BERBAKOV, Peter

Peter Berbakov had a tremendous year with the Reserves in 1995 as a supplementary list player, finishing third in the Reserves Best and Fairest Player award. He showed skill and had a cool head on the backline, something which Essendon needed with Mark Harvey and Mark Thompson getting towards the end of their careers.

His selection in the 1995 December draft was a just reward for a great year with the Reserves. In 1996, he debuted in Round 1 and played nearly every game early for the year, playing well on some very tough opponents. Towards the end of the season his form slipped a little, and he was in and out of the senior side.

At 23 he appeared to have the potential to become an solid defender for years to come, and he was a consistent contributor in 1999 until the 8th round when he had a bad ankle injury which kept him out of football for the remainder of the season. He won the Coach's award that year.

Berbakov's bad luck continued into 2000 and he did not play a senior game for the season. The popular clubman was delisted at the end of the 2000 season.

He was the VFL runner in 2002.

He had lived for some years in Papua New Guinea as a boy.