The ash cloud that has hovered around Australia following a volcanic eruption in Chile has been pretty big news over the past week.

Our Club has obviously followed the story pretty closely since it caused the cancellation of our flight back to Brisbane last Sunday.

The boys weren’t aware of the situation until after our game against Carlton when there was talk that we might be stuck down in Melbourne for another night.

We couldn’t - and still can’t - believe that volcanic ash from more than 10,000km away could affect us down here.

But we weren’t the only ones inconvenienced - thousands of people were left stranded at airports all over the country. The Essendon and Richmond footy clubs were also stuck on their respective interstate trips to Perth and Sydney and were forced to make other travel arrangements.

Fortunately for us, we were notified of the cancellation before we had even left Etihad Stadium.

The Club had organised for us players to stay back longer than usual to spend some time with our Victorian fans at an aftermatch function at the stadium.

I must admit it was pleasantly surprising to see so many of our Melbourne supporters at the event, particularly after a pretty ordinary game against the Blues.

Most would have been forgiven for leaving the match early, but I must give credit to those fans who stuck around to see us players. It really gave us all a bit of a lift seeing so many smiles on the kids’ faces.

The chants for Browny - who was still in the changerooms doing his warm-down - were deafening and I can only imagine the reception he received once he finally surfaced a bit later on.

It wasn’t until the big fella had finished signing all his autographs at around 6pm that it was confirmed that we had to stay another night. The aftermatch function in the end probably saved us from getting stuck out at the airport.

At least we were in the city and could get back to our hotel pretty quickly.

The St Kilda Road Parkview Hotel and Sebel Hotel in the city looked after us at short notice and we all appreciated their efforts - even though we had to share rooms.

Once we got back to the hotel, most of the boys just got together and headed out for a bite and then just chilled out in the rooms.

The next morning we had a recovery session at St Kilda Beach which was certainly much colder than we’re used to in Brisbane.

Then it was back to the hotel for our regular post-match review meeting and some lunch before the bus took us back out to the airport for our 4pm flight.

While the situation probably wasn’t ideal, we were still able to do everything we needed to so won’t be disadvantaged at all with regards to preparation for Saturday night’s game against the Tigers.