ASK JESSE Dattoli what his goals were for 2024 and you get a straight answer.

"I said at the start of the year I didn't want to wait for the second night," the forward prospect said, referring to the first round of the draft being selected on night one of the event and the rest of the selections on night two.

Ask him if there's anything else he'd ever wanted to do apart from being a footballer and it's an even straighter response.

"Nope," he said. "I love footy. That love started when I was three or four and my dad was coaching local footy. I used to sit in the reviews watching him give some sprays out, sit in the box while he was coaching and I was always around footy. I had not much choice but to love it and get involved."

Ask the Northern Knights forward-midfielder about whether the competitive nature he shows on the field has always been there and he smirks.

"I feel like once you're competitive, that's what you are. You're either competitive," he said, "or you're not". 

The 18-year-old is certainly competitive – plus some. He's a goalkicker, having had back-to-back three-goal games at the end of the Knights' season. He marks well overhead – having wanted to be more than just a small crumber. He goes up the field and has an impact as a ball-getter – in a final this year he had 35 disposals. 

The build has been bit-by-bit. As a junior he would play for Ivanhoe in Melbourne's northern suburbs in his own age group and then double up in the one above. By the time he started at Carey Grammar, he was doing a game on Saturday into another on Sunday. 

In year nine, he played in the school side's first XVIII. In year 10, he would play midfield for Carey and then play on Sundays for Ivanhoe's under-16s side, focusing on improving his forward craft. This year, he wanted to show his array of talents.

"I wanted to prove that I could play, obviously, but I wanted to prove I could be a marking forward and that I wasn't just a small forward who was good when the ball hit the ground. I also wanted to prove myself as a mid and show my inside work," he said.

Boxing has been a part of Dattoli's build-up to having his name called by a club in November.

Over pre-seasons it has been a crucial element of his fitness regime, mixing two days a week of boxing training with swimming sessions. As a 14-year-old, he had a couple of bouts.

"I won the first one pretty comfortably and the second one I lost in a split decision, which I don't think I should have lost," he said with the kind of cheek possessed by plenty of the game's best small forwards.

But the 179cm prospect wants more strings to his game than just inside-50. The players Dattoli idolises are midfielders: Lachie Neale ("He knows what he's going to do before he gets the ball"), Chad Warner ("He drives his legs so well and I try to do that") and Isaac Heeney ("Another mid who can go forward and take marks").

He also has a couple of good midfielders in his corner already. His dad Vince was the long-time coach of Carey's firsts team, including its 2019 premiership side, which included Gold Coast pair Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson (picks No.1 and 2 that year) and Collingwood superstar Nick Daicos (pick No.4 the following season). Dattoli was in year seven that year but recalls in detail the road to that flag.

"That was a crazy year. I remember the loss against Haileybury. They had the bye the week before and did all their research and came out and watched us and were able to execute it on the day. I remember sitting upstairs after the game with 'Rowelly' and he was crying because it meant so much to him," he said. "I remember that feeling after they were able to beat Caulfield and seeing my dad and what it meant to him."

He missed the day Daicos kicked an after-the-siren goal to keep his side in the premiership hunt, but he has remained in contact with Rowell and Anderson, and trains with the pair occasionally when they're back in Melbourne over summers – in between some table tennis battles. 

"Rowelly and I have played some pretty good table tennis matches," Dattoli said. "He beat me the first time, which is unusual, so I put everything back on the table and got him in the second one." 

Dattoli doesn't mind a doubter. His preparation and work ethic underpin his self-belief but proving his talents to other people – and occasionally proving them wrong – is built into his motivation.

"It's always there. It's always in your ear when you're running, it's always in your ear when you're training or lining up for goal," he said.

"Missing out on the Academy and things like that… I wanted to be in that group and I knew what I could do. But missing out shows that not everyone else knows what you can do. You still need to prove it to everyone else, which is important in the sport we play. It's not just up to me."

And so now Dattoli waits the three weeks until the draft, with his exploits across the season putting him in the frame as a top-25 pick. He didn't test at the Telstra Draft Combine due to injury but had plenty of club interviews, including with Collingwood, the club he supports. They asked him to define pressure, and then how he has gone with it.

"I described it as standing up in big moments in games, like Jamie Elliott kicking the goal after the siren. This year I think I've performed under pressure pretty well," he said.

But he knows more pressure is coming at the top level. Ask Dattoli how it feels to be on the verge of the start of his AFL career and he's matter of fact. 

"It's going to start to feel a lot more real, but for me getting drafted isn't everything. I feel like it's just the first step. I want to get to wherever I get to and then get to work," he said.