A DRONE has been used for the first time in a working woolshed to film star Melbourne Football Club midfielder Bernie Vince’s continued participation in Australian Wool Innovation’s Fibre of Football campaign.

The AFL player joins fellow football stars Tom Hawkins, Nat Fyfe and Luke Breust who have all shared their stories as part of the campaign to highlight the connections between the wool industry and Australian Rules Football.

The Fibre of Football campaign was created to show football fans the importance of the wool industry to the fabric of the game now enjoyed by millions of Australians every weekend.

Last year, Bernie Vince showed he is much more than an elite athlete by shearing a sheep on the MCG, perhaps the first time a sheep had been shorn on Yarra Park for almost 200 years, AWI said.

“I haven’t done it for a while and I don’t know how these shearers do 200 a day, I shear one and need to have a lie down,” he said at the time.

In the latest Fibre of Football video, shown on channel 7 as part of last weekend’s AFL coverage, Bernie has some fun in taking the viewer back to his family property on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsular. Having spent a lot of time in woolsheds, Bernie and his father Tim explain the importance of the humour and teamwork that takes place inside a shearing shed.

As Bernie explains in the video, a shearing team shares a lot with a good football team as “you don’t need to tell people too much, everyone knows their role and they just get the job done and this is how a good shearing team works as well.”

AWI said the Vince video is the first time a drone has been used to film and then broadcast inside a working shearing shed, showing the flow of wool from the sheep’s back to woolpress as part of an iconic Australian activity.

The Fibre of Football campaign has now been running for well over 12 months and involves 100 percent Australian Merino wool football jumpers, scarves, beanies, gloves and knitting kits available through AFL club stores and websites.

Source: AWI