Sensational article on M Gardiner from The Australian ...

[Oh When the Saints]

Mature Gardiner becomes Saints' role model
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 32,00.html

Jenny McAsey | March 29, 2008

MICHAEL GARDINER and role model. If you were playing a word association game, it would not be the first phrase that springs to mind to describe the West Coast recalcitrant turned St Kilda ruckman.

However, ask his former team-mate Brett Voss to talk about Gardiner's behaviour since he moved across the country late in 2006, and that is what he comes up with.

"Michael came to the club under a fair bit of pressure," Voss said bluntly.

"And he really acted as a good role model for guys going through injury problems or other problems."

Gardiner not only had a bad-boy reputation hanging over his head but a body that kept letting him down. When he ran out to play against Sydney last Saturday night, it was his first senior game for 20 months.

Last year he played just one reserves match, hamstrung by painful injuries to both feet. On several other occasions he was named to play alongside Voss in the seconds, only to pull up sore at the last minute.

"He had a number of setbacks but he didn't dwell on things he couldn't control, and he did everything right to get back from injury," Voss said.

"His demeanor around the place and his attitude was always positive and that is a good role model for guys who can get down on themselves."

To those close to Gardiner, the burly 28-year-old who left the Eagles in 2006 after crashing his car through a roundabout and sending it airborne is still larger-than-life.

He can be loud, abrasive even, a big man who loves to tease and banter with team-mates, who sometimes speaks out of turn and courts attention.

But away from Perth and the friends of dubious character he associated with, the player who took the field last Saturday for his first AFL game since June 2006 was a happier, more mature man. He has had a steady girlfriend for more than a year and has kept his rap sheet blank since he arrived in Melbourne.

"When you hear of someone who has been in the news often, you are not sure of their attitude or personality but there were no problems fitting in with the guys at St Kilda," Voss said. "He definitely worked hard at making sure he wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time. The respect came from the guys and it will continue to come as he continues to do the right thing."

The sulky, moody footballer who departed the Eagles on bad terms is determined to re-pay St Kilda for giving him a second chance when no other AFL club would contemplate it.

Not only did the Eagles think Gardiner's body was gone, they were happy to sacrifice him as they tried to convince the football world they were cleaning up their act.

But a few people held faith in the player who was the number one draft pick in 1996. There was of course, his father, Renny, who worked hard to secure him a deal with another club when all seemed lost.

And Ron Joseph, the veteran manager who had a hunch that Gardiner and St Kilda, with straight-shooting coach Ross Lyon at the helm, could be a good fit.

Last Saturday night they were vindicated.

Gardiner gathered 10 possessions and 13 hit-outs. But most importantly, rucking in tandem with Geelong refugee Steven King, he gave long-suffering Saints fans hope that the 42-year premiership drought may finally break.

The ruck division has been a long-term problem for the club. Gardiner and King may be the missing pieces of the St Kilda puzzle.

It was that realisation, the knowledge that he could really play a vital role at the club, that re-vitalised Gardiner last year and helped him persist through the injuries.

"I got the feeling when he first came across, he was still feeling whether he really wanted to play at the top level again," Voss recalls. "After a little while, with the new atmosphere he could see the possible outcomes if he got himself right. He could be part of a St Kilda team that was crying out for a ruckman. That lifted him and got him focused, got him saying, 'This is something I want to do and want to work hard at'."

But there were many moments when Gardiner thought it might all be over, that he might never play another game.

He was contracted to St Kilda for just one year, and it wasn't until late 2007 that the club offered him another deal, says Saints football manager, Matthew Drain.

"When we came back (from the break) in middle to late October, it was still up in the air whether he was going to maintain his place on the list," Drain says. "We were all honest enough about that."

Scans showed his foot injuries had healed and from there it was a long, slow process as he increased his training loads during summer without breaking down.

Finally, in early February, Gardiner played an intra-club game, and survived it.

"The big moment in some ways for him was coming back in the intra-club game because he had been that far away from being able to get onto the park last season that he only played about a quarter of football," Drain says. "That intra-club game was a really good effort, given where he had come from."

Voss, who retired from football at the end of 2007, was part of a group of former players who handed out guernseys to St Kilda's first-gamers last Saturday. He admits it was moving to see Gardiner finally running out in the red, white and black for the first time.