Educating Bernard

[numbeh]

"I remember rocking up for the cricket, I got a call from my manager and he said 'you've been drafted by Adelaide'.
"Even then I just said 'oh yeah, that's alright', and kept playing cricket that day, then afterwards I was thinking 'shit, I'm on an AFL list now'."

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/rfnews/educating-bernie/2009/09/02/1251570749156.html

excellent read

 

[RoosterLad]

Top read.

"I remember watching the news that night, and my dismissal was played on every station so I was a bit shattered about that."

Gold.

 

[Willis]

Good read.

 

[Witty Remark]

Great article !

 

[Smoooothy]

great article!!

 

[themuldohyeh]

"The partnership between the clean marine and the party boy"

I love that quote! Very intriguing read. I wonder if Vince the party boy knew at the time that the better he got at AFL, the easier it would be for him to pick up haha...

 

[treeman]

I spoke to someone who went to school with Bernie about 2 years back and he said he was always surprised he went onto afl football as he was always more of a cricketer. The article dosen't surprise me.

-Ben

 

[Punchy Bassett]

Great read and shows why the club think VB is captain material.

 

[maxlad]

good read

 

[Tex200]

Thanks for this post, an enjoyable read. Without doubt my favourite player. Interesting that a friend of mine took his son to a Crows junior day and said that Bernie was clearly the most natural, unaffected and friendly player there and was terrific with all of the kids.

 

[xamol]

Amazing what a good country/SANFL player with a lot of potential can turn into with the right guideance.

Gun!!

 

[Crowfoot]

Great article!



__

 

[beartoo]

Good article and thanks for posting the link.
We are fortunate to have quality people around the club who can do what was done for Bernie. Win/win/win, the club, Bernie and the mentors who get the satisfaction of seeing a young bloke come on as he has. It is also great that he has the humility and commonsense to give credit where it is due.
The Crows football club must be the best environment in the competition for young men to land in.
So glad we got rid of a couple of dills a couple of years ago.

 

[amer]

Hopefully he picks up an AA jumper this season, then all that remain are the Brownlow and Norm Smith formalities.

 

[WALL-e]

Fantastic read.

Hopfully he turns into the guy sitting younger guys down in the future.

 

[King Elvis]

I hope the Crows give Ronnie Fuller a very expensive Rolex when he coaches his last WWT game this year.

 

[fartass]

Hopefully he picks up an AA jumper this season, then all that remain are the Brownlow and Norm Smith formalities.

haha nice post, looking atlittle far....

 

[Huntercrow]

Very good story.

I wonder how many past players who had just as much potential are now playing in the sticks, that slipped through because it was just too hard from both sides(coach and player).

I think sometimes coaches and officials at any club can be quick to judge a young player without giving them an opportunity to mature.

Some won `t make it, but I think having this sort of environment where senior and past players can intervene to guide a young man through his early career can be like having an extra draft pick.

 

[cmndstab]

It's a good article, and it raises an interesting point of just how important good characters are at a footy club. There has been a strong negative undercurrent from a certain set of supporters on here in the past that the Crows are more interested as an organisation in bringing in people of good character and poor footy talent than the alternative. It's arguable how much emphasis we place on leadership skills and a strong character but we make a clear and public point of rating those qualities highly. Likewise, we have been seen as a club that isn't willing to come to the table in order to keep dissenting players around, seemingly more willing to let them walk than to acquiesce to demands.


As supporters, we can be guilty of living and dying by what we see on the field and failing to join the dots from behind the scenes. It's very easy to see Vince performing as brilliantly as he has been this year after a relatively disappointing first couple of seasons and say "well, he finally put it together" without stopping to think about why he put it together. If VB's influence was as important as the article is saying, you could argue the draft pick we gave up for him didn't just earn us one great player, it's earned us two great players, and potentially an elite player. Having characters like that around a footy club is an invaluable asset as they bring others along with them.


Even if VB wasn't a great player and likely to play 150+ games for the Crows, his draft pick would be justified now by his hand in converting Vince from a fringe player destined for delisting into one of our most important midfielders.


It's very exciting to think that our early round draft picks as of late haven't just been talented players, but also players with reportedly great charaters and leadership capabilities (Dangerfield, Otten, Davis, Sloane) - not only will they perform for us on the field, but they'll be there ensuring things are going right behind the scenes. Kudos to the club for being so steadfast in their desire to bring in strong characters to the club

 

[Southerntakeover]

On the flipside then Stabby, do we applaud the club for also removing the negative influence of Welsh (and potentially Hudson)?

 

[hippyhippy]

I wonder how many past players who had just as much potential are now playing in the sticks, that slipped through because it was just too hard from both sides(coach and player).

Angwin pops up in my mind .. how good could he have been?

 

[noddy]

On the flipside then Stabby, do we applaud the club for also removing the negative influence of Welsh (and potentially Hudson)?

Can't answer for Stabby but i was bloody ropeable at the time & cursed all those involved at that decision especially the Hudson one.

But i was wrong.

Great read by the way & cheers for posting the link

 

[Sir Vlado]

A fantastic article that, you gotta give credit to Roo, Goody and co. for changing his 'party boy' image into something more cleaner.

And look at Bernard now! He's quickly becoming one of the elite players in the AFL!

 

[cmndstab]

On the flipside then Stabby, do we applaud the club for also removing the negative influence of Welsh (and potentially Hudson)?

I guess without saying as much directly, this was one of the things I was thinking about when I wrote the post. I hesitated to say it because I don't know how much of a negative influence those two players were, but even if we don't applaud the club, we should at least not howl at them about it. Anyone who doesn't want to be here, see you later. We have seemingly created a brilliant club environment, full of people who want to be there. Across the road from us we see what happens when the alternative is true.


The issue I had with the Hudson trade (back before my BF days...) was how little we got for him, but not the decision to let him go.

 

[Southerntakeover]

I guess without saying as much directly, this was one of the things I was thinking about when I wrote the post. I hesitated to say it because I don't know how much of a negative influence those two players were, but even if we don't applaud the club, we should at least not howl at them about it. Anyone who doesn't want to be here, see you later. We have seemingly created a brilliant club environment, full of people who want to be there. Across the road from us we see what happens when the alternative is true.


The issue I had with the Hudson trade (back before my BF days...) was how little we got for him, but not the decision to let him go.

I dont think Welsh was known for his work ethic. I can say first hand, every training i went to watch in 07 (which was a fair few), he would be out the door early. Add to that more than one late night incident that year (breaking curfew, smacking cave trolls), and you could mount an argument that breaking his influence on a younger group could have been beneficial.