CHRISTIAN Petracca is the Melbourne player to watch out for in 2016, according to many of his teammates.
A host of Demons were asked to name who they thought would be the player to watch out for next year and Petracca was the popular tip, given he was earmarked to play from round one this year, before a knee injury ended his 2015.
Bernie Vince, who won the 2015 Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Memorial Trophy, rated the No.2 pick from the 2014 NAB AFL Draft very highly.
“He’s loved already by the boys around the footy club and I just think he’s going to be a superstar,” he told Dee TV.
Jesse Hogan, one of the competition’s best young players and winner of the 2015 NAB AFL Rising Star award, also said Petracca.
“I’m sure everyone has said exactly the same thing and that’s Christian Petracca so I’ll go with him,” he said.
Colin Garland said Petracca was the “obvious” choice, but like a handful of other Melbourne players, the defender said a fit Christian Salem was the one to watch out for in 2016, after he missed half of 2015 with hamstring problems.
“Petracca hasn’t played, but I reckon Christian Salem. I think he can take his game to a new level. Hopefully he’ll have some good luck with injury, but I think he can be one of the better players in the competition,” he said.
Youngster Alex-Neal Bullen nominated Dom Tyson and Aaron vandenBerg as two Demons to rise next year.
Tyson named powerful small forward Dean Kent as the player to elevate in 2016, after his year was ruined by a serious hamstring injury.
In turn, Kent said close mate Jesse Hogan would be the one to go to another level in 2016.
“[If it’s not] me (laughing) … everyone is going to say Christian Petracca, but I’m going to say Jesse Hogan because he’s got a lot of improvement and hopefully he can kick 60 odd [goals] next year and get us into finals,” he said.
Key defender Tom McDonald nominated yet-to-debut Jayden Hunt as the one to monitor in 2016, after two injury-riddled seasons.
Heritier Lumumba was also optimistic that his second year at the Dees would be a step-up next year.
“I’m going to say that I’m going to be the one to watch in 2016,” he said with a smile.
“There’s many great players – don’t get me wrong – but I’m going to back myself because I had a very slow start to 2015. It took me a while to adjust, but I know exactly what my role is going to be.
“I’m very confident in my ability to make an impact and lead this football club with the leadership group in the direction that we need to go. I think Melbourne supporters can be very confident that my output will be to a satisfactory level next season.”
