OF ALL the criticism levelled at Greater Western Sydney for the advantages of its academy system, Port Adelaide defender Logan Austin could be the one who got away.
The Canberra product came through the GWS Academy and played two years for the Giants in the NEAFL, but was overlooked in the 2014 draft.
Instead, he was selected by the Power in the fourth round and with the 69th selection overall.
With six games under his belt and having stood the likes of Travis Cloke, Matthew Pavlich and Drew Petrie in the infancy of his AFL career, the 21-year-old will take on the Giants for the first time at Adelaide Oval on Sunday night.
"It's good for my experience learning off those guys and knowing how aggressive you need to be just to compete,'' Austin said.
"When you match up against them, you do everything you can to stop them because at the end of the day if they kick one early they can get a few on you.
"It's just about being aggressive and they've taught me a lot just playing on them.''
The Giants had four picks in the top 23 in the 2014 draft, taking Jarrod Pickett (No. 4), Caleb Marchbank (No .6), Paul Ahern (No. 7) and Patrick McKenna (No. 23) before selecting academy prospects Jack Steele and Jeremy Finlayson.
Steele and Marchbank have played 17 and seven games respectively, while the other four have yet to make their debut.
"There was a chance to be picked up by the Giants, but they chose not to nominate me,'' Austin said.
"I didn't really think they were going to nominate me in terms of their list and they had a couple good academy players coming in.
"It was touch and go, but it's worked out well for me.
"It's not really extra motivation, but I would like to play well and keep my spot in the team.''
Power coach Ken Hinkley singled out Austin for praise after he kept Petrie goalless in last weekend's win over North Melbourne.
''He works deep and also gets up the ground a bit, so he will try and lead back up to the kicker,'' Austin said of Petrie.
"He's played a lot of footy so you know they are going to look for him a bit.
"I could never take it easy when the ball was moving forward for North Melbourne, but I had a lot of support from the other defenders and the midfield played really well.''
After impressing in the SANFL at the start of this year, Austin got his chance in round 11 after an injury to Jack Hombsch and Tom Jonas' six-game suspension.
Austin kept Cloke goalless when the Power smashed the Magpies by 67 points.
However, Pavlich got the better of the young defender a couple of weeks later, kicking four goals and leading the Dockers to an upset win.
"That gave me a lot of lessons in terms of how to use your body in marking contests,'' Austin said.
"'Pav' is really good with his body in a one-on-one and knows how to get you under the footy and he's very good with the timing of his leads, so you have to stay concentrated the whole time.''
A secondary goal this weekend is to get one over his good mate and Giants midfielder Steele.
The pair grew up playing for the Belconnen Magpies and Steele travelled to the MCG to see Austin make his AFL debut.
"It would be good to play against him and I'm sure both our families will be watching, but at the same time we won't realise we're out on the field together and I'll doubt I'll play on Jack,'' Austin said.
