By Paul Pickering
GIPPSLAND and Dandenong will provide 10 players to the Vic Country side that runs onto the MCG for its opening game of the AFL Under-18 Championships on Sunday.
The TAC Cup neighbours will join forces as footy’s annual meat market begins with a meeting of the Country boys and their Vic Metro counterparts in the curtain-raiser to Sunday’s Hawks/Swans AFL clash.
The ladder-leading Stingrays will have six representatives, with co-captains Mitch Hallahan and Luke Parker joined by Adam Treloar, Andrew McInnes, Tom Lynch and Daniel Harrison.
Dandenong is set to have a huge say in Vic Country’s title tilt, because a further five Stingrays – including former Beaconsfield junior Arryn Siposs and Berwick’s Matt Buntine – have been selected in the extended squad and should make an appearance later in the five-game preliminary stage.
If all goes according to plan, the 2010 Stingrays contingent will dwarf last year’s total of seven state representatives.
So Dandenong region manager Darren Flanigan is safe to assume, “we’ve gotta be doing something right”.
“That was about the number (of Stingrays) you’d expect in the squad,” Flanigan said.
“We knew we’d be fairly strong this year, from the representation we had at under-16 level two years ago with six, then another six last year.”
The quantity is there, but so if the quality.
Hallahan enters his second under-18 carnival, having impressed as a bottom-age player last year, while AIS-AFL Academy members Parker and Treloar are among the most highly-rated midfielders in the country. Parker has already been touted as a prospective top-five draft pick.
If Siposs gets a game, he will complete an extraordinary emergence, given the talented forward was playing for Beaconsfield’s under-16s in the Dandenong District Junior Football League last season.
Meanwhile, Pakenham Upper resident Tom Bugg – another AIS-AFL Academy member – will join Power skipper Dyson Heppell and vice-captains Tim Northe and Jed Lamb in the big V this weekend.
Heppell, Northe and Lamb have led a resurgent Gippsland side over the last month, and all showed great form in the final Country/Metro trial match on 15 May.
Haydn Hector has been named as an emergency for Sunday’s game, while emerging big man Simon Deery is also a part of the extended Country squad.
Power coach Damian Carroll said the selections were a reflection of growth from his inexperienced side.
“We’re rapt to get four, and I think it’s been some steady improvement from the start of the year, when we might’ve been looking at only one or two,” Carroll said.
“They’ve all been in pretty good form, so I’d hope they could all stand up and show their best.”
Vic Country schedule
30 May: v. Vic Metro (MCG)
6 June: v. NSW/ACT (Blacktown Olympic Park)
13 June: v. WA (Subiaco Oval)
26 June: v. Queensland (TBA)
30 June: v. South Australia (Etihad Stadium)
