Defender knuckles down on homework
ANDREW HAMILTON HARRIS Andrews has knuckles like a boxer.
At the end of Lions’ training sessions when most players are making audacious attempts to thread long-range torpedoes or banana kicks from impossible angles through the big sticks on their way into the sheds for a shower, Andrews can be found leaping at high kicks from backline coach Murray Davis and punching ball after ball clear of the boundary line.
Kicking practice is fun, so is marking. But spoiling practice, that’s just painful.
That attention to detail is why Davis’ partner, Lions AFLW chief executive Breanna Brock, reckons she couldn’t get a word out of him for a few weeks over the pre-season when coach Chris Fagan took his gun defender away to experiment with him as a forward.
“It is like when you send your son away on camp, you are hoping he comes back but you know he has got to experience it,’’ Davis said. “That’s how I felt. “He is a beauty to work with. I am still kicking those footies up to him and he is still doing those things.
“He invested early into his craft to learn the technical side of his game; he is now considered across the league as a solid citizen and a great defender yet he still does those things.’’
Andrews made the All Australian squad last year and was unlucky to miss out on the final team after missing a month with concussion following a heavy bump from Giant Jeremy Cameron.
The 22-year-old’s intercept marking was the feature that elevated him from good to elite, but according to the Lions’ academy graduate, it does not give him a licence to neglect the basics. “That’s a bit of a habit that I’ve brought into my game. I have always enjoyed not just playing footy, but trying to get better at it,’’ he said.
The Lions play West Coast in their season opener at the Gabba tonight, and Andrews’ usual opponent from the reigning premiers, Josh Kennedy, hasn’t made the trip, with his place taken by emerging forward Oscar Allan.
Some would see the absence of a dual Coleman medallist as the opportunity to take things a bit easier, but Andrews had his suspicions about Kennedy’s availability for a couple of weeks and decided to put in some extra homework on Allan and the Eagles’ ruckmen who may rest forward.
They reckon no one at the Lions logs as much time on video as the vice-captain.
“I feel confident that I can play on anyone in this league,’’ he said.
“And that stems from the preparation.
“I have a little notebook that I write things down in and all the opponents are in there.
“We play Gold Coast twice a year and I’ve probably played on (former Suns star) Tom Lynch the most of anybody and I feel I know his game, but I still watch his tapes and add things into my book each time we play.’’