The last thing you want to do as a player is incur the wrath of your skipper. Matthew Lloyd knows that better than anyone so when Hird asked him to look after his new car while he was away on holidays last week, Lloyd was understandably jittery. Lloyd knew the car was worth plenty and apprehensively accepted the keys knowing his life would not be worth living if anything happened to the car. The Bomber spearhead cautiously drove it around all week. Each training night it was carefully parked out the front of Windy Hill. He was paranoid something might happen to the car while in his possession.

So when Lloyd left training last Wednesday afternoon he couldn't believe his eyes when he went to hop into Hird's car and it was gone. He was positive he had parked it right out the front of the club in the same spot he had for the past two days. He tried to stay calm and not panic but he didn't do a very good job, according to BomberLand sources. This situation was beginning to become tougher than any full back he had ever faced - what was he going to do?

He was about to ring the police when the penny dropped - he had a sneaking suspicion one of his teammates might have done something with the car. Practical jokes are rife at football clubs and something told him he had just had a prank pulled on him. He followed his instinct and took a walk down Napier Street to find Hird's car parked down the road about 100m from the club. It would appear a teammate decided to borrow the keys of the property steward and take the car for a test drive. Lloyd was relieved to find Hird's wheels and stocked that one in the memory bank for future reference - look out Essendon players. There is only one thing worse than incurring the wrath of the captain, that's incurring the wrath of the vice-captain.