One of the most pleasing things about our young midfielders is their desire to be the best they can possibly be and the way they measure themselves against the AFL’s top players.
Every week they inevitably come up against seasoned, hard-bodied midfielders and the St Kilda game was a very good learning curve.
Players like Leigh Montagna, Nick Dal Santo, Lenny Hayes and Brendon Goddard have got a lot of chemistry with one another, while Clint Jones is one of the game's best taggers.
We have a couple of senior guys in there, but we’re always going to have three or four young blokes in the midfield as well.
I thought it was great for Brad Ebert and Tom Swift to have a close look at Hayes and Goddard first hand, and see how they make their possessions count and how hard they work.
Scott Selwood did a really good job on Montagna, keeping him to nine possessions after quarter time, while Matt Rosa was given a role on Dal Santo and did reasonably well on him.
The young guys learn from every game they play, and Scott is a good example of how much time is spent on preparation before a game and then reviewing how you went the next week. He’s very thorough in what he does heading into a game.
Scott went through a lot of Montagna’s past games, noted what he does well and then gave us his opinions on that.
With senior players like Montagna that have been around for a while, most of the coaches know how they play, and the younger players themselves are right across them.
So I’ll share a few things that I’ve picked up watching him, but you want the player to source a lot of that himself and develop his own thoughts and ideas, so he’s got a really solid understanding of that player.
We face Carlton on Sunday and another really exciting midfield, particularly with Chris Judd getting his agility and speed off the mark back.
He’s probably the best midfielder to have gone around in the last 10 years and I think it would be great for Swifty to have a run on him for a little while.
Then you’ve got No.1 draft picks in Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs, who are probably two to three years ahead of our young guys, and hardened players like Heath Scotland, Kade Simpson and Andrew Carrazzo.
Physically you’ve got to be careful pitting young players up against these guys, but you’d love to give them some time in the middle against senior players like that.
As they did against St Kilda, the young guys can see how hard these players work and come into the club on Monday with a better understanding of what they need to do to be elite AFL footballers.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.
