Suns gun’s ready to fire

Brodie looks forward to realising his potential

FORMER top 10 draft pick Will Brodie’s battle for regular AFL football looks set to continue but he remains confident he has fixed the flaws in his game and is ready to make a big impact this season.

Brodie looked poised to put a difficult opening two years at the Suns behind him when he played eight games at the back-end of 2018.

It followed just three AFL appearances in his debut season after being taken with pick 9 of the 2016 national draft.

He was touted as a highquality prospect, a midfield bull who could win the ball and get it going forward.

But former coach Rodney Eade and now Stuart Dew believed his running ability and defensive qualities needed work, leaving Brodie to watch fellow top 10 draft picks from that same year Ben Ainsworth (29 games) and Jack Bowes (27) press on.

The 20-year-old didn’t feature in either of Gold Coast’s JLT Series games, leaving Brodie unlikely to be given the nod for the Suns’ Round 1 game against St Kilda on March 24 in Melbourne.

Brodie said the opening two years had been frustrating but he was ready for 2019.

“It’s been a pretty frustrating last few years but at the back end of last year I put together a lot more games and started to build some continuity,” Brodie said.

“I took a lot of confidence out of that. Going into this season I feel like I’m ready to make a big impact and put together a season I feel I have been building up towards for a long time. I’m pretty excited and hopefully it all works out. In the past I have had some areas on my game I needed to work on.

“I have been in the NEAFL working on them and spent a lot of time there. It’s obviously frustrating, you come into the system and want to play footy straight away, you feel like you’re ready. I feel like I’m ticking those boxes. … I’m ready to take the next step.”