It was the first time Watson had returned to Dimboola in an official capacity for 10 years.

Watson played one senior game for Dimboola, but grew up playing juniors for the club.

Watson spoke in front of more than 200 people at Dimboola Memorial Secondary College about his memories of Dimboola, the future of AFL football, Essendon Football Club and television rights.

He said returning to Dimboola was like a 'walk down memory lane'.

"To come back here and go down to the football club, having a drive around and coming up to the high school, I really enjoyed it," he said. "There are a lot of familiar faces, but when you haven't seen people for a long time it is just a familiar outline and you have to concentrate and zero in.

"It has been really nice to see some people, particularly some I haven't seen since I was going to school or playing junior football with them."

Watson said he did not expect to be speaking in front of such a large crowd.

"I was really surprised to see so many people, I thought it was going to be a much smaller gathering," he said. "But when you think the club has now combined the juniors, seniors and netball together and created a bigger entity, then I guess it is understandable.

"It was really nice though and I could really sense the town spirit in a function like this and that was really good for me to experience again."

Watson said he had kept a close eye on his home town during January's floods.

"Any time the Wimmera, Dimboola or any part of the area is mentioned your concentration is really alerted."

Watson said he also had an association with the Wimmera Mail-Times, having worked a paper round when he was growing up.

He said he had never had a groin injury in his whole career, and put it down to strength built up lugging papers around the town.

"I used to have about 27 Mail-Times to deliver and sometimes I would count extra ones so that when I finished every member of our family had a paper to sit down and read," he said.