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- Australian Survivor’s Croc: Sandra Told Me I Needed to “Start Playing the Game”!
Australian Survivor’s Croc: Sandra Told Me I Needed to “Start Playing the Game”!
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Chatting to POPSUGAR Australia on Tuesday morning, following his Monday night blindside elimination, Mick “Croc” Crocker said that given the chance, he’d sign up to do another season of Australian Survivor “in a heartbeat”.
“I’d play every year if I could,” the former rugby league star said.
A longtime fan of the game, Crock said that he’s “always just loved” the way Survivor combines the physical, strategic and social elements of the game, and that with this year’s Blood Vs Water theme, “there’s an emotional part as well”.
“It’s an amazing experience,” he said, adding that by going in with his sister-in-law, Chrissy Zaremba, he was “excited to go out there knowing that [he] had one person for sure who had [his] back”.
Of course, the theme wasn’t the only twist that Australian Survivor had in store for its castaways this season. Enter: Sandra Diaz-Twine, a two-time Survivor winner, who joined the cast with her daughter Nina Twine.
Asked what he thought when he saw them enter the competition via helicopter, Croc laughed.
“My eyesight’s not that great, so when they were coming in on the helicopter, I was looking a long way away!” he said, adding, “once she came down… I was actually excited about it.”
“A lot of people were intimidated,” he said, explaining that some of the players on the Blood tribe wanted to vote her out early in the game. “I was just like, ‘no, we need to keep her around as long as possible’.”
He continued: “She values strength and especially for myself, Jordan and Ben, we wanted to keep her and learn from her, just the nuances of the game and how to play. It was really insightful to have her around.”
Being a fan of the game, Croc said that there were “a lot of different people that [he loves] for different reasons” when it comes to past Australian Survivor players. Specifically, he name checked Mat Rogers “staunch, loyal” game, David Genat and Luke Toki’s strategic games and ability to “change situations” and “[claw] their way back up to the top” after a tribe swap, and Shonee Fairfax’s social game.
“There’s a lot of different characters in there who you can model your game on, but I had to go out there and play my own game,” he said.
Going into the game, Croc knew that he “could potentially be seen as a physical threat”, so he was hesitant to make any strategic moves “too early” on and put a target on his back.
“I laid low for a little bit, and one thing that Sandra actually said to me — I think it was after our second Tribal Council — she said to me ‘Croc, man, I wanna work with you but you need to start playing the game, you’re playing it too cool!’” Croc revealed. “So that was a bit of a kick up the bum to be like ‘okay, now’s the time to actually start playing’. You don’t wanna wait too long!”
Unfortunately, it was Croc’s move to blindside Jesse that saw him eliminated with an Immunity Idol in his pocket last night.
“Leading into it, I was so confident in the plan that I had enacted, I thought everyone was on board with it,” Croc recalled, adding that in hindsight, there were clues he missed during Tribal Council.
“I noticed that Khanh couldn’t look me in the eye, Michelle couldn’t look me in the eye,” he said, adding that when Jesse said that “relationships are always changing” in the game, he “should’ve realised that wasn’t about [him]”.
Calling it a “classic blindside”, Croc sighs.
“It sucks, but I’m still thankful for the experience and I’m still proud of how I played,” he said, adding that he’s in “good company” with other players who’ve been blindsided with Immunity Idols in their pockets.
“I’m proud of Chrissy and how she’s played, and now I get to sit back and watch it and see how she’s done. I’m hoping she goes all the way,” he added.
Australian Survivor airs at 7.30pm, Sundays and Mondays, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand.
Want more Australian Survivor? Read all of our stories here.
