the past month or so. The pressure has been been right up there - it's worked well for us, and we're winning games because of it.

I know one thing which won't change is the way I do, and have always, played the game: aggressively.

That's me, that's how I play footy. When I play that way I'm playing my best footy - when I'm physical and running into people.

But the one issue I do have to be careful about is controlling that aggression, about how I attack the man with the ball - and not give away silly free kicks. I know that because of what has happened, and because of all the publicity my round-four incident against West Coast generated, all eyes will be on me in those situations.

I suppose I'm going to have to cop a couple of free kicks against me. But I'm not going to change the way I play just because of what has happened, that's for sure.

For a few weeks now I've been counting down the days to tomorrow. Even before I had the operation to take the wire out of my wrist, I was feeling pretty good, and thinking I should be ready to come back for the St Kilda match, as soon as my suspension was up. Then when the wire came out and I found more flexibility in my wrist, there was probably no doubt in my mind that I'd be ready to go.

So, of course, I've been marking off the days to getting back out and playing. It's been a very long time. A lot of people have been saying to me, "Geez it's gone quickly". I just say to them, "Are you kidding, or what?"

It's the longest amount of time I've ever spent away from the game since I started playing footy. I've missed time through suspensions and with injuries over the years, but it will be nine weeks tomorrow since I last played. I can assure you it hasn't gone quickly, and as you can imagine, I'm just a little bit keen to run out onto the SCG tomorrow night.