Why Newcastle Knights’ Bradman Best can take the NRL by storm
The rising Knights star was not the one who got away from Melbourne Storm but the player who refused to go.
Frank Ponissi is the football director at the Melbourne Storm. His phone rings. Bradman announces himself to be on the line. Ponissi may have been forgiven for thinking, The Don? From the grave? He is risen! But the voice belongs to a 16-year-old making a call he doesn’t really have to make.
The backstory is this. The Storm are interested in the services of a young Bradman Best. He’s never played cricket, by the way, and he has no cricket tragics in the family, and he barely knows a hill from a hollow, and he’s probably never even been to Bowral. Bradman, who shall be referred to as such because nothing beats his Christian name as the greatest in Australian sport, has previously expressed a fondness for the all-conquering Storm. And now word of their approach has reached the ears of the young bloke with the build and running trajectory of the XPT train from Woy Woy to Broadmeadow.
At the time of this tale, he’s a junior development player with the Newcastle Knights. They are the worst team in the country. The Storm are in a never-ending purple patch, the most powerful and successful club in the NRL. To Knights supporters, the Storm’s whispers to a young Bradman are akin to Darth Vader tempting Luke in Star Wars: “Give yourself to the dark side.” The man-child is in his rights, and perhaps wise, to tell Ponissi, a likeable three-decades friend of the family, to sign him up on the spot. Premiership rings are better than wooden spoons. But that isn’t the reason for the call, the one that has led to Bradman playing against the Storm on Saturday night, rather than for them.
“I’ve known Bradman’s family for 35 years,” Ponissi says. “I know his uncle really, really well. I’ve been following his career since he started making all the junior rep teams. I was up there in Newcastle for a get-together over lunch and his uncle said something along the lines of, ‘You know, if there’s a club Bradman might want to play for, it’s the Storm.’
“I said, ‘Pass the message on … We’ll definitely be keen to have a chat to him. Lo and behold, I reckon a couple of weeks later, the young bloke gave me a call himself. He was 16 years of age.”
Says Ponissi: “I wouldn’t have seen Bradman since he was a baby. I’ve had a long association with the family, with his grandfather and parents and especially his uncle, but nothing with Bradman himself. He got the phone number off his uncle and called me. He said, ‘Frank, I just want you to know I really appreciate you showing interest in me. I’m kind of honoured to have even been mentioned by the Melbourne Storm. But the Newcastle Knights have been really good to me, and I want to stick with them. I want repay them for everything they’ve done for me.’ I put down the phone and thought, well, that’s just an absolutely outstanding young man. I’ll be honest — I was quite taken aback by the phone call. I know he comes from good family stock but still, to do that, just speaks volumes for him.”
Bradman has credited Ponissi for planting the seed for his name. He says his grandfather, Peter, a barber, was giving Ponissi a haircut when the Storm boss mentioned the name of the greatest cricketer to have held some willow. Peter told Bradman’s father, Gary, who brought it up when baby names were being discussed at a party. The expectant mother, Tobi, loved it, and it ended up on the birth certificate. Bradman Best.
Ponissi’s memories of his barber-shop involvement are sketchy. But before Bradman and the resurgent Knights face the Storm, Ponissi knows what he sees. A better-than-average prospect.
“Because he was a big kid physically, he dominated juniors,” Ponissi says. “You always knew he was going to play first grade but do it as early as he has, and to be so composed … the composure is the most impressive thing; the composure at his age to handle the pressure of the NRL. People think that just because he’s physically big enough and strong enough, that will equate to a smooth transition. That’s not the case. Your power and strength is important but equally it comes down to, how composed are you in tight situations? Their last two games have been really big games against really good teams.
“He’s done himself proud.”
Prodigious juniors like Bradman, now 182cm and 103kg, aren’t allowed into the NRL until they’ve turned 18. He was a NSW Under-16s and Under-18s player, and an Australian Schoolboy representative, before he made his Knights debut. It came just 15 days after he blew out the requisite number of candles on his cake. He quit school in Year 11 because “it wasn’t for me”.
The Knights organised an electrician’s apprenticeship, giving him a trade to fall back on. He joined the Knights’ pathways program after starring in an under-13s grand final at Woy Woy. They’ve nurtured him for five years. Hence the loyalty. He’s contracted to the Knights until the end of 2022.
He’s told the Newcastle Herald that he gets called Don and Donny. He says his name can “get a bit annoying … but I’m all right with it. I’ve never heard anyone else with the same first name so I guess that makes it pretty special”.
The man-child made his Knights debut last year against the Tigers. They’ve been smashed 46-4 but Bradman has caught the eye. He’s run hard. Fast. Straight. Since the COVID-19 lockdown, he’s had two straight blinders against Penrith and Canberra. The Knights are on the up and up. Ponissi will say g’day at Central Coast Stadium; he’ll tell him he should be proud of himself and his family;
Ponissi may have given the kid his name … but the kid is making an even bigger one of his own.
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