Saints’ Selwood hope
REIGNING premier St Mary’s is quietly confident former AFL star Scott Selwood will play enough games to qualify for GFL finals.
Just days after Selwood lodged a clearance to join the Saints, co-coach Travis Robertson confirmed the ex-West Coast and Geelong midfielder would play a part in the club’s quest for back-to-back flags.
Now a Collingwood development coach, Selwood has chosen St Mary’s as his feeder club and will play at Anthony Costa Oval when not required by the Pies at VFL level.
“We hope that he plays, but it will come down to a few things,” Robertson said.
“One will be player availability at Collingwood, and two will be the structure of their team on a week-to-week basis.
“There’s new rules in the VFL where they need to play more 19-year-olds, and if they (Collingwood) are at capacity with that, he might get spat out in terms of selection. Then it depends on when we play and when Collingwood VFL play.
“We’ve signed him up in the hope he’ll play enough games to qualify for finals and then we’ll just see how it plays out.”
One of several VFL-listed players who will call St Mary’s home, Selwood will be restricted in the GFL as he juggles commitments with Collingwood at VFL and AFL level.
The Saints have studied both the VFL and GFL fixtures and believe there are opportunities for Selwood to play.
While new in his role at Collingwood, Selwood has opened the doors at the Holden Centre to his new St Mary’s teammates, who took part in match simulation against the Pies’ VFL outfit.
Robertson said Selwood and Magpies assistant coach Garry Hocking had welcomed the GFL club with open arms.
“It’s something that they’ve done for a couple of years, and in actual fact, we’ve done that with Geelong for the last two seasons,” Robertson said of Thursday night’s session.
“Our boys got up there at 5.30, we went through a plan of the training session and we went through some really intense game-situation drills, which rolls into a structure game simulation and for the last half an hour we just let the boys play footy.
“We took up 27 players and quite a few young kids, some who are still eligible to play under-19 footy and they had a great experience.
“It went up three or four pegs in terms of standard, but they got a good hit-out, and for our experienced boys, they got to play against some good quality opposition as well.”