We’ve spent too much time this season talking about those who would disrespect the game with their actions. You know their names. But not today. Let’s talk about one of the good guys.
Danny Buderus doesn’t know if he’s playing his last game on Saturday night. He sure hopes he isn’t, but he can only control so much of what happens when his Knights team plays the Roosters.
Some people would say the rest is in the lap of the football gods, but I don’t believe in the football gods. If there was such a thing, we could already be sure about what was going to happen.
The Knights would win, and they would win again the following week in the grand final against either the Rabbitohs or the Sea Eagles, to give Buderus a fairytale finish to his career.
I was going to say the fairytale finish he deserves, but Buderus has never been one to believe the game owed him an outcome.
When he didn’t get the result he wanted, he was disappointed, but never bitter. When he did get it, he celebrated with the best of them.
Now he hopes to celebrate one last time, on Sunday week.
Buderus is 35 years old. He is no longer the 80-minute player that he was, but he has been smart enough to adjust. He is still effective – just in shorter spurts.
He still commands respect with his performances, which is the acid test for a veteran footballer at the end of the day.
Buderus is so in love with the game it’s not funny, but when he is no longer playing rugby league it will still be the game that is the biggest loser.
Let me go over a bit of old ground to show what Buderus is about.
When I wrote about him being named captain of the NSW side in 2004, his mother, Christine, told me: “One day, when he was eight years old, he came up to me and said, ‘Mum, I’m going to be a professional footballer’.
“He was into all sports as a kid and he was good at most of them. He was a very good sailor and played basketball and cricket. He raced BMX bikes as well, but footy was the thing he loved the most. He was very passionate about it.
“Dan was usually captain of the team. He was a bit of a star… It probably sounds terrible, talking him up like that, but he has never been full of himself.
“We wouldn’t let that happen, but we didn’t have to worry. He’s just a darlin’ thing.”
Christine and her husband, Gus, let Buderus leave the family home at Taree when he was just 16, so he could live with a host family in Newcastle and play football on a scholarship with the Knights.
She talked about how he hadn’t been at the club long when he broke the tibia and fibula in his left leg, and how it was the first of a string of bad injuries:
“A shoulder reconstruction, an operation on his wrist, something with his Achilles tendon and a lot of stitches under his chin. He seems to get a lot of cuts there. And he’s had two broken noses. That beautiful face, it was straight once.”
Remember, this was 2004. Buderus has had to overcome more serious injuries since, including a ruptured biceps, another Achilles issue and lower back damage that required surgery.
But, each time, he came back.
When Buderus left the Knights the first time around, as a 30-year-old at the end of the 2008 season, he believed that was it for him in the NRL.
He was off to join English club Leeds, and thought his career would end in Super League.
He was afforded a wonderful tribute luncheon at Wests Leagues, in Newcastle, which I was fortunate enough to attend.
This wasn’t about booking a venue for two hours and hustling everybody out the door when the time was up. It went for four-and-a-half hours, and included among the speakers were Andrew Johns, Wally Lewis, Phil Gould, Michael Hagan, Paul Harragon, Brian Smith, Mark Hughes and Craig Fitzgibbon.
‘Joey’ produced a couple of cracking stories about his mate ‘Bedsy’ that have got to be repeated here.
Johns was managed by John Fordham, who also managed radio king John Laws, and he had been invited to Laws’ 60th birthday party. He took Buderus and Hughes with him.
The trio had been out together the previous night, and Buderus was feeling game enough to have a crack at ‘Lawsie’.
Johns told the gathering at Wests Leagues, “Bedsy said, ‘What’s going on with your hair, Lawsie?’ Then he had another go, and said, ‘Hey, skunk hair, what’s going on with your hair?’ Then he started pulling on it.”
Laws, Johns said, took the ribbing well, and replied by drinking Buderus under the table on his bourbon of choice – Wild Turkey.
“Bedsy stayed at my place that night,” Johns said. “The next day, he said to me: ‘Hey, mate, did we go to Sydney yesterday?'”
The other yarn was about Kerry Packer.
“We were at a sponsors’ dinner during a State of Origin camp,” Johns said.
“Kerry asked, ‘Why are there so many injuries these days? How do we stop the injuries?’
“Danny said to him, ‘There’s too many games’.
“Kerry said, ‘I’ll ask you again, how do we stop it?’
“Danny said, again, ‘We play too many games’.
“I said to Danny, ‘Mate, this bloke controls the game on TV. He’d have it on all year, if he could.’
“Kerry came back to him: ‘I’ll ask you again.’
“This time, Danny said, ‘Outlaw gang tackles’.”
But it wasn’t over for Buderus in the NRL. After three years in England, he came home and played two more years with the Knights.
The critics thought he was too old, but Wayne Bennett knew what he was doing.
This week, Buderus told me he was “daring to dream”. I hope his dream comes true.
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