THROUGHOUT the remainder of the 2008 NAB AFL under 18 championships, AFL youth and high performance coordinator and former AFL star Jason McCartney will give afl.com.au his thoughts on the players who caught his eye.

Here are his assessments after Victoria Metro defeated South Australia by 53 points at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

Victoria Metro:
Jack Watts: Jack is a star. He’s one of our AIS boys and he’s also a very talented basketballer. He wanted to balance both footy and basketball through the scholarship program, but in the end he has chosen to go for football because his workload was just too great. He was a star in Vic Metro’s win Vic Country. He was a little bit quiet against Tasmania, but obviously very prominent against South Australia.
He kicked five goals, had 17 disposals and took three really big contested marks. He has great agility, great lateral movement and the ball just melts into his hands.
There has been a lot of talk about the WA boys and how talented they are, but Wattsy is a great kid and is right in that mix.

Tom Scully: Tom is another star in the Vic Metro side. He’s bottom-aged, so he can’t be drafted this year, but he is all class. He’s a left-footer; is good around the clearances and sets up the play with his quick hands. He had a massive nine inside 50s against South Australia and also kicked two goals, but it was his work around the clearances that was most impressive. He’s just a quality act.

Jordan Lisle: Jordan plays at centre-half back and has been really good over the three games. He’s disciplined, strong overhead and has great footy smarts. He rarely gets beaten in a contest and he also provided some good run from defence in the game against South Australia.

Shaun McKernan: Shaun is really playing his part. Saturday’s game was probably the most time he has spent on the ground during the championships so far. In the first two games he switched between the ruck and interchange to make way for some of Vic Metro’s other good, tall options, but against SA he rested a bit up forward. He has a great attack on the footy in the air and is a great contested mark. He was really solid in the ruck with 15-hit-outs and it was another good performance from Shaun. It’s just frightening to think I played with his brother and watching Shaun is like seeing Corey play all over again. He’s just a replica.

David Zaharakis: David had a really good first game; was a bit quieter in the second, but he was just tremendous again on Saturday. He’s got a really high work rate and can play out on the wing and also in the midfield. He’s pretty hard at it and always finishes well. He had another 21 touches against SA and also five inside 50ms. David is a really good leader and is a bit of a barometer for Vic Metro. When he plays well; the team usually does and that was certainly the case on Saturday.

Luke Shuey: Luke had 18 disposals, five clearances and also snared a couple of goals playing through the midfield and across half-forward. He plays with a really good intensity and, even though he got rushed with a few disposals on Saturday, when he had those opportunities to finish around goal, he did.

South Australia:
Matthew Broadbent: Matty is very good in close. His disposal is effective by both hand and foot and he’s been quite consistent throughout the championships. Against Vic Metro he finished up with 21 possessions and three hard-ball-gets. He had a really good, solid four-quarter performance.

Dale Armstrong: Dale was very prominent on Saturday. He’s not the biggest kid out there but he has a great work rate. His clearance work was very good in the third quarter and he ended up with 21 disposals, four clearances and five inside 50ms. Dale was certainly one player I thought stood up for the SA team.

Rhys O’Keeffe: Rhys is a left-footer, who like Broadbent, uses the ball really well. He played across half-back and also in the midfield. He had 20 disposals and showed he can win his own footy with three hard-ball-gets.

Jay Shannon: I haven’t seen much of Jay in the Championships so far, but he was a real in-and-under type player in the midfield on Saturday. He wins his own footy, is good around the stoppages and finished with 21 disposals and five inside 50s.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL