Geelong forward Stewart Crameri has opened up on the toll that the Essendon drugs saga had on him and his family while he was serving a WADA suspension.
An emotional Crameri appeared on Fox Footy’s On The Mark last night where he detailed how difficult it was for him to watch the club and people he cares about get dragged through the mud.
“It’s okay that it’s happened to me, it’s just the family and friends and all of the pressure that I’ve put on them,” Crameri said.
“It’s all of the pressure that gets put on all of the people at the club. It was just really hard to see all of these great people going through this stuff. They were getting slagged through the media. They were my friends.
“For someone to be guilty of something when they’re innocent, it’s just really hard to take. If you’re guilty, then that’s fair enough. But when you didn’t intentionally do anything wrong, I think that’s the hardest part to swallow.”
At the end of 2013, Crameri left Essendon to join the Western Bulldogs, who went on to win a premiership during the year that he was serving the WADA ban.
“I got married on the Friday, it was a great day obviously, and then the next day I watched the Grand Final with all my friends and family,’ Crameri told On The Mark.
“About halfway through the last quarter I realised the boys were actually going to do it and it was quite hard to watch because I felt I should have been there, I should have been playing but I wasn’t.
“I wasn’t angry as such, I was so happy for them but so sad that I couldn’t be a part of it.
“I had to remove myself from my family ... I went out to the front and I sat there for five minutes. I said ‘I’ll give myself five minutes to reflect on it, be upset, whatever you have to be’ just to make sure I come back and not be upset about it and when I see the guys I’m really happy for them.
“Watching that last bit was quite tough but there’s many a story of people missing out on Grand Finals, it is hard but that’s just part of the game.”
Now at Geelong, the 29-year old forward has tied some games together and filled Daniel Menzel’s role while he’s been injured.