COACH Paul Roos assesses all 44 players at Melbourne’s midway stage of the 2015 season. In the third of a four-part series, he looks at Heritier Lumumba, Tom McDonald, Oscar McDonald, Jordie McKenzie, Viv Michie, Alex Neal-Bullen, Ben Newton, Cameron Pedersen, Christian Petracca, Aidan Riley and Christian Salem.
Heritier Lumumba: ‘H’ has been terrific. He’s really settled over the past month. By necessity we’ve had to put him back and play him off a half-back flank, but he’s been terrific in the past month. He gives us some real speed and drive, and we just love his energy around the footy club. He’s really committed to the club and committed to his teammates.
Oscar McDonald: Oscar is developing nicely. He started in the Development League and is now playing VFL. He’s now starting to understand what AFL footy looks like – if you’re in defence, you’ve got to play on a man and not just stand in an area. He’s got some AFL tools. He’s big, got good agility, endurance and speed, so he’s developing well.
Tom McDonald: Tom was exceptional in the first six or seven weeks, but has been a little bit more inconsistent over the last four or five weeks. But I’m really looking forward to him having a break – because he’s been a warrior for us in the first half of the season – and then coming back and playing the rest of the season in some really good form, like he was earlier in the year.
Jordie McKenzie: Jordie’s been a really consistent VFL player. We know when he gets his chance what he can do. A few of the things we’re working on with him are a bit better ball use and capitalising on those possessions. We want him to do that at VFL level, so if he does get the opportunity at AFL level, we know that he’ll be able to use the ball better.
Viv Michie: Viv has been a little bit inconsistent and he’s still learning our system. He’s taken a little bit longer than what he and I would’ve hoped. As long as he’s working really hard and continuing to improve – he dominates VFL – his challenge is to get up and play really good AFL footy.
Alex Neal-Bullen: We’ve seen him in the past couple of weeks at AFL level. What the development coaches liked about him was his clean hands and he’s ferocious at the ball. We’ve seen he’s a bit of a goalsneak as well, so you couldn’t ask for much more from a kid, who didn’t have a full pre-season and hurt his knee a couple of times during that period.
Ben Newton: Benny is really our system and learning what we expect. He’s showed he can play some good AFL football and he kicked some real critical goals at times earlier in the season. He’s just got to get confidence in himself and in a new system. We think he can play at AFL level, but it’s about getting that consistency.
Cameron Pedersen: Pedo’s season has finished, due to injury, which is really disappointing. He played a couple of important games and really good games, but unfortunately we’re not going to see him for the rest of the year.
Christian Petracca: Track’s been terrific around the club and we’ve seen what he could do in the pre-season. It’s always tough when you’re a young kid not playing, but he’s a ball of energy and the players love him. He’s just got to knuckle down on his rehab and make sure he doesn’t waste the year, and really come back a much better and smarter player. He’s doing some forward scouting for us and learning the game as well.
Aidan Riley: Aidan’s played a couple of handy roles. His deficiencies are that he’s really got to work hard on his endurance and two-way running. He plays well at VFL level, but to develop into a consistent AFL player, he’s got to work hard on both sides of the game – offensively and defensively.
Christian Salem: Christian was terrific early in the season and a real shining light off half-back. His ability to defend was really good and his ability to tackle and come back to the ball was terrific, but unfortunately he got injured and hopefully he’ll be back soon.
