NORTH Melbourne dynamo Daniel Wells is ready to join the elite bracket at the Roos and become one of the best players in the AFL, according to teammate and new skipper Brent Harvey.
Speaking at Docklands on Thursday, where the AFL captains gathered ahead of the 2009 Toyota AFL Premiership Season Launch, Harvey said Wells' pre-season had been outstanding.
"I think he's thereabouts [in the elite category]," Harvey told afl.com.au.
"I don't want to put too much pressure on him, because he puts a lot of pressure on himself anyway to perform and he's a competitor.
"But what I've seen over the pre-season and our pre-season games, he's been our best player, and I reckon he's ready to take the step from a good player to a very, very good player.
"He just needs a little bit of consistency, so hopefully we've got some big things coming from him."
Although not yet in the same mould as Wells, Harvey said boom first-year recruit Jack Ziebell loomed as a long-term prospect. But 'Boomer' didn't want to put any further expectation on the youngster in just his first season.
"You can't put too much pressure on him because he just turned 18 last week. He's played all of our pre-season as a 17-year-old,” Harvey said.
“In our first game, he was very good, but he has fallen away a little bit since then, but that's just due to a heavy workload.
"I don't want to put pressure on the kid, but he can play, and we've all seen what he can do. We've seen he can go through the midfield and up forward.
"He's going to be a long, long-time player for the North Melbourne footy club and that's all we'll say about Jack at the minute."
Harvey is also upbeat about the prospects of draftee Liam Anthony.
"He's a little bit more mature at 21-years-old and he's come over from Perth," he said.
"Liam has learned a lot from Shane Woewodin (at East Fremantle). He's taught Liam a lot of things and when you've got someone like Shane Woewodin in your corner, you're doing pretty well.
"Liam's been very consistent – our most consistent player pre-season – and I'm just looking forward to the opportunity of playing with two young guys, who could step into our senior team by round one or two."
In his first season as skipper, the 30-year-old said it took a bit of time to become comfortable in the role, but Harvey said it had helped having a great predecessor in Adam Simpson.
"The first couple of weeks, I was doing interviews and tapping into the membership and some internal things with the footy club. It's been great so far and I've had a couple of hiccups that I've had to deal with, but that's been about it," he said.
"There is probably an extra hour at the club each week and not too much else. I've been lucky enough to have been in the leadership group of the North Melbourne footy club for six years now and this is obviously my first as captain.
"I've been lucky enough to have 'Simmo' there as well and I can bounce a lot of ideas off him and he's been sensational for me."
