By Jonty Ralphsmith
Cranbourne life member and 2022 premiership skipper Brandon Osborne was bestowed with having an end of Livingston Reserve named after him on Saturday.
The unveiling followed the seniors’ 58-point win over Bentleigh in Division 1 of the Southern Football Netball League, and was a fitting tribute for one of the region’s great defenders.
Osborne has played 231 senior games for the Eagles and has seven times been named in the league team-of-the-year during a career that has so far spanned 14 seasons.
“It was a huge honour and it’s still sinking in – the severity of it all,” Osborne said.
“It’s a second home, I’ve been there since I was 10 so it means a great deal.
“It will be one of those hard things to walk away from when the time comes because you’ve got these brothers you play football with that you see two or three times a week.
“In 5-10 years to be able to go down there and see that sign I can tell them how good I used to be!”
While it’s a material item he’ll be able to grasp onto and is a perfect gesture, for Osborne it’s the memories he’s made with teammates that will be the most timeless.
“The best thing about our core over that time is we’re a bunch of mates that play football and that’s the reason we’ve played so long – I enjoyed that so much,” Osborne said.
“I wanted that culture to stay like that. If you were from the area and wanted to play football, you came down – we never had recruits really.
“It was a bunch of mates that wanted to play football and enjoyed being around each other so that’s what I loved and what I want the club to continue as and hopefully that brings success.”
Osborne has been a key member of the Eagles’ golden era of success during the past decade, playing in three premierships and shutting down a who’s who of the best local key forwards as an undersized fullback.
It’s therefore fitting that he shares the honour with long time teammate and former Cranbourne full forward Marc Holt, with the other end of the ground named in his honour.
Holt is now playing football for Lang Lang in the Ellinbank District Football League, but had a distinguished career spanning 14 seasons at the Eagles, during which time he developed a strong relationship with Osborne.
“There was a mutual agreement not to go too hard at training,” Osborne laughed.
“I think that’s why I tend to play off my opponent in terms of bodying, because he’s so good at that and so strong I naturally made sure I was a couple of steps off him so I could use my speed and come over the top of him and not have too much contact.
“I would say I learned that from training with ‘Holty’.”
Coach Steve O’Brien is unashamedly outward in calling Osborne the best local defender he’s seen, a sentiment echoed by many, including former coach Doug Koop.
Koop oversaw the early part of Cranbourne’s success and gave Osborne his senior debut, quickly seeing the hallmarks of a successful career.
“From day one you could see he was super competitive,” Koop said.
“He had that sheer desire and intent that as a backman, his man would have to be super-good to get the ball.
“As he got older, playing on Brandon Osborne became a bloody nightmare.
“He was pretty much a star from day one.
“He’s always had a really good intent to kill the contest and prevent his players from winning a lot of the ball.
“His focus was just genuine on his role in the team and what he had to do to be a good player and it never wavered week-in week-out.
“It didn’t matter who he was playing on, he’d stay close to his man, he had very good closing speed and would create a contest.”
Having battled against the likes of Narre Warren legend Kerem Baskaya, former VFL player Aaron Edwards and former Cheltenham tall Josh Fox, a similar theme consistently emerges: Osborne’s ability to fight and negate bigger opponents.
“Having speed has always worked in my favour,” Osborne said.
“Especially towards the start of my career, opponents were bigger and older guys.
“Players would kick it in and I’d have to compete.
“I’d keep off them as much as I could and back my speed to come in over the top and spoil.
“I almost preferred playing on the bigger guys for that reason – I could use my speed to my advantage especially the older I get, I don’t want to play on the faster guys because they’re harder to keep up with.”
With lots of external talk regarding his playing status beyond this year, as he recovers from an ACL, MCL and PCL injury sustained against Cheltenham in June, he provided an update on his future.
“I’m off the crutches now and had surgery two weeks ago,” he said.
“The healing begins and it’s a long road to recovery.
“The plan is to recover.
“It’s working out pretty well because I’ll be able to run in two to three months which is around the time when our preseason will start and I’ll go down there and do the running with the boys and relatively best case I’m back in May but more likely is July-August.
“I’ll have the goal to get back, but I have the opportunity now to be part of it and not be playing.
“If I miss it then I’ll push to get back and if I don’t miss it, then that will sort of be it.
“At this stage I’d like to have the opportunity to play again.
“It’s a long road to recovery so there’ll be weeks I’ll be dying to get back and other weeks I won’t be…so we’ll see.”
