ROO SPEARHEAD: BEN BROWN HAS NEW WEAPONS UP HIS SLEEVE
New weapons in arsenal
NORTH Melbourne spearhead Ben Brown says he wants to develop new weapons this season to help him become one of the game’s top players.
The man who was overlooked at three straight national drafts also made a plea for the game’s powerbrokers to invest in the struggling Tasmanian State League, saying its plight in recent years was “terrible”.
Brown, 25, left Tasmania to press his AFL claims in the VFL for Werribee, and was taken with pick No. 47 by the Roos in 2013. It has proved one of the best value picks of the past five years and Brown bagged 56 goals to finish fourth in the Coleman Medal last year.
Brown said he was excited by the upside of North’s forward line following the return of goalkickers Mason Wood, Taylor Garner, Kayne Turner and Jarrad Waite from injurymarred seasons. Wood hurt his thumb in an intra-club game on Friday and will await the results of scans today.
But Brown, the centrepiece of the forward set-up, said he could go to another level if he was willing to work even harder after a sparkling campaign.
“It’s not always going to be plain sailing all the time and everyone, aside from the really top guys in the league, are going to have their off games,” Brown said. “But I want to get to the point where I am one of the best players in the competition.
“There are always defenders who have got some new tricks and you are always forced to pull out some new tricks of your own and you have got to work hard on these. I am looking forward to the challenge. I like to think I’m a person who loves that about the game.
“But I am also really conscious of the team around me and we are really focused on driving towards team success.”
The Kangaroos will step out in the AFLX tournament at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.
Key midfielders Ben Cunnington and Jack Ziebell are likely to miss, but No. 4 draft pick Luke Davies-Uniacke remains in the selection frame as he tracks towards a Round 1 debut, after another strong showing in Friday’s intra-club.
“You notice the silkiness when he is out there, because he will get the ball and will burst out of a stoppage or just have that little bit more composure,” Brown said. “So he is a bit of an old head on young shoulders in that regard. He seems to know his way around traffic. Those things are really promising and the test will come for him if he is willing to put his head down, but he seems like a guy who has got his head screwed on.”
Brown hailed the work North was doing to invest in Tasmanian footy through its next generation academy and AFLW talent search. But he said the absence of Burnie and Devonport from the TSL and the lack of youngsters being drafted from Tasmania was sad.
“I would certainly like to see more funding directed towards Tassie footy, as any Tasmanian would,” Brown said.
“I feel like we [Kangas] are doing some great things and I love being a North Melbourne person who gets to play footy down in Tasmania and I think the Tasmanian people have really embraced North Melbourne, but it doesn’t stop there. I want to see more Tasmanians drafted and more of a pathway for that to happen and, for me, that involved moving to Victoria and chasing my football dream.
“I’d love to see Tassie footy grow to the point where Tasmanians feel like they can get drafted out of Tasmania, without having to move away from home.”