You beauty, Bazz

Lifetime achievement award for top recruiter

GEELONG Falcons head of recruiting Barry Orvis is credited with identifying some of the Falcons’ greatest players, including a then 14-year-old Darcy Parish.

Orvis last night was presented with the Allan Jeans Lifetime Achievement award at AFL Victoria's community football awards for his extended commitment to local footy.

The 62-year-old has had a decorated career in the sport, which kicked off as a junior footballer for Mount Waverley.

Orvis played under-19s and reserves at Richmond and then won a senior premiership at Queenscliff in 1975, before taking up Auskick and junior coaching in the 1990s.

In 2009, he took on the role of under-15s team two coach at the Geelong Falcons and then team one coach in 2013.

Current Falcons under-15s coach Neville Daffy said “Bazz” should be credited for identifying a number of AFL players as teenagers.

“Bazz and I saw Hugh Goddard as a 14-year-old on a very frosty Sunday morning at Drysdale,” Daffy said.

“Hugh took three or four clean, one-take grabs as though it was a dry day. We both looked at each other and thought, ‘The kid’s got something’.

“Darcy Parish was another great example of seeing him as a 14-year-old and just thinking immediately that he’s got something special.”

Daffy also recalled Orvis’ first sighting of Charlie Curnow.

“Interleague training ses- sion for under-16s, Bazz hadn’t seen much of a kid called Charlie Curnow due to school footy and injury, but in a scratch match under poor lighting Charlie took a couple of, in Bazz’s words, ripper grabs at full pace with arms extended,” Daffy said.

“That was enough for us to implore the Falcons’ list management team to get him in.

“The thing that I always admire about Bazz is that all his involvement has always been about the players and giving them an opportunity.”