Fans rise for young forward hopeful

HE is yet to make his senior debut but Francis Evans had a taste of what to expect at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday after coming on after halftime in the win over Essendon.

Evans had friends and family in the stadium and — while admittedly a practice match — had the Geelong faithful on their feet when he kicked the sealer in the last quarter.

The small forward (pictured) only had 39 per cent of game time but the Cats have liked what they have seen from him this summer and are confident he can have an impact should he have a taste of senior football early in the season.

Evans said he had grown in confidence after working closely with forward coach Corey Enright and several of his teammates in attack.

“I have probably just been a bit more confident and am trusting my game,” he said.

“I am trying to take the game on a bit more. I have been working with ‘Boris’ (Enright) and have done a fair bit of work with Gryan (Miers).

“Even just picking the brains of ‘Jez’ (Jeremy Cameron) and ‘Hawk’ (Tom Hawkins) to try to tweak my game and learn a few different tricks.

“I’ve tried to build up my tank as well so I can get up the ground and back towards goal. So now I just have to ... keep working at training.

“We have a few small forwards coming back so we will see what happens.”

Evans said it was encouraging knowing there was further improvement to come from the Geelong forward line.

“It is pretty exciting and we are getting better connection each week,” he said.

“Jez is a great forward and he and Hawk will work it out pretty quickly with how they are going to play together.

“Obviously with ‘Higgo’ (Shaun Higgins), he is a very clean player, so you can’t really complain when you are getting entry from him.

“But the more we play with each other the better our cohesion will be.”