SACKED podcast: Stewart Crameri tells all of the day that changed the Bombers forever
Former Bomber Stewart Crameri was hitting his stride in 2013 when Dyson Heppell told him something at training. He thought it was a joke. Then everything changed. Here’s what really happened.
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An AFL career that Stewart Crameri had worked so hard to build was taking shape before his eyes when Essendon teammate Dyson Heppell sidled up at training one summer with a message that was to rock not only his, but his club’s world.
It was the preseason leading into 2013, and Crameri had just won the second of what would be three consecutive Bombers’ leading goalkicking awards.
The boy from Maryborough, who was nicknamed ‘Tank’ as a kid after playing as an eight-year-old in his brother’s under 13s team, was coming of age as an AFL footballer, having refused to take no for an answer after overcoming a few early obstacles.
Now, the biggest hurdle of his career was about to confront him - and 33 of his Essendon teammates.
“I started hearing whispers … Dyson Heppell might have mentioned something (at training) and I thought it was a joke,” Crameri told the Sacked podcast.
“He had just heard some rumours that something was brewing. There was a feeling from the other players as well. You know … ‘Is this a real thing?’ Or what are we talking about here?’.”
The Bombers were coming off a frustrating 2012, having won eight of the first nine games before a litany of soft-tissue injuries saw James Hird’s side crash out of finals contention with seven consecutive losses to close out the season.
It was a brutal fall, with some pointing to the club’s failed conditioning program, and others whispering about a secretive sports supplements regimen that was bizarre, ad hoc and more than a bit quirky, which summed up the man who set it up - the mysterious Stephen Dank - before he was quietly told to vacate the premises during that season.
The silver lining had been Jobe Watson’s 2012 Brownlow Medal win as a handful of players who stood tall, including Crameri who kicked 32 goals in 18 games in his third AFL season.
“I remember the start of that (2012) season, we were on fire and we couldn’t lose a game,” Crameri explained. “But injuries riddled us …
“It was (still) a memorable season and it was great to be a part of it. Jobe winning the Brownlow, I think that was well deserved. It was probably the highlight (of that year).”
Crameri, who was 23 through most of that 2012 season, knew the supplements program had been weird, but at no stage did he think it was anything open to outside scrutiny.
That is … until Heppell revealed to him and others that there might be an issue - a revelation that shocked Crameri.
“Some of the players … thought ‘this can’t be too serious’ … but as time goes on you go ‘this is becoming more serious as we started to realise (what was happening).”
The first of many explosions in what would become the Essendon sports supplements scandal went off on February 5, 2013 when the Bombers self-reported to the AFL and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) over concerns around the program.
“They (Essendon) might have mentioned that there’s going to be a press conference and an inquiry around (what happened) last year,” he said.
“I’m sitting next to Jobe (Watson) and I’m thinking ‘Are we in trouble here? What’s going on here?’ And the players still didn’t know if we were in trouble or not.”
Crameri’s heart sank.
Never at any stage had he thought the Bombers might have gone outside the boundaries during the supplements program, but he knew the road ahead was going to be a minefield.
More explosions lay ahead.
$40 PER NIGHT HOSTEL
Footy was always fun for the young Crameri.
Missing junior representative teams made him even tougher and more resilient.
“They used to call me ‘Tank’,” Crameri recalled with a smile. “I think Dad liked it (that he played on his older brother’s side) because he only had to go to one game.
“In the first couple of games I got a few goals. I was vastly smaller than the rest of the players. But that really helped me going forward in playing against better opposition.”
The resilience he would later need was forged in those early years in the juniors, with Maryborough seniors, the Bendigo Bombers and later a speculative move to Melbourne.
“I think you build your resilience over the years and that helped me out when I did get to Essendon,” he said. “I was really determined to try and make sure that I played AFL and you know a lot of people would say ‘Look, it’s going to be hard’. I would say: ‘That’s your opinion’.
“It was my journey, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way.”
Crameri had been overlooked by Essendon, despite good form with the Bendigo Bombers, the club’s then VFL side, which prompted a move to Melbourne.
“I was travelling four times per week while working full-time with my dad (in the family’s Mitre 10 store),” he said. “Halfway through the year my football was declining. I was getting tired (with the travel). (Development coach) Adrian (Hickmott) said: ‘You need to move down’. And like Essendon’s motto back then ‘Whatever It Takes’ to get the best out of yourself, I was like ‘OK, I’ll go down and train for six months’.”
Crameri moved into a $40 per night hostel which he described as “a prison-type bunk set-up” but the move set him up.
“By the end of the season, I managed a few best on grounds and then I finally got drafted from that (as pick 43 in the 2009 rookie draft).”
He won a “terrible” $30,000 contract and it became his ticket into the big time.
HARD DAYS KNIGHTS
Matthew Knights was in the final throes of his Essendon coaching career when Crameri made his AFL debut against Collingwood in round 20, 2010.
“We lost pretty badly,” Crameri recalled. “I lined up on Dane Swan and Scott Pendlebury at the first bounce … I got the first touch and we got a goal out of it, but from then on they were too classy. It was a big eye-opener, but obviously I was playing in the wrong position.”
Crameri played as a midfielder in his three games at the back end of the 2010 season, but he always felt he was a forward.
It wasn’t until Knights was sacked, and the new crew of senior coach James Hird, and assistant coaches Mark Thompson and Brendan McCartney came in as the Bombers’ new dream team that Crameri was recast as a forward.
“I thought I was going to be cut myself (when Knights was sacked),” he said. “I thought I was done after those three matches. I just didn’t bring it. I didn’t play well enough … and if you are not on, you get exposed.”
Crameri gravitated to McCartney, who was convinced he was a forward, not a midfielder.
“He said: ‘I think you’re a forward’ and I said: ‘No worries, I can play forward’.
“He said: ‘You’re going to start forward and you’re going to play round one’.”
Crameri played 20 games in Hird’s first year, kicking 34 goals, including four goals in a bumper Anzac Day game.
“Everyone knew who I was after that day … I felt like in that game, I could sort of do what I wanted to do … Anzac Day is a special day … the crowd, the moment, the build up.”
But in the final game of the home and away season his shoulder collapsed against West Coast, and it cost him the chance to play in the finals.
THE PROGRAM
Essendon’s eagerness to get better fast was apparent heading into 2012, but even when the supplements program under Dank started in the preseason, Crameri never gave it a second thought, given the club had ticked it all off.
“I was 22, or 23 and I’ll tell you what, we didn’t blink an eye,” he said. “It was just part of the training regimen and we wanted to get the best out of ourselves.
“We believed what they were telling us at the time … it wasn’t really a massive discussion.”
Asked what the players thought of Dank, Crameri said: “He was quirky.”
Why quirky?
“I think (it was) his personality mostly, a few of the boys had a bit of a joke about him.”
How often was the program utilised?
“Every second day … sometimes you would have to go off-site to get certain things. But it was constant. It was regular through the preseason and the season.”
How often were the injections?
“You are not having injections all the time. We were really focusing on the games and it was just part of the process. You’ve got to do a lot of things to play AFL and (we thought) it was just one of the components to it.”
Do you know what you took to this day?
“There are some things I think we (still) don’t know.”
Dank came and went in a relatively short time; the Bombers crashed almost as swiftly.
Only Watson’s Brownlow and some performances from a handful of players, including Crameri, shone through another wasted season.
But it was about to get a lot worse.
ROLLERCOASTER
If Essendon’s 2012 was ruined by injury, 2013 was defined by a storm of unprecedented media attention and intense scrutiny from the AFL and anti-doping authorities.
Somehow they still played good football, including Crameri who kicked 30.13.
He still marvels at how Watson united the group, saying: “everyone leaned on him and I think he did a fantastic job to keep everyone together.”
“We had media nearly at every training session .. it really became hard to do your job when everyone kept talking about it. It was a daily event … and we were the brunt of it.
“I think that started to mentally break down a lot of players through the year.
Crameri said while the playing group rallied around each other, there were tensions building.
“It was new territory for everyone, so things would happen and the best thing we could do was to come together as a team. That’s all we had and we had to stick to it. The media had its own agenda, ASADA had its own agenda, the AFL had their own agenda.
“We felt like we were in a bubble and we had to stick together … but there were cracks starting to show.”
TO THE DOGS
The strain was constant for Crameri, though he had incredible support from those closest to him - his parents, his partner and his teammates.
A new offer came from Brendan McCartney, who was now Western Bulldogs coach.
“Brendan McCartney came to me early in the year (2013) … I think he put an offer on the table and it was substantially more than Essendon,” he said.
“With everything that was happening that year, I was sick of it. I loved the players in the team, but I thought maybe it’s time to move on and get a fresh start.
“It was a drain every day … you knew the s— you were going to have to put up with even before you got on the field to train.”
By the time the AFL handed out its penalties to Essendon and Hird in late August 2013, banning the club from the finals, imposing a $2m fine, smashing it with draft penalties and suspending the coach for 12 months, Crameri had already committed to leave.
A late call from Mark Thompson, who was taking over from Hird during his ban, couldn’t get him to change his mind on a move.
“When he rang, I was already done,” he said.
Crameri went on to kick 37 goals in his first year with the Dogs in 2014, then 32 the following year. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape the saga bubbling away from afar.
“In 2013 we still didn’t know the scope of what was going to happen, but the low point for me was probably when I was at the Bulldogs,” he said.
Having received show cause notices in June 2014, the Essendon 34 were cleared by the AFL Anti-Doping panel in March 2015.
“2015 was a great, great season, I could nearly forget about the ASADA stuff for once. I was thinking we are back to normal.”
Then came the WADA appeal in May 2015, which was “a bottom of your stomach kind of thing again” for Crameri.
He kicked a career-best seven goals against Essendon in round 18 that season, sensing his former teammates had been beaten by the saga.
He played his one and only final that season, but his world was about to be rocked again.
PACKAGE DELIVERS THE BAD NEWS
Crameri was driving to training at the Whitten Oval on January 12 2016 when he noticed a text from his Bulldogs teammate Jake Stringer.
He knew it was bad news.
“I thought that’s odd. Why is he messaging me at this time? The closer I got (to the ground), I thought ‘oh, they’ve put out the verdict’ (the Essendon players had just been banned for 12 months, ruling him out of the 2016 season).
“We had a quick meeting upstairs with the Bulldogs hierarchy. The most disappointing thing was that you can’t be a part of the team that you were meant to be a part of.
“You’re not (even) allowed to be there.”
As Crameri got back in his car, he couldn’t have understood precisely what the 12 month ban would cost him.
It would cost Watson a Brownlow Medal; but it would cost Crameri a premiership medal.
Even though he was not an Essendon player anymore, Crameri met up with his former teammates that afternoon and night, starting with some drinks at David Myers’ house.
Like the rest of the players, he was provided with funding from Essendon to train at St Bernard’s College with the banned Bombers during that wasted year.
Behind the scenes, Bulldogs president Peter Gordon worked on trying to get an earlier return for Crameri so he could be a part of the club’s run to the finals.
But it amounted to nothing.
So when he did he feel the Dogs would win that flag?
“It was the start of the finals … they had this culture, the dynamic of the players, they wanted to play for each other. The vibe was just different. They were never going to lose.”
He was allowed back to training in the latter part of the finals, but was never going to be allowed to play.
He wasn’t even allowed to be in the rooms at the MCG on grand final day.
Besides, in the weeks after being banned, he and his partner Jess had arranged their wedding for grand final eve.
“The thing I remember was the Thursday before the grand final and there’s 10,000 at Whitten Oval and I’ve got to (leave) to get something fixed for the wedding and I can’t get out of the ground, it was a funny situation.”
The wedding took place as scheduled and a day later, on the last Saturday in September, he had the post-wedding “recovery day” at home as he and his family and friends watched the Dogs break a 62-year premiership drought.
“It was a little bit emotional with my family all around me … but it was the best place to be … It was a bit sad but I was really happy for the team.”
He caught up with his teammates the following day in Yarraville, pushing aside his own disappointment and putting on a brave face.
Almost a decade on, Crameri remains convinced he would have been there on grand final day in 2016 if he and the Essendon 34 hadn’t been banned.
He is just as convinced the banned Bombers did nothing wrong or illegal.
He’s reminded about the supplements saga once a month, when someone brings it up with him. It still hurts as he knows they did nothing wrong and were innocent.
But he tries to use the lessons he learned from his AFL career - and the challenges of that supplements saga period - in his dealings with the 60 staff that he and his family employ with Crameri Mitre 10 stores in Maryborough and Daylesford.
“I think it defines a footy career,” he said in reflection. “There’s others who missed out on things … Jobe (loses) the Brownlow and I missed the grand final.
“There’s a lot of people to blame. You can always blame someone, but I am not a blamer. I do move on. That’s part of my journey.
“If someone can get something out of my story, maybe that’s a positive.”
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