WHETHER you follow the Western Bulldogs or not, it was a welcome sight to see one of central Victoria’s own, Maryborough’s Stewart Crameri, back out on an AFL ground on Friday night.
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And for the first time since February, 2013, Crameri was able to do so without the spectre of the Essendon supplements saga stemming from 2012 hanging over his head.
Crameri has played 98 AFL games for Essendon and the Western Bulldogs – 56 of them shrouded in the uncertainty and what-if scenarios that had plagued all of the Bombers’ players who undertook the 2012 supplements and injection program run by controversial sports scientsit Steven Dank.
A program that ultimately led to 34 Essendon players, including Crameri – who has said “never would I intentionally do something wrong” – being suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for anti-doping violations for the entire 2016 season.
Much has been made of Essendon’s Jobe Watson losing his 2012 Brownlow Medal in the wake of the bans imposed, but for Crameri, 2016 was much more than just a year lost of his AFL career in his prime.
While the saga cost Watson his Brownlow, so to did it cost Crameri the chance of becoming an AFL premiership player as his ban coincided with the Western Bulldogs – whom he joined in 2014 – winning their first flag in 62 years with their 22-point grand final victory over the Sydney Swans.
What a bittersweet day of mixed emotions that must have been for Crameri – one of the poster boys for Bendigo’s former VFL side given he was drafted by Essendon from the Bendigo Bombers in 2009 – and his family watching the Bulldogs bask in premiership glory the day after his wedding.
But as his parents, Bernie and Amanda, said to the Bendigo Advertiser in the lead-up to Crameri’s return game, with his suspension now served it’s all about looking forward, not dwelling on the past and “Stewart getting back to the good times that he has known previously.”
And that started on Friday night – his first AFL game for 559 days – when the 28-year-old lined up for the Bulldogs against Collingwood at the MCG in front of 66,254.
Crameri’s return game in which the Bulldogs won by 14 points featured 17 disposals, four marks and a third-quarter goal.
A solid return game, but more importantly for Crameri is that he’s back playing footy without any lingering Essendon baggage.
Luke West – sports reporter