Geelong youngster Andrew Mackie is eagerly awaiting his AFL debut against Sydney at the SCG on Saturday night.

The seventh selection in the 2002 National AFL Draft spent the entire 2003 season in the VFL, but three rounds into his second year with the Cats, Mackie finally has his chance.

“I am very excited,” he said before training at Skilled Stadium on Friday.

“Bomber (coach Mark Thompson) rang me up yesterday and said I’d be going up to Sydney. It’s a good chance to get a sniff of AFL footy.

“Last year in the twos I didn’t think about the ones too much because I knew I had to work on my game. I didn’t dwell on that too much. This year I really made an effort.”

The 19-year-old from Glenelg in South Australia will be pulling on the blue-and-white hoops for the first time sooner that he might have expected after pre-season knee surgery slowed his progress, keeping him off the track for two months.

“Obviously I had a bit of a setback with my knee, but it’s been good to be able to come back and play alright and get a chance to play a game. Hopefully it won’t be the last.”

As the club’s first draft pick in 2002, Mackie comes into the Geelong side, with lofty expectations from Cat fans, particularly former forward Billy Brownless, who has been singing the youngster’s praises for sometime.

Standing at 192cm, Mackie is an athletic midfielder, who has been playing as a ruck-rover in the twos, changing across half-back and half-forward.

“I’m not feeling pressure, being the first draft pick,” he explained.

“I’ll probably be a bit more nervous coming into the game. I’m just looking forward to getting out there and hopefully playing my role in a winning team against Sydney this Saturday.”

Mackie acknowledged that he will be making his debut at a challenging time for the club. After suffering poor losses in the first two rounds to St Kilda and Carlton, Geelong is desperate to turn things around.

“We’ve acknowledged that we haven’t played good footy over the last two weeks and we’re just looking forward to getting up to Sydney and putting in a strong performance,” Mackie said.

“We’ve trained really well through the pre-season, we’re strong and fit and we’ve just got to back ourselves. We know we can do it.

“We’ve trained well, we do everything right in the weights room and we’ve done a solid pre-season. It’s just a matter of bringing it into the games. We’re confident (of a good season), we’ve just got to get the ball rolling.”