The best young players you've seen at the club

[Twodogs]

Just listening to SEN and they had a spot in where Adam Cooney was talking to Nathan Brown and it got me thinking how similar they were at the start of their careers. Both were young and prodigiously talented rovers with a knack for kicking a goal and I'd have both in the top five or so boom recruits who were going to save the club and lead us to premiership glory in my time watching us.

A top ten would be in no particular order

Adam Cooney
Nathan Brown
Ryan Griffin
Ron James
Brad Johnson
Callan Ward
Marcus Bontempelli
Ijlia Grgic
Chris Grant
Michael Maclean.

Maybe some if those kids didn't arrive with big reputations but their talent became evident very early on.

[1eyedog]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

How about

Tom Boyd
Lachie Hunter
Marcus Bontempelli
Libba Jnr
Mitch Wallis
Jack MaCrae
Jake Stringer
Luke Dahlhaus
Toby McLean
Caleb Daniel

For instance...

[lemmon]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

One of the more interesting ones is Andrejs Everitt. From memory he came into the team mid-year in his debut season and looked tremendous as a running half back. I distinctly remember him dobbing a long goal from 50 and thinking we'd found our next jet.

He was one of the few guys that would've been better off if he'd stopped growing. He became genuine key position size and lost all that dash he'd had early on. Would've been better off as an Andrew Mackie type.

[boydogs]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Stringer has to be in there

[Twodogs]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

KT too. He came into the team as a teenager and kicks 5 or 6.

[Bornadog]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

The best young player I have ever seen is Chris Grant at 17 years old, closely followed by Leon Cameron. Those two 17 year olds in their first year (1990) were just sensational.

[1eyedog]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Leon Cameron. From memory he won a B&F in his first five years and a bunch of media awards too. He was what they call (albeit cringeworthy) quarterback off half back (ala Hodge) before that term became widely used. He set things up with a brilliant skillset that was seldom seen back then.

[jeemak]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

I remember the buzz around Cameron and Grant in 1990 when I was a ten year old. I remember thinking the latter was the bees knees in 1992.

Cooney's raw talent was there for all to see late in his first season, and that got me hugely excited alongside the arrival of Griffen.

This current group of kids excites me most though.

[Twodogs]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

I remember the buzz around Cameron and Grant in 1990 when I was a ten year old. I remember thinking the latter was the bees knees in 1992.

Cooney's raw talent was there for all to see late in his first season, and that got me hugely excited alongside the arrival of Griffen.

This current group of kids excites me most though.

I remember Chris Grant's first kick in AFL footy. He was just some gangly kid we'd taken with pick 105 in the year befores draft. But he was only 16 and he'd been picked in the firsts so the club must have seen something in him. Anyway back in those days I was a ground attendant. Sat on a stool just inside the fence at the Geelong road end in a blue coat and got payed to watch the footy.

We were kicking to the Geelong road end and a few minutes into the first quarter Chris led out and took a mark pretty much where the 50 metre line met the boundary line on the Doug Hawkins wing side of the ground. As he lined up his shot I got off my stool and went and stood next to the goal umpire. The kick went over both our heads for a goal and while the ball went back to the centre the goal umpire asked me who the kid in #29 was. I had to look in my footy record to tell him. Then I went back and sat next to my dad (the other ground attendant) who said "Chris Grant, hmm. We'll probably never hear that name again!"

[jeemak]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Love it.

Imagine how distracted from watching the ball with the correct technique, signalling and flag waving goal umpires would get these days with the likes of mid-20's Twodogs in their ears! Goal umpires were clearly made of sterner stuff back then.

[Twodogs]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Love it.

Imagine how distracted from watching the ball with the correct technique, signalling and flag waving goal umpires would get these days with the likes of mid-20's Twodogs in their ears! Goal umpires were clearly made of sterner stuff back then.

I took my glasses off and handed them to a goal umpire one day. Offered him my glasses would be better. I think he was smart enough not to take them.

[LostDoggy]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Let's see:

Scotty West
Chris Grant
Scotty Wynd
Brad Johnson
Luke Darcy
Rohan Smith
Caleb Daniel
Mitch Wallis
Libba Jnr
The Bont
Toby Maclean
Jackson Macrae
Luke Dahlhouse
JJ
Jake Stringer
Lachie Hunter
Tom Boyd

[Twodogs]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Scotty Wynd is a good get. The club worked really hard to get his signature. I think we paid for him to have a knee operation while he was still technically residentially bound to North Melbourne. I'm not 100% convinced on that though. I do know we signed him about 30 seconds after North's hold on him expired.

[KT31]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

One of the not so obvious for me was Harbrow, watched him in an inter-club game and thought we had a find.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: The best young players you've seen at the club

Scotty West
Jarrad Harbrow - great intraclub