IN A GAME where four of his teammates left the field in the hands of trainers, Crows onballer Bernie Vince was determined not to become another casualty.

Vince left himself open to a heavy bump from Port Adelaide forward Daniel Motlop in the second quarter and a few anxious minutes ticked by while the 22-year-old lay on the AAMI Stadium turf.

But Vince, with his team’s interchange bench resembling a war zone, got to his feet and showed resilience in claiming the Balfours Showdown Medal for best on ground.

“I think that example from Bernie probably typifies the way it went for us tonight,” Adelaide coach Neil Craig said after the game.

“Congratulations to Bernie. He’s been threatening to play exceptional football and hopefully that’s a major step in his career.”

Vince’s 13th AFL game proved to be lucky with the crafty midfielder racking up 24 touches and booting two important goals.

The country lad from Stansbury said there was never any doubt he would get up after the Motlop bump.

“I just didn’t really see him coming, so I’ll cop that as a fair bump. A lot of our fellas copped some knocks, but we expected that,” he said.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game this week especially with what had been said about Port during the week.

“It was a credit to the boys to be able to take those hard knocks, to keep fighting and to hold on.”

Vince, who was plucked from relative obscurity by the Crows in 2005, credited his best ever AFL game to the influence of mentor and new skipper Simon Goodwin.

“At the end of last season Goody kind of took me under his wing and said, ‘I want you to play in the midfield this year’ and we started training three or four weeks earlier than the main group,” he said.

“I’ve been here for three years now, so there’s no excuses. I realised this is going to be a big year for me and it started with Goody saying he wanted me to come out and train earlier. I put it all down to that.”

Vince was one of a number of players forced to play the entire last quarter because of Adelaide’s heavy injury toll.

“I was knackered towards the end, but I love to be knackered because then I know I’ve left nothing in the tank,” he said.