Melbourne’s Bernie Vince says he won’t change his game-day demeanour as dad Tim warns against underestimating his desire to win
MELBOURNE’S smiling assassin Bernie Vince has vowed he won’t change his game-day demeanour as he plots the downfall of his old side Adelaide on Saturday night and his father Tim warns against underestimating his incredible desire to win.
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MELBOURNE’S smiling assassin Bernie Vince has vowed he won’t change his game-day demeanour as he plots the downfall of his old side Adelaide on Saturday night and his father Tim warns against underestimating his incredible desire to win.
Vision of Vince joking with former teammate Patrick Dangerfield after Melbourne lost to Geelong after the siren last weekend divided the football world with some claiming it showed a lack of care for his team and the result.
But the man at the centre of the joke - Bernie’s dad Tim - said yesterday that could not be further from the truth.
“Once he crosses that white line, it’s on, he’s a competitor,” Tim said while weaning lambs on his Yorke Peninsula farm on Friday.
“I play golf with him and he’s always trying to knock me over, he shows no mercy, but then again none of us (in the family) do.
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“Danger said to him ‘how’s your old man?’ and Bernie said ‘he’s here tonight actually’ and apparently Danger said ‘well good luck finding him, there’s a few bars in Geelong’ and they smiled.
“Then all of a sudden it was Bernie being disrespectful.
“But it hasn’t worried him at all and I think you’ll find he’ll be going pretty hard on Saturday night.”
Vince won Melbourne’s best-and-fairest in his second year at the Demons in 2015 and quickly built a reputation as a selfless team-man who could be a disciplined tagger in his 98 games in red and blue.
“He tagged Dangerfield and bashed him up a bit a few years ago,” Tim said.
“But they’re still mates as soon as the game is finished.
“I remember back in the day we’d be playing and there’d be fights all over the ground then afterwards we’d even shower together in the sheds and not once did I see a problem.”
Vince said he found all the talk about his post-game smile “quite bizarre”.
“I was as shattered as anyone when we lost, it was the first game I’d ever played in where a goal after the siren had cost us the win,” he said on FIVEaa on Thursday.
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“I went down to my knees then it just happened that Danger came up after and we were talking about my old man and we had a bit of a smile and thought nothing of it.
“But you’ve got cameras and people who comment on footy a lot and it was the subject of the week.
“The people who know me have no doubt at all about the way I go about my footy and how competitive I am to win, I hate losing.
“They think I’ve got a bit of white line fever so it’s almost the opposite. But when the game is finished I think it’s done.”
Vince said the cameras would probably be on him on Saturday night but he wouldn’t change who he was.
“If I was a supporter or member would I like to see someone smiling or laughing after a loss? Probably not, but it’s just what happened, Danger was laughing and I was smiling but I was just as shattered a millisecond after I stopped talking to him.
“I’ll probably be put up to it again this weekend, I’ve got more mates in this team than I have at Geelong.
“I’ll still be myself, I won’t change, the people who matter to me at the footy club have laughed it off - pardon the pun.”
In the wake of the Vince saga, Hawthorn legend Dermott Brereton said Melbourne was a “gentleman’s club” to which senior coach Simon Goodwin said “James Bond was a gentleman but he was a killer as well”.
Vince will play his 100th game for Melbourne next week after 129 for Adelaide. He was dropped for two weeks earlier this month and is out of contract at the end of the season but isn’t concerned about his future.
“When you get to my age it’s a year to year thing, I didn’t sign until just after the season finished last year so I’m in no rush,” Vince said.
“I’ll only get a contract if I’m in the team and required, I’ve had some really honest conversations with Goody even the last two years about what footy looks like when I’m finished and what happened with him, it’s all been open and honest.”
reece.homfray@news.com.au
Originally published as Melbourne’s Bernie Vince says he won’t change his game-day demeanour as dad Tim warns against underestimating his desire to win