News of Darren Bell’s death leaves Melbourne Storm grieving
The sudden death news of the Melbourne Storm’s recruitment manager, Darren Bell, on Wednesday, December 21, has left the franchise in a state of grief.
Bell passed away because of the severe cardiac arrest. He was responsible for bringing in Matt Duffie and Jesse Bromwich from New Zealand to Storm which he joined in 2007. Also, the inductions at the under 20’s club are to his credit. He also amassed international
media exposure, when he also lured the emerging talents from alternate code, Matt McGahan and Cade Umaga to league quarters.
The big name in the world of rugby league ended his term in this world at a very sudden note. The news was very shocking for anyone who came across it, which was also endorsed by the Football operations manager, Frank Ponissi.
Expressing his views about recruitment manager who is responsible for making in praiseworthy inductions, Ponissi said, “Darren was very well respected in the industry as a recruitment manager and as a person. As a member of our footy department he has been
very important in our recruitment and retention strategy over the last four years and was part of the plans around our future recruitment. Darren had a great eye for identifying football talent, but most of all he was a good person. His most important recruitment
philosophy was to recruit good people first and he certainly led by example in this area.”
Ponissi will be remembered for a long time for the valuable recruits he made especially for the Australian Rugby League franchise. This grave loss has been intensely felt by the players and staff alike, who had left for their Christmas break on a very low
note.
The 45-year-old recruitment manager had been a President of Wests, who worked day in and day out in keeping Queensland Cup competition running before Panthers were forced into the second tier games in 2004, because of the financial crisis they were facing.
He also went further to the point of arranging free accommodations for inductions made by him at Wests where he also worked on developing the relations with the defunct Adelaide Rams.
Tags: