IT'S BEEN a long time coming, but anxious Melbourne fans will get their first look at prized No. 1 draft pick Jack Watts when he runs out for the Casey reserves on Saturday.
Mindful of his school commitments, 18-year-old Watts has been brought along slowly by the club but coach Dean Bailey felt the time was right to get the key forward prospect back out on the football field.
"It's just nice to see him out there playing a game," Bailey said.
"Jack's going to be a week-to-week proposition. This is the first game he's played for six months, maybe eight months, so we'll just see how he pulls up and that will determine his training next week.
"We'll see how Jack goes tomorrow (Saturday) and that will determine where Jack plays the following week."
Bailey makes no apologies for keeping Watts and fellow first-round selection Sam Blease under wraps in the final years of their education.
It's an approach the coach thinks will benefit the players and the club in the future.
"It would have been easy to rush them in and play them, but I know that's not the right thing to do with our first two picks," he said.
"Our stand on Jack and Sam … is they're both at school and we're very supportive of their schooling. We knew that that eight to 10-week program that they needed to do was basically their pre-season that all the other blokes had done in November and December.
"The advantage of that was there was more one-on-one training with our weights coach and our conditioning coach and certainly kicking with Kelly O'Donnell.
"We needed to put that amount of time into them so that when they do actually play, they've got some foundation to work from."
Bailey understands the excitement and expectation attached to a No. 1 pick and he backed Watts to cope with the scrutiny that will only intensify from here on in.
"I've got no doubt he's going to be under more media scrutiny than ever, but he takes it in his stride pretty well. His parents did a bloody good job with him," he said.
"Jack's a very understanding person, he's a very smart kid, and he's pretty mature in how he approaches people and he talks to people. He loves having a chat and he talks to anyone and everyone, so he's got a really nice maturity in regards to handling the media part of it.
"I think he's shown that whenever he's been interviewed. Whenever anyone's asked him anything he's been pretty honest.
"Jack is Jack. He's a good young man who's hopefully going to be a good player for us."
