He is also answering all the tough questions about ex-coach Dean Bailey, Melbourne's future, and the turmoil that had engulfed the club only a week earlier when Bailey was sacked. It is impressive. He is impressive.
Trengove was alerted to Bailey's axing when a teammate phoned him on Sunday night, and told him to turn on Fox Sports news. He says the players "definitely" feel guilty about Bailey's immediate exit following Melbourne's demoralising 186-point loss to Geelong in round 19.
"Obviously it was pretty disappointing for Dean, but the board decided he wasn't the man to keep going," Trengove said.
"As players, we have to take most of the responsibility because he can only say so much. It's all about what we do out on the field and it wasn't good enough against Geelong, and the last few weeks."
Melbourne has made some changes in Bailey's absence. It has been forced to. Player development manager Todd Viney is coaching for the rest of the season, and he has moved to simplify the game-plan. Club champion and media commentator Garry Lyon was last week appointed in a short - term role to liaise between the players, board and president Jim Stynes. CEO Cameron Schwab has also signed a one-year contract extension.
Though Melbourne's season has been plagued by inconsistency, it starts this weekend 11th on the ladder and, remarkably, remains a finals chance. Not all is lost for 2011. Not all is lost beyond this year, either.
"We're still a finals chance, which sounds pretty ridiculous after everything that's happened. Everyone's thinking it's disaster time at Melbourne, but we're still in contention," he said.
"That's our main goal at the moment — just to try and win as many games from the last four to try and get that opportunity to play finals footy."
Nothing about Trengove is rehearsed. It might be refined—he has learned the art of being the interviewee—but he does not deliver regurgitated cliché after cliché. Trengove knows what he is talking about.
He has learned plenty since being drafted by the Demons with pick No. 2 in the 2009 NAB AFL Draft. Then, as an 18-year-old originally from South Australian country town Naracoorte, he didn't quite understand how seriously the Melbourne Football Club took its history and heritage.
It is why, in some ways, the appointment of Lyon has Trengove genuinely excited. "Obviously he's a great and a legend of the club and he feels strongly about making sure we're going in the right direction that he put his hand up and wanted to help out," he said.
"His role is to get the players' voice across to the board to make sure everything's sweet there, and he'll also help in selecting the new coach.
"I've had a few chats with him and he's really looking out for the best of the players and club, so it's going to be exciting to see what he can bring."
The first thing that struck me about Trengove when we met was how strong and solid his body is. He has barely missed a beat in his first two seasons in Melbourne's midfield, and he appears to be the type of player the club can build the team around in the future.
Combined with healthy doses of aggression and ambition, Trengove is not just a star of the future — he is already one.
In round one last year when he made his debut against Hawthorn, he remembers feeling like he was being "nailed" every time he was in possession.
He had no space or time to use the ball — usually two of his strengths — and was shocked at the speed of the game.
But he finished the year with 18 games under his belt, a NAB AFL Rising Star nomination and feeling a lot more comfortable that he deserved to be out there against the best players in the country. "As each game goes on, you learn more and feel like you belong a bit more," he said.
He has taken that momentum into this season. In 15 games, Trengove has averaged 20 possessions, five marks and five tackles.
In the past two weeks, in heavy losses to Carlton and the Cats, when Melbourne's efforts have been questioned, Trengove has laid 10 tackles in each game. No other Demon reached double figures.
But it was a tackle on Adelaide's Patrick Dangerfield in round seven that saw Trengove hit with a controversial three-week suspension.
Having pinned Dangerfield, Trengove lowered his knees and slung him to the ground. Dangerfield was concussed when his head hit the MCG turf.
The Match Review Panel considered the incident rough conduct, and the Tribunal upheld the three-week ban despite overwhelming public support for leniency.
Now, he admits, when he goes to tackle, he thinks about what might happen if he gets it wrong.
"It's something that I have had to have a bit of a look at because I don't want to be spending too many games on the sidelines when you can be playing," he said.
"I have thought about it a bit but, in the end, it does come naturally and you just do everything to try and dispossess your opponent of the ball and that's what I was trying to do and still try to do to this day.
"I've always enjoyed tackling and I always will, but you have to control it, sometimes."
Sport and competition were central to Trengove's youth. He was a talented cricketer who had also represented South Australia in basketball, athletics (high jump and 1500m) and cross-country.
One of his older sisters, Jess, is an excellent long-distance runner and his other sister Abbie has rowed for South Australia.
But Trengove's rise only really started to gain momentum when he moved to Adelaide's eastern suburbs with parents, Colin and Deb, in 2007, and he found himself on SANFL club Sturt's radar.
By 2008, he was a bottom-age player in South Australia's under-18 squad (he didn't play as he was touring England with his school cricket team), and by 2009, was captain of the team. He had an excellent carnival, won All-Australian honours and was named South Australia's most valuable player.
It was a moment playing for Sturt's senior side in the preliminary final, however, which rocketed Trengove's name into the spotlight. Late in the final term, with Sturt leading by five points, a long kick sailed toward's Glenelg's goal when Trengove, then 17, floated in front of a pack to take a match-saving mark.
Having started the game with the potential to be a first-round draft pick, he ended it with 29 possessions and the tag as the 'next big thing' out of Adelaide.
"It was great how it turned out but it was a very interesting time of my life," he recalled. "I just popped out of nowhere."
People who have known Trengove and watched him play for years knew he could handle the attention. They consider his natural leadership one of his outstanding qualities.
He is likeable, funny and modest, and teammates are drawn to him. When he speaks, they listen. It shouldn't be long before the club formally recognises his leadership skills.
It has always been the case. On-lookers remember Trengove's efforts at a pre-draft state screening session in 2009 in South Australia.
Although he was a certainty to be drafted, Trengove did not attend the draft camp in Canberra because he was playing in the SANFL Grand Final.
Instead, he attended the Adelaide tests a week later, where draft hopefuls who weren't invited to the national camp could show their wares.
In the beep test, where players have to run up and back a 20m course with incremental increases between 'beeps' signalling when they must run, Trengove ran a brilliant time. But it was his encouragement of other runners that stood out.
As others tired, Trengove was yelling at them to keep going and to bust through the pain barrier. In several cases, his words helped lift players for at least a couple more beeps. Trengove didn't have to do it, but he did. He has also spoken to the South Australian team the past two years when it has been in Melbourne for the NAB AFL Under-18 Championships.
"They're at a difficult time when they could get drafted but might not, so the main thing I always say is that they just listen to their coaches," Trengove said.
Trengove is one of a number of young and talented players at Melbourne. Tom Scully (drafted with pick No. 1 before Trengove), Jack Watts and James Frawley are the nucleus, while Jordan
Gysberts, Jordie McKenzie and Luke Tapscott (a school friend of Trengove from Adelaide) have all shown promise this season.
It is Trengove's ability to stand up in the big moments of games, however, which has perhaps elevated him above his peers. Be it a strong mark, important clearance or timely goal, he wants to be that player.
"Some days you know when a game is at that point, but sometimes it's hard to pick up," he said.
"If the game is in the balance or something needs to change, you try to be the person to do it as best as possible and sometimes you can."
It is a challenge he enjoys. In fact, plenty about playing footy excites him. Last week, when Lyon addressed the players for the first time in his new role, he told them to start enjoying playing footy again. It is something Trengove does not need to be reminded of.
"Sometimes you've really got to pinch yourself and think 'Wow, I'm actually doing this'. Sometimes you go through the motions and don't really respect where you are. I love coming to work every day," he said with a grin.
He's got motivation, too. Seeing Richmond's Dustin Martin (drafted with pick No. 3 behind Scully and Trengove), and Fremantle's Nathan Fyfe (pick 20 in the same draft) excel this season has stuck in his head.
"I'm a pretty competitive person and I want to be the best. To be the best, you have to beat the best, so you watch them and learn from them as well.
"But seeing them perform drives me even harder because I don't want to see a guy who was picked one spot behind me outdoing me. I'd be feeling bad for the Melbourne supporters if they were thinking 'If only we could have had him'," he said of the dynamic Tigers midfielder.
On that note, we finish the interview and leave the office of Demons development manager Ian Flack, which we had occupied for almost half an hour.
Through a couple of doors and underground passages, then the AAMI Park gymnasium, we end up walking out on to Swan Street in Richmond to have photos to accompany the story.
Trengove laughs when asked if he feels a little embarrassed walking down the busy road at peak hour on a Monday afternoon in his full playing kit. Of course he does. But he understands it is part of the gig.
Publicity, promotion, professionalism and performance. It's a lot to ask of a 19-year-old. But Trengove seems up to the task.
