Cameron’s Paddock: The story of Geelong star Jeremy Cameron and the premiership cow

It will be forever known as ‘Cameron’s Paddock’, the patch of grass on his 50-acre farm about 20 minutes out of Geelong that had a cow running around with the Cats star’s premiership medal dangling from its neck in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Jeremy Cameron’s Instagram post of the premiership cow heading off into the dark as his mates tried to retrieve it will become a golden memory from the 2022 flag Geelong won on Saturday when they thrashed an insipid Sydney by 81 points.

Jeremy Cameron celebrated his first premiership throughout the night.Credit: Getty Images

“We thought it was funny at the time, and the cow actually got out of the pen and went out into the open paddock and that is when things got a bit funny,” Cameron said.

“I had enough mates to wrangle it up and get it [back].”

Jeremy Cameron, right, celebrates his first premiership win with inspirational skipper Joel Selwood.Credit: Scott Barbour

The laid-back Cats star said cows had become a theme for the weekend after a friend from Dartmoor, who was transporting the animals to the forward’s farm, dragged Cameron out of the house on grand final eve when he became lost.

“My mate brought the cows over from Dartmoor, which is roughly four hours away, and he said he would arrive at 7pm the night before the grand final. He called me at 9pm and says I’m 10 minutes away but I’ve missed the turn and tried to turn around and got bogged,” Cameron said.

“I’m thinking I’m going to have to go and get him here, but I don’t want to because I have a grand final tomorrow and I don’t really want to pull my mate out of the bog, but I had to and ended up getting to bed about 10pm and had a good night’s sleep.”

The premiership cow in question.Credit: Instagram

That night’s slumber was lucky because he only managed a half-an-hour nap before returning to the Cats’ family day at the St Mary’s ground in the shadows of GMHBA Stadium to celebrate the achievement with family and friends.

Cameron wasn’t at his best on the big day, but he still managed to kick two goals, take eight marks and, most importantly, be on the winning team.

Cameron crossed to the Cats from the Giants at the end of 2020 and has played in 30 wins and just nine losses in his time so far at Geelong, with three of those defeats coming in the last four rounds of 2021.

He revealed he asked Brownlow medallist Patrick Dangerfield at three-quarter time on Saturday to look for him if he was free inside 50 because he wanted to kick a goal, with Dangerfield responding that he just needed to run past for the handball and he would assist.

“Don’t look at the ‘behind the goals’ footage because I came from a long way to get that handball,” Cameron said.

He celebrated his next goal by signalling that he was going to open a can of beer and have a drink that night, saying he and his teammates often spoke about his man cave, so the thought just occurred to him at the moment.

The premiership medal safely back around his neck, Cameron stood around his teammates, some who’d had spent the latter part of the celebrations wandering around like brown’s cows.

“The cows have caused a few dramas,” Cameron said.

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