Max Gawn’s knee harm has opened the door for Melbourne at hand “exciting prospect” Jacob van Rooyen his long-awaited AFL debut.
Off-season recruit Brodie Grundy will take over lead ruck duties towards Sydney on Sunday because the Demons look to bounce again from a tricky loss to Brisbane.
Helping their trigger, Key defender Steven May will return from a calf harm to face Swans champion Lance Franklin, who’s again after a one-match suspension.
The flow-on impact of Gawn’s harm means additional changes are required in assault for Melbourne.
Van Rooyen, a 193cm and 96kg key ahead, was the membership’s first decide on the 2021 draft – No.19 total – and has needed to bide his time at VFL stage.
“He’s worked incredibly hard to develop his game over the last two years and we’ve been pretty hard on him about getting his game to the right level,” Demons coach Simon Goodwin mentioned.
“He’s continued to execute that through pre-season and the first few weeks, so he’ll debut for us and that’s exciting.
“He’s a younger energy ahead coming into the sport.”
Van Rooyen, 19, will line up in attack alongside leading goal-kicker Ben Brown and fellow tall Tom McDonald in a bid to test the Swans’ key defenders.
“He’s skilled with these guys for a number of years now, so he is acquired fairly good cohesion with this group already, and one factor you may see from huge Rooey is his means to compete aerially,” Goodwin mentioned.
“He goes on the ball arduous, he creates a contest and his follow-up at floor stage is phenomenal.
“We won’t be asking him to do too much other than that for us.”
Goodwin backed former Collingwood star Grundy to step up in Gawn’s absence, with the skipper sidelined for not less than the subsequent 4 weeks.
“This isn’t abnormal for Brodie,” Goodwin mentioned.
“He’s played as a sole ruckman for a big part of his career and he’s done it incredibly well.
“We’re excited to have Brodie have this chance.
“It’s not what we were planning but it’s certainly an opportunity that we think we can actually try to exploit.”
May missed the opening two rounds of the season with a calf harm and might be welcomed again in defence.
“We’ve been cautious with Steve to make sure he’s 100 per cent ready to go but we need his leadership and his ability to win one-on-one contests,” Goodwin mentioned.
“He’s a really important player to us.”
May restricted 1000-goal champion Franklin to simply seven disposals – and held him goalless – when the groups met in final yr’s qualifying remaining.
But Sydney gained the sport and Goodwin conceded John Longmire’s facet has had the wooden on the Demons lately.
“They have had some success against us and we’re under no illusions that we need to make some changes to really take the game to them on both sides of the ball,” Goodwin mentioned.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
