Personal Responsibility

As a Queenslander I don't know vey much about AFL and even less about Daryn Cresswell, but what I do know about him impresses the hell out of me.

Daryn has been forced to declare himself bankrupt as a result of a number of failed investments and some gambling debts. When asked about it he said this:

"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me because I don't deserve to have anyone feeling sorry for me," he said yesterday.

"I created my own problems. I made mistakes. I gambled and it got me."

Mistakes including:

"My financial problems started towards the end of my career. When I retired I had four properties, in Hawthorne (Brisbane) and in Coolum.

"I had a company, Dardon Financial Services, I invested in shares. And the shares brought me undone, and then I invested more and more, trying to get it all back. I tried to win back what I'd lost, and got hooked, and it got me.

"It was the old outlook -- if you lose it, you can always get it back.

"There were times I didn't take advice when I should have, but there were other times I took advice and it didn't work for me.

"I tried to work it out myself and went in harder and harder when I should have pulled away."

And:

"When you're going through this, there is a lot of weight on you, and I know that that weight changed how I dealt with people," Cresswell said.

"It all happened before I knew it. I wasn't getting the footy dollars, the income was not coming in as it once did, but I was still living as though I was on the income of the playing days.

"I wasn't able to adapt to it at all. I'd bite at people. I know I carried a lot of anger around with me and my whole personality changed.

"I know people started to not like me from then and I know I gave them reason not to like me. And I now carry that. Some of those people may not think much of me, and that doesn't sit well.

"I regret the whole thing. I regret putting myself in the position I did. I regret everything."

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to admit to a list of personal and business failings this long and it is rare in this day and age for a public figure to accept this level of responsibility for their actions.

On that basis I would like to say: Good luck Daryn