Eddie Betts is the most exciting player I have played with, writes Sam Jacobs
WHEN the news broke that Eddie Betts was on Adelaide’s recruiting radar late in 2013 I made a beeline to David Noble’s office, writes Crows ruckman Sam Jacobs.
WHEN the news broke that Eddie Betts was on Adelaide’s recruiting radar late in 2013 I made a beeline to David Noble’s office.
Firstly I wanted to make sure that the news was true and secondly I wanted to push the case with our then list manager Noble for the Crows to recruit him.
I had played with Eddie at Carlton for four years from 2007-10 and knew first-hand what a talented player he was.
He also was one of the most unselfish team-mates I had ever come across, a great role model for team-mates and, after a down year for him in 2012 when he bagged a modest 27 goals, I felt he had a lot more to offer.
After Adelaide had lost key forwards Kurt Tippett to Sydney and Jack Gunston to Hawthorn I felt Eddie could be just the player to give our forward line a massive spark.
Eddie enjoyed a successful 184-game, 290-goal career with the Blues but I believed that in the right environment he had even more to give.
In 31 games for the Crows he has been even better than I could have imagined.
He is doing stuff I didn’t see him do at Carlton.
After kicking a team-best 51 goals in his first season in Adelaide’s tricolours last year, Eddie sits second in the Coleman Medal with 31 majors in just nine matches this year.
He also has 18 score assists — equal-third in the league.
Eddie has simply been phenomenal.
He has gone from being a knockabout lad who succeeded early in his career mainly because football came naturally to him, to the most exciting player I have had the pleasure of playing with.
I know it’s a big call given I play alongside Patrick Dangerfield and Taylor “Tex’’ Walker at the Crows and in my previous life at Carlton I tapped the ball to dual Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd.
But that’s how highly I rate Eddie.
Eddie has rightly become a cult hero at the Adelaide Football Club.
I’m sure the Blues regret the day that Eddie signed with Adelaide as a restricted free agent.
It already is haunting them and it threatens to haunt them for another four or five years, including in today’s clash at the MCG, where Eddie will play against his former club for just the second time.
Eddie was a fine player at Carlton who always had the tricks required to be a dangerous small forward.
But he has become a far more-rounded and professional player at West Lakes.
For the first time in his life he has abdominal muscles.
By his own admission Eddie wasn’t the fittest player at Carlton.
In his early days there he struggled to keep his skinfolds under control and learning to adapt to the professionalism and lifestyle required of an AFL player.
He didn’t prepare or train with the right intensity and readily admits to once finishing behind a struggling Lance Whitnall in a time trial.
His natural talents were always there but the workrate wasn’t.
Now he is pinch-hitting in the midfield for us and winning some valuable clearances because his greater fitness levels have allowed him to that.
He’s now got his body in career-best condition and it’s helped his all-round game because he is no longer a one-trick pony who can be sat on by a dour defender who has the one goal of stopping Eddie from hitting the scoreboard.
The boy who was raised in Kalgoorlie in WA, moved to Port Lincoln in SA with his dad and then to Victoria where he was eventually drafted as a pre-season draft pick by Carlton has not only grown into a fine player but a terrific person.
He mentored fellow indigenous players Jeff Garlett and Chris Yarran at the Blues and is doing the same at Adelaide with Charlie Cameron, drastically changing his diet in the six months he lived with Eddie and also mentoring our other Aboriginal players Cam Ellis-Yolmen and Anthony Wilson.
He helps club legend Andrew “Bunji’’ McLeod and the young Crows mentor indigenous teenagers at the Wiltja Residential Program and the five of them have some terrific basketball games at Bunji’s house once a week.
Eddie has shown he is a frontrunner by jumping on the LeBron James bandwagon, following the basketball superstar from the Cleveland Cavaliers to Miami Heat and back again.
Like LeBron does on the basketball court, Eddie inspires his team-mates.
He is so inspirational with his skill level and tackling that those around him rise to another level.
He is not an arrogant bloke despite having a pocket named after him at Adelaide Oval.
One time last year after Eddie kicked one of his freakish goals from his favourite pocket — the north-eastern one under the old scoreboard — he put his arms up and then pointed to the ground signalling “this is my pocket’’ in front of our supporters.
It wasn’t arrogance from Eddie but just showmanship and him showing how he likes to embrace his and the club’s supporters.
Around the club Eddie is laid-back and quiet. He largely keeps to himself and spends as much time as he can with his fiancee Anna and two young children.
But he is always up for a laugh and as he has matured he is speaking up a lot more in team meetings.
When Eddie has got something to say, people listen.
Along with Tex he is the leader of our forward line and has got his small forward sidekick Charlie up and firing. The players stir Charlie for always kicking the ball to Eddie. That’s the influence he’s had on him.
If there is to be any criticism of Eddie it’s that at times he can also be too unselfish.
If he is running into an open goal he would happily give it off to someone else, such is his want to bring his team-mates into the game.
(Former coach) Brenton Sanderson last year put it on Eddie to kick more goals himself. His mum has said the same to him.
At the MCG today we will see just how popular Eddie is.
His new fans love him and so do his former ones.
When Eddie, who this week told me he had never been happier in life and in football, played against Carlton for the first time in round 10 last year the cheer squad still treated him as one of their own. In the pre-game warm-ups, Eddie was given a rousing reception from the Blues’ faithful and he walked up to the cheer squad and was hugging people, they were getting him to sign posters and even held up an Eddie banner.
When he kicked his four goals he was cheered by both sets of supporters.
The Crows are lucky to have him.