Bombers' development in safe hands

By Tanya Paolucci
Updated November 7 2012 - 5:18am, first published June 23 2011 - 12:05pm

Bendigo Bombers’ new football manager Graham Pratt has a wealth of experience when it comes to the development of young footballers.Pratt will be based in Bendigo alongside Bombers’ general manager Peter Lodewijks and will focus on developing and maintaining football operations at the club.Formerly from Melbourne, Pratt comes to Bendigo after almost 30 years out of Victoria through stints in Sydney and Brisbane.Pratt worked with the AFL development program in Brisbane, helping produce some of the competition’s top players.“Over time we were very successful. Probably the best player to come out of the system was Nick Riewoldt, but he wasn’t in my zone,” Pratt said.Brisbane Lions premiership stars Jamie Charman and Robert Copeland also came through the system, as did Pratt’s son Daniel, who now plays with North Melbourne.Family reasons made Pratt move to Bendigo. Not only is he able to watch Daniel play regularly in Melbourne, he is also close to his other son Aiden, who plays for Golden Square.Pratt had intended to stay in Bendigo short term, but has now made the decision to stay permanently.“The more we stayed the more we realised than Bendigo is not such a bad place so we said we might stay, so I looked for work and the football manager job came up and I got it,” he said.Lodewijks said getting Pratt on board was a major coup for the development of the Bendigo side.“Obviously Graham brings a lot of experience to the club after being involved at the AFL in a development role, so that’s a great benefit,” he said.“The other benefit is that we’re not spread so thin anymore. We’ve now got two people at the club here in Bendigo and one focuses on football and the other on business, which means we can look forward to growth.”Lodewijks said that with Pratt’s help, he hoped the Bombers could cement themselves as Bendigo’s home team for years to come.“We’re called Bendigo for a reason and we’ve seen a bit of our club shift to Melbourne over the last few years, mainly because of the QEO and not being able to play there, but that’s fixed now, so the next step is to get some facilities,” he said.

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