NORMALLY a very chirpy individual anyway, Geelong star Kate Surman was particularly so after earning a win for her beloved Cats on Saturday night, on her birthday.

“It’s my birthday today so I’m pretty stoked,” Surman said when asked about how she was feeling.

“It was a nice little present. No but honestly the girls just … put all of our effort in and our tackle pressure. I mean we didn’t hit the scoreboard as we would have liked, we kicked a lot of points, but we got the win so we’re stocked.”

She was also happy with how she played in the win.

“I ran a lot, but that’s the nature of the role,” Surman said.

“I think I managed to get my hands on it a fair bit forward of the ball which is really good as part of my role. But to be honest I’m just stoked for the whole team.

“Everyone plays their role, and I hope that’s really, really clear when you watch. Still got a lot of things that we can definitely improve on from what we started with, but getting on the winner’s board is super important.”

Surman said that there was not a big focus in the Geelong camp coming into the game about how must-win the match was.

“We obviously knew that if we lost finals were probably out of the cards, but I think it’s just one game at a time to be honest,” she said. “I know that’s very cliché, but we were lucky that we’re still in the position where it’s still in our own hands.”

Inaccuracy was not the friend of Geelong on the weekend, with the Cats kicking 13 points to go with the six goals they scored.

“Maybe we were in a bit of a rush every time we kicked it?” Surman theorised.

“For us we haven’t been scoring a lot lately so I think the fact we were having a lot of opportunities is a positive. We’ll just go back to it at training and then for the next week kick only a couple of points.”

Surman is almost at the end of her first season in the Geelong hoops, and she could not be happier to be a Cat.

“I absolutely love it,” she said.

“I’m a massive Geelong supporter so every time we run out for the warm up and we play the song, I just smile. “It’s a really good bunch of girls. I can’t say a bad thing about any of the girls, so the environment is beautiful and that’s all I can ask for really, and obviously making finals would be awesome, but good culture is really all I want.”

This week the Cats face Hawthorn, and unlike most of her teammates, Surman has faced the Hawks before, just in Port Adelaide colours.

“Well they’re a lot different team to what they were last year, so bringing in some experience, particularly I know (Emily) Batesy quite well from playing in Queensland,” Surman said. “I haven’t really looked too much into their game but I’m expecting a lot of pressure and a lot of contest, and I find that the new teams bring a lot of contested ball.

“I think it’s being able to kind of take the pressure in the contest and then put out from that, not kind of getting into the way they play and play our style. I mean every game is always going to be hard so we’re going to come in and give our all and hopefully win and then the momentum will carry on into finals.”