De-listed Sydney midfielder Jonathan Simpkin has declared he is aiming to follow the footsteps of the five players who used Geelong’s VFL side as a springboard into league football.
Simpkin, who was de-listed by the Swans at the end of last year, emerged as the Cats’ biggest VFL signing of the summer this week.
The signing marks a homecoming for the 20-year-old, who grew up in Colac before being rookie-listed by the Swans at the end of the 2005 season.
Simpkin said returning to his childhood home and the VFL Cats’ proven record at kick-starting the career of aspiring AFL footballers were the driving forces behind his decision.
“That’s my aim this year, to have a red-hot crack in the VFL and play some really good footy, try to impress a lot of the selectors in the AFL and try to get back onto a list somewhere else,” Simpkin said.
“Here at Geelong there’s been at least one player every three or four years picked up, so that’s probably why I’m here and hoping to follow the same pathway.
“It’s a good club coming off a premiership, it’s a good VFL side, they’ve lost a few players who have gone to other clubs so there might be a bit of an opportunity here with a lot of the young kids coming in.
“It’s also a good step up because you can use all the facilities, the gym here and you’ve got the AFL physios and doctors around, so they’re always handy to have.
Simpkin is looking forward to playing in one of the best competitions in Australia after playing in the Sydney reserves team that smashed its opposition by 100 points every week in the lowly Canberra league.
“It was a bit ridiculous actually, we were sort of beating sides by about 20 goals every week so it was a bit disappointing,” he said.
“But they sort of like it up there, they can coach it the way they want and play their sort of game plan without having to have outside players coming in.
“It’s not really a great standard of footy, so it’s probably good to come and have a change and step it up this year.”
A casualty of the Swans’ impeccable injury rate, Simpkin did not get an opportunity to make his AFL debut and was cut after the 2007 through no great fault of his own.
“It wasn’t too much of a shock to get de-listed, but no-one had done too much wrong,” he said.
“There weren’t too many blokes retiring or going anywhere else and no blokes were really struggling. It was sort of disappointing, but I guess that’s the way it goes.”
Geelong VFL coach Leigh Tudor said that Simpkin possessed the attributes of a quality ball-winning midfielder and believes he will make an impact for the side this season.
“He’s a very good midfielder, gets a lot of possessions, had two years at a really good club up at Sydney, he’s learnt a lot there so we would like to think that he could walk straight into our VFL side and be one of the leaders,” Tudor said.
“As soon as he was de-listed by the Swans we were really keen to talk to him and to gauge his interest with playing for us.
“He’s a local boy, so we were really keen to sus him out and see what he wanted to do with his footy.
“He’s still really keen to stay involved and play at the highest level so hopefully he can further opportunities by playing with us.
