JACK Trengove will play with 12 players for the first time in an AFL match, when he lines up for Melbourne in its round 11 clash against Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday.
The former co-captain, who has missed more than two years, due to a foot injury, has previously played with Chris Dawes, Max Gawn, Neville Jetta, Nathan Jones, Dean Kent, Tom McDonald, Dom Tyson, Bernie Vince and Jack Watts from this week’s team.
Trengove has yet to play with Tom Bugg, Sam Frost, Jeff Garlett, James Harmes, Jesse Hogan, Jayden Hunt, Oscar McDonald, Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, Billy Stretch, Aaron vandenBerg and Josh Wagner in an AFL match.
Trengove said it was an unusual situation, but he couldn’t wait to play with many of his teammates for the first time.
“A lot of the guys I’ve never played with, so that’s a weird feeling,” he said.
“Bernie Vince actually came up to me before and said ‘I’ve been here for a couple of years now and I thought we would’ve played a couple of more games together at this point, but hopefully there is a lot more to come’.
“There are still guys I’m yet to play with out on the field, so that’s really exciting.”
For the record, Trengove has played with 19 players on Melbourne’s 2016 list and has yet to play with another 19.
There are also five players – Liam Hulett, Max King, Mitch King, Joel Smith and Sam Weideman – on Melbourne’s list who have yet to play an AFL match. On top of that, Jake Melksham has yet to play for the club.
Remarkably, from Trengove’s most recent of his 81 AFL matches – Melbourne’s 93-point loss to the West Coast Eagles at Domain Stadium in round two, 2014 – only five players will play this round, although 13 remain at the club.
From that match, Trengove played with N.Jones, T.McDonald, Tyson, Vince and Watts, who will all play against the Hawks on the weekend. Lynden Dunn, Jack Grimes, Matt Jones, Jay Kennedy-Harris, Viv Michie, Cameron Pedersen, Jake Spencer and Dean Terlich remain at the club.
There are four players now at other clubs – Jack Fitzpatrick and James Frawley (Hawthorn), Jeremy Howe (Collingwood) and Jimmy Toumpas (Port Adelaide). And another four players – Rohan Bail, Shannon Byrnes, Daniel Cross and Alex Georgiou – are no longer playing in the AFL, although Byrnes and Cross remain at Melbourne in off-field roles in the football department.
