OSCAR IN HURRY TO IMPRESS
GEELONG father-son draftee Oscar Brownless has wasted little time making his mark at the Cats.
The 18-year-old is one of several recruits to catch the eye of midfielder champ Patrick Dangerfield this summer.
Brownless, taken at No.74 in last year’s draft, is one of a dozen new faces to have joined the Cats in the off-season and has been quietly going about his business in his first pre-season.
He impressed again yesterday at Deakin University as Geelong completed its third heavy session for the week, continuing to push his case to play in the JLT Community Series in March.
Dangerfield said it had been pleasing to see the amount of hard work his new teammates were putting in on the track.
“There are a lot of young faces, and it is scary when we have players who were born in the year 2000, but Oscar Brownless has been really impressive since he has come to the club,” Dangerfield said.
“A few of our mature-age recruits as well — big ‘Forty’ (Darcy Fort) has been sensational. They have all shown at different stages why we have recruited them, and we have got to make sure that we play them in the position that they were drafted to.”
Geelong had two AFL umpires on hand again yesterday as Chris Scott and his lieutenants oversaw a gruelling morning of match simulation exercises, during which no players were willing to take a backward step against the teammates they will be fighting with for spots in the Cats’ best 22. Dangerfield said it was an area of the game Geelong needed to become better at if it was to remain competitive.
“We have been training pretty fiercely and then obviously ramping it up again once we got back from our Christmas break,” he said.
“So it has been a really physical training block for us and that is what we need to do, it is an area that we need to improve and it wakes you up early in the session.”
Rookie Tom Atkins was one of the standouts yesterday, while Brandan Parfitt and Luke Dahlhaus were solid performers.
‘There are a lot of young faces ... but Oscar Brownless has been really impressive since he has come to the club.’ — PATRICK DANGERFIELD