JIMMY Toumpas says he has no regrets about signing a three-year contract with the Demons, even before he had played his first AFL match.
The emerging midfielder said “it was a pretty easy decision to re-sign” with the club, although he started in a tough year after shifting from his home state of South Australia, when he was selected at No.4 in last year’s NAB AFL Draft.
“The club showed faith in me asking me to re-sign and I couldn’t have been happier when I did. I’ve loved it at the club so far and hopefully next year we’ll be able to improve and step forward again in 2015,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“I love being at the club and the boys really welcomed me to the club. I felt like one of the boys straight away, although I had to earn respect, but I loved the boys straight away.
“We’ve got a very exciting future and we’ve got Jesse Hogan next year and I can’t wait to play with him. It’s going to be very exciting putting them down his throat and watching him kick goals every week.
“I’m very much looking forward to the future and can’t wait.”
Toumpas said he would “love to be” at Melbourne for the next decade if possible.
“If I could be here for 10 years, I’d love it,” he said.
“I haven’t looked too far into the future, because I did that at the start of the year and I had a big awakening against Port [Adelaide] and we lost [by 79 points]. I’m just looking forward to this pre-season.
Toumpas said he was eager to help turn the club around with fellow young guns Jack Viney and Jesse Hogan.
“It’s a massive challenge that I know the other two boys and I are going to embrace,” he said.
“We all see ourselves being very good players in the future.
“It’d be an honour to lead this club into the future, because we have numerous other players like Dean Kent, Mitch Clisby, [Dean] Terlich and Matt Jones … that are going to lead this club in the future.”
Although tight with his family back in South Australia, Toumpas said he regularly spoke to them and that it wasn’t a major issue.
“I’ve got a very strong relationship with my family. I speak to them once a day. It doesn’t faze me too much and I speak to them enough,” he said.
“I’m happy here and that decision with the family didn’t play a part, because I knew they were going to be supportive with me.
“For now, I hope it’s going to be Melbourne for a very long time. I’m loving it here and my family has been very supportive to me.”