EDINBURGH forward Magnus Bradbury believes that being suspended and stripped of the captaincy two years ago has been the making of him - even though he still wishes the whole incident had never occurred.
Now 24, Bradbury has just signed a new contract which will keep him with the club for an unspecified length of time, but in late 2017 his future was in doubt after an incident on a night out in the centre of Edinburgh saw him sustain a head injury.
Coach Richard Cockerill banned him for two weeks - although the injury actually sidelined him for a bit longer - and decided he could not continue as skipper. Two seasons on, however, Bradbury has matured into one of the most dependable members of the squad, and coach and player have developed a mutual respect.
“It was all my own fault and it was a bad time for me, but it's been a learning curve,” Bradbury said yesterday. “I wouldn't say I'm thankful for it - I'd rather it didn't happen - but the lessons I've learned from that have helped me push on, and me and Cockers have a much better understanding of one another now. Being excluded from the Edinburgh and Scotland teams for however long pushed me on and made me want more, and I've turned that situation around and I'm back on a good footing going forward.
“He [Cockerill] is a pretty honest guy, so he'll tell you straight up what he wants you to do. With that first Glasgow game [last month], I didn't play my best and he said why, gave me the points straight up, and I was on the bench the following week.
“For me, that's the best thing from a coach. There's no beating around the bush, they just tell you how they want you to improve and how they want you to play. I think it's the best way you can progress as a player and that helps with Scotland stuff as well.”
Cockerill had not long arrived at Murrayfield when he appointed Bradbury as captain, and clearly felt badly let down by the player’s indiscipline. Now, though, he sees the back-row forward as leadership material again.
“Yeah, I think so,” the coach said. “Look, the more confident you get in playing the game and understanding your role within the game, I think that leads naturally to being able to lead. As long as he stays off the piss, he’s got more chance of leading the team, hasn’t he?
“He’s big and he’s aggressive, he’s a good ball-carrier: when he carries, he carries hard, and he’s good at getting over the gainline. And when you run into him, you stay tackled. He’s a young man, still improving his game, obviously he’s a Test player, important to the national team as well.”
With Edinburgh top of their PRO14 conference and in the running for a Champions Cup quarter-final place, Bradbury is convinced he has done the right thing by agreeing to stay for a while longer at the club he joined as a teenage academy player. “There was a little bit of interest from elsewhere, but I wanted to stay here,” he added. “With this period going forward, with this team we have right now and the coaching staff we’ve got, it’s the right place for me to be. The results I feel we can produce in the next couple of seasons - I think it’s an exciting place to be.”
Bradbury has joined team-mates such as Mark Bennett, Lewis Carmichael and Luke Crosbie in agreeing new contracts, and is expected to figure in the team’s Challenge Cup pool match against Bordeaux in France on Saturday.
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