rfctigerarmy
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 28,229
- Reaction score
- 27,704
- Location
- Punt Road
- AFL Club
- Richmond
- Other Teams
- Melbourne Heart, Furies
End of the road for Cameron
Paul Gough
afl.com.au
12:41:48 PM Tue 26 August, 2003
The silky skills of Richmond veteran Leon Cameron received the ultimate accolade on Tuesday, moments after announcing he would play his 256th and last AFL game this Sunday against Hawthorn at the MCG.
Cameron, who turns 31 in early September, is renowned as one of the best kicks in the AFL over the past 20 years, so much so that one of the questions he was asked at his retirement announcement on Tuesday was which foot is actually his natural kicking foot.
The former Bulldog replied that it was his right foot but it was perhaps the ultimate tribute to the kicking skills of the man, who was recruited from South Warrnambool in western Victoria - that even after 14 years of playing at the highest level, seasoned footy watchers could not tell if he was a right footer or a left footer.
“It’s officially my right foot but it (his ability to kick equally well on either the left or right foot) has obviously got me out of a lot of trouble and has been one of my key weapons over 14 years,” he said.
“I’m just very lucky I learned it a young age with my older brothers.”
Richmond coach Danny Frawley, who revived Cameron’s career when he recruited him from the Bulldogs at the end of 1999, said Cameron was the best kick of a football he had seen during his 20 years as a player and coach at AFL level.
“It will be great to see that left and right foot (kicking) of Leon’s on Sunday and we will not see it again,” he said.
“In my time, in 20 years, I don’t think I’ve seen a player dispose of the ball off both his right and left foot as well as Leon can.”
It was precisely that reason the Tigers took the punt in recruiting Cameron in 2000 – after his career at stalled after the Bulldogs after ten years following continual leg injuries.
And the move paid huge dividends with Cameron’s skills totally transforming a Richmond backline that for years had kicked poorly out of defence.
In only his second season with the Tigers in 2001 he finished third in the club’s best and fairest – an award he won at the Bulldogs in 1993 – and helped the Tigers into the preliminary final.
Cameron said the 2001 finals were the pinnacle of his career as he played some of the best football of his career as the club reached the preliminary final, only to lose to eventual premiers Brisbane.
That was one of four occasions – the others being 1992, 1997 and 1998 with the Bulldogs, that Cameron reached the preliminary final only to be denied a chance to play-off in a grand final for a premiership.
“You look back with some regrets but the only one is the premiership but a lot of players bow out without that satisfaction,” he said.
Cameron’s final game will coincide with the Tigers’ farewell to their greatest ever player in Jack Dyer – who passed away aged 89 last Saturday – and will give the club even more incentive to end its long losing streak by beating Hawthorn on Sunday.
However Cameron denied the Tigers’ dreadful form – the club has won just one of its past 13 matches to again miss the finals after winning six of its first eight games – had anything to do with his decision to retire.
Instead it was simply the pace of the modern-day game had become too much for a player who was always far more renowned for his magnificent skills than for his ability to cover the ground quickly.
“Probably a few weeks ago I started to think about my future,” he said.
“The pace of the game has gone up again over the last couple of years and that has been the main factor.
“My mind is still ticking over footy wise but the body cannot do what I want it to do.”
However Cameron hinted he may consider playing on at a lower level next year and with his horse racing interests he will certainly not be starved of involvement in top level sport in the coming months.
Cameron is a part-owner of current Caulfield Cup favourite Mummify – which is trained by one of Victoria’s best trainers in Lee Freedman – and admitted he is anxiously looking forward to the upcoming spring racing carnival.
“If I lose 20 kilos I might ride Mummify in the Caulfield Cup,” he joked.
“But obviously I am looking forward to being involved with a horse that might do some big things come spring time.”
Paul Gough
afl.com.au
12:41:48 PM Tue 26 August, 2003
The silky skills of Richmond veteran Leon Cameron received the ultimate accolade on Tuesday, moments after announcing he would play his 256th and last AFL game this Sunday against Hawthorn at the MCG.
Cameron, who turns 31 in early September, is renowned as one of the best kicks in the AFL over the past 20 years, so much so that one of the questions he was asked at his retirement announcement on Tuesday was which foot is actually his natural kicking foot.
The former Bulldog replied that it was his right foot but it was perhaps the ultimate tribute to the kicking skills of the man, who was recruited from South Warrnambool in western Victoria - that even after 14 years of playing at the highest level, seasoned footy watchers could not tell if he was a right footer or a left footer.
“It’s officially my right foot but it (his ability to kick equally well on either the left or right foot) has obviously got me out of a lot of trouble and has been one of my key weapons over 14 years,” he said.
“I’m just very lucky I learned it a young age with my older brothers.”
Richmond coach Danny Frawley, who revived Cameron’s career when he recruited him from the Bulldogs at the end of 1999, said Cameron was the best kick of a football he had seen during his 20 years as a player and coach at AFL level.
“It will be great to see that left and right foot (kicking) of Leon’s on Sunday and we will not see it again,” he said.
“In my time, in 20 years, I don’t think I’ve seen a player dispose of the ball off both his right and left foot as well as Leon can.”
It was precisely that reason the Tigers took the punt in recruiting Cameron in 2000 – after his career at stalled after the Bulldogs after ten years following continual leg injuries.
And the move paid huge dividends with Cameron’s skills totally transforming a Richmond backline that for years had kicked poorly out of defence.
In only his second season with the Tigers in 2001 he finished third in the club’s best and fairest – an award he won at the Bulldogs in 1993 – and helped the Tigers into the preliminary final.
Cameron said the 2001 finals were the pinnacle of his career as he played some of the best football of his career as the club reached the preliminary final, only to lose to eventual premiers Brisbane.
That was one of four occasions – the others being 1992, 1997 and 1998 with the Bulldogs, that Cameron reached the preliminary final only to be denied a chance to play-off in a grand final for a premiership.
“You look back with some regrets but the only one is the premiership but a lot of players bow out without that satisfaction,” he said.
Cameron’s final game will coincide with the Tigers’ farewell to their greatest ever player in Jack Dyer – who passed away aged 89 last Saturday – and will give the club even more incentive to end its long losing streak by beating Hawthorn on Sunday.
However Cameron denied the Tigers’ dreadful form – the club has won just one of its past 13 matches to again miss the finals after winning six of its first eight games – had anything to do with his decision to retire.
Instead it was simply the pace of the modern-day game had become too much for a player who was always far more renowned for his magnificent skills than for his ability to cover the ground quickly.
“Probably a few weeks ago I started to think about my future,” he said.
“The pace of the game has gone up again over the last couple of years and that has been the main factor.
“My mind is still ticking over footy wise but the body cannot do what I want it to do.”
However Cameron hinted he may consider playing on at a lower level next year and with his horse racing interests he will certainly not be starved of involvement in top level sport in the coming months.
Cameron is a part-owner of current Caulfield Cup favourite Mummify – which is trained by one of Victoria’s best trainers in Lee Freedman – and admitted he is anxiously looking forward to the upcoming spring racing carnival.
“If I lose 20 kilos I might ride Mummify in the Caulfield Cup,” he joked.
“But obviously I am looking forward to being involved with a horse that might do some big things come spring time.”
