IT IS no coincidence that Victoria Country won the division-one title at the recent NAB AFL National Under-18 Championships given the squad’s forward strength. The players who rotated through the Vic Country attack had a range of personalities but all had the ability to put the ball through the big sticks.
The three main forwards were leading forwards: Lucas Cook, Tom Lynch and Josh Walker. The other forward to stand out, Jed Lamb, was the wild card.
The first thing you noticed about Lamb was his green boots, which presented a striking contrast with his navy blue and white uniform. Then there was his brashness. He played with a grin. You could imagine him smiling in the teeth of a gale.
On the football side, Lamb was a small forward with a dynamite left foot. He also showed himself to be a natural goalkicker. It was like watching Kyle Reimers with lashings of talent.
During an interview after the match against Queensland, Lamb was open and likeable. His grin was cocked. He spoke with his right hand tucked inside the waistband of his shorts. When asked about his green boots, he thought the question was silly.
“They’re yellow, mate," Lamb replied.
Lamb grew up in Yarram in the South Gippsland region, the seventh of eight children. His father died when he was young. His mother worked in pubs before taking up her current job of working in an aged care home. Lamb frowned when asked whether his mother had done it tough. She was just his mother!
When asked if he had a second sport, Lamb plumped for the unusual choice of squash. In footy, he began playing with the Yarram senior team at 15. The next year he played two TAC Cup games with Gippsland Power but mostly he played with Yarram.
Every night after training at Yarram, he took 100 shots at goal. The most impressive part of this regime is that he was able to organise several 13-year-olds to stand behind the goals and fetch the footy after each shot. Lamb and a handful of Yarram teenagers have worked hard to attain Lamb’s accuracy.
This year Lamb played almost entirely with Gippsland Power before joining the Vic Country squad for the under-18 carnival. He was a standout in the first game, against Vic Metro, in which he kicked four goals and proved the perfect foil for Cook.
In subsequent games he had quiet patches up forward only to shine when given a shot on the wing. During the final quarter of the final game, against South Australia, he was played one-out in the goalsquare. AFL scouts would have slotted him as a forward with good hands and feet who could move into the midfield.
In contrast to Lamb’s swagger, you have Cook’s modesty. The rangy forward grew up in Hopetoun in the southern Mallee region. When he was young his father built a little footy oval behind the farmhouse. The goals were made of PVC piping. Cook and his older brother Jackson kicked the ball in the dust for hours.
Last year Cook was a member of the AIS squad of elite young footballers. Those who run the program were struck by Cook’s reserved attitude, not that it was a problem. Plenty of country kids are quiet when they first engage in wider company.
Cook has apparently come out of his shell this year. Perhaps it’s the hours he spends in the common room at Ballarat and Clarendon College, chatting with his fellow boarders. Perhaps it’s his success on the footy field. Cook has played at centre half-back with his TAC Cup club, North Ballarat Rebels, as well as in his customary key forward post.
During the under-18 championships, Cook shone in the match against Vic Metro. He moved freely around the forward line and took contested marks. His five goals included three in five minutes in the second quarter.
“It was good to get on the end of a few,” he said modestly after that game.
The Vic Country coach, Robert Hyde, was more effusive.
“He turned the game in the second quarter,” Hyde said. “He’s got terrific hands and he’s a great shot for goal.”
Cook was a good contributor at centre half-back during the second half of the match against Western Australia, but he faded as the championships wore on. If he’s drafted as expected, perhaps in the second round, he would have to put on some muscle and improve his endurance.
Lynch, by contrast, improved as the carnival progressed. He started out a relatively unknown quantity, having played only three TAC Cup games with Dandenong Stingrays, but by the end of the carnival he was considered a potential first-round draft pick in the vein of Jarrad Grant.
“Sometimes he plays like a six-foot-five rover,” Hyde said.
Lynch spent last year playing basketball as well as footy with his school, Haileybury College, and his home club, Sorrento. He was reluctant to head up to the Stingrays this year, in part because of school commitments, only to be persuaded by his Sorrento teammate Mitch Hallahan (a midfielder who was also a key player for Vic Country during the recent carnival).
After Lynch had shown enough with the Stingrays to warrant a speculative spot in the Vic Country squad, he proved a master selection. During the carnival, the stringy prospect played deep in attack as well as out at half-forward, leading upfield with his exceptional athleticism.
His match against Queensland in the fourth round was a breakthrough. Playing at full-forward, he took six strong marks and kicked four goals, all in the second half. It was as if a switch was flicked. The Queensland defence was powerless.
“He’s got a hell of a lot of development,” Hyde said. “And he shows that you don’t have to be a robot and go through ‘the system’.”
Walker played as a high half-forward throughout the carnival and impressed with his work-rate. Time and again he presented on the wing before doubling back to make another lead in attack.
He showed an ability to take the ball out in front and overhead. He occasionally misfired with his kicking, but he also booted a few goals, including the first two in the decisive match against South Australia. He’s a chance to be taken late in the national draft.
“Josh is hard at it,” Hyde said. “Whatever role you ask him to play, he does it to the best of his ability. He’s just got to tidy up his kicking action.”
Jed Lamb, 19 October 1992, 181, 77, Gippsland Power/Yarram
Lucas Cook, 3 March 1992, 194, 82, North Ballarat Rebels/Hopetoun
Tom Lynch, 31 October 1992, 196, 86, Dandenong Stingrays/Sorrento
Josh Walker, 12 November 1992, 194, 84, Geelong Falcons/Lara
