Bowden is Tigers B&F
10:00:32 PM Wed 8 September, 2004
Paul Gough
Sportal
The remarkable resurrection of the AFL career of Joel Bowden has culminated in the Richmond star taking out his first Tigers' best and fairest on Wednesday night.
Bowden won the 2004 Jack Dyer Medal with 324 votes from Kane Johnson on 279 votes - with the former Adelaide star finishing runner-up for the second successive year - while boom recruit Nathan Brown was third on 273 votes and spearhead Matthew Richardson fourth with 215 votes.
And in a sign of better things to come for this year's wooden spooners, the next three finishers were all youngsters with Chris Hyde fifth on 166 votes, Andrew Krakouer sixth with 145 votes and Brent Hartigan capping an outstanding debut season by finishing seventh with 111 votes.
Hartigan also won the Tigers' best first year player award.
But the night was a triumph for Bowden, who has often endured a love/hate relationship with the supporters of a club where his father Michael played in the 1969 premiership side.
After a limited pre-season due to injury Bowden began the season by playing his 150th game in the round one opener against Collingwood but struggled.
And when he was dropped after the disastrous round five loss to Adelaide at Telstra Dome - ending a streak of 136 consecutive matches dating back to round five, 1998 - it appeared the 26-year-old's career was at the crossroads.
But Bowden not only served his penance with Coburg in the VFL but he came back a totally different player.
Forced to play at centre-half-back, despite his lack of height and weight for the position - Bowden had a staggering 42 possessions and 11 marks against top-placed Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium just three weeks later.
He also showed he could match it against even the AFL's biggest centre-half-forwards such as Brisbane's Jonathan Brown while also continuing to win plenty of the ball and set up Richmond attacks out of defence.
In his last 14 games of the season Bowden only twice failed to collect at least 20 possessions and his dominance of the second half of the season was reflected in the counting for the Jack Dyer Medal.
After a blistering start to the season Nathan Brown had a huge lead over Bowden early on in the count but Brown only polled three votes after round 14 as he battled injury and dwindling form.
In contrast Bowden barely polled a vote in the first seven rounds but from round eight onwards he only failed to poll votes in two games and the revival of his football career was complete when he was given a standing ovation upon being announced the winner of the 2004 Jack Dyer Medal.
http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=170243
