Dedication and love of the game as Danny Buderus joins NRL Hall of Fame
Champion footballers aren’t always about playmaking genius or irresistible force. Sometimes they’re made by utter dedication and sheer love of the game. Danny Buderus is one of those champions, writes PAUL KENT.
Opinion
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The Hall of Fame was invented for people like Danny Buderus, one of the most tremendous men to ever play rugby league.
Buderus was driving down the M1 highway that connects Newcastle to Sydney when Frank Puletua, the senior manager of NRL awards, called and told him.
Buderus was happy last year when he made the shortlist. He was just as happy this year when he made the shortlist again.
But this, finally and rightfully being inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame, was something.
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He pulled over to the side of the highway and “had a moment”, he said. His memory flashed of a young boy playing in Taree to a kid that played in the centres or a little five-eighth and grew into someone a whole lot bigger.
It was a rare show of emotion from Buderus.
When he first moved to Newcastle he was housed with Owen Craigie, then the best junior football talent in Australia. He was in the middle of a signing war between the Knights and Canberra on the strength of his schoolboy football alone.
Nobody at Newcastle had any doubt about who in that house was going to make. Craigie was odds-on to be a champion.
Hard work makes the great footballers, though.
Craigie would sit on the lounge picking a Cheezel off each finger, one by one with the telly on, watching Buderus head out the door for extras on the training paddock.
Buderus is one of the most inoffensive men the game ever saw.
Years back he was at lunch and coach Wayne Bennett walked into the hotel dining room and asked Buderus what the soup was like.
“Pretty good,” said Buderus.
It was quickly picked by teammates as an unusual comment to make, not so much as a reflection on the soup but because Buderus hadn’t had the soup.
This confused Bennett.
“Why would you say it’s good if you haven’t had the soup?” said Bennett.
Buderus kind of shrugged. He didn’t want to disappoint Bennett, and probably the resident chef as well, come to think of it, because he was always been pleasing people.
So the soup was good.
His desire to please helped shaped the player, which made him the ultimate teammate.
Along with Buderus, Stacey Jones, Ruben Wiki and Craig Young will also be inducted.
They show the Hall is gradually taking the right shape as you cannot make a case against any of them.
Jones and Wiki inspired Kiwis in the NRL era, much like last year’s inductee Mark Graham inspired the generation before.
Craig Young played 20 Tests for Australia at a time when 20 Tests was a gold standard. He was mean and dominated the middle when that was often the first job a good front-rower had.
He offered good speed off the mark for his size and a subtle pass and there were time he was likened to Arthur Beetson, which completes the sell.
There are hard luck stories. Paul Harragon was every bit the frontrower that those already in the Hall were. Norm Provan was elevated to Immortal status last year based almost entirely on his 10 premierships with St George but Kevin Walters, who won six, again failed to progress from the shortlist to the Hall.
And why Benny Elias, who revolutionised the dummy-half role and provided the model that every good dummy-half worked off following him, failed to make even the shortlist is an indictment on the judges.
Even Buderus acknowledges the role Elias played and hopefully there time will come.
Years back when Buderus was retiring I went looking for a story at least not read before but was prepared to forgive if it had been told around a few bars and football clubs.
I called Andrew Johns and asked him to take a day to think about it.
The following day Johns recalled a game against Penrith, a Friday night game considered important enough the Knights travelled down the M1 and stayed nearby the night before the game.
Buderus struggled with back problems late in his career and morning of the game Buderus woke on a strange mattress and, done in by the bedsprings, could not move.
Johns, his roommate, called the doctor in and they somehow moved him from the bed to the floor to begin manipulating his back.
It soon became clear the back was stuck solid and Buderus would not be playing.
Several hours were needed before they could even begin getting him moving.
Meanwhile, the Knights were getting on with it. This player was moved to dummy-half and this one called up from the bench and a change was made here and on they went.
An hour or so before the game Buderus walked into the dressing room, ginger but determined.
He was playing.
Johns described it as one of those classic Buderus performances. He teased and tortured the defenders out of dummy-half and, of course, walked away with the man of the match.
Johns was left to appreciate. Now there was a teammate who gave.
It seems only right that, now, the game gives back.
Originally published as Dedication and love of the game as Danny Buderus joins NRL Hall of Fame
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