COREY Maynard’s three official appearances for Melbourne have been an AFL match against GWS Giants in Canberra last year, and most recently an AFLX campaign and a JLT Community Series win over North Melbourne in Hobart in the past two weeks.  

But travel and treading a different path are nothing new for the former NBL basketballer-turned-Demon.

“I was saying to someone on the weekend that it’s been the weirdest start to an AFL career – making my debut in Canberra, playing AFLX and then traveling to Tassie to play JLT,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“I just wanted to play another real game, so it was great to play in Hobart on the weekend – it felt really good and I felt more comfortable than I did last year. I felt more confident in my game and my skill level.

“We had a really good win against North Melbourne and we’re happy with that as a first win, and we’ve got community visits this week, which has been a lot of fun, but then we’ll prepare for our next JLT game against St Kilda. Hopefully we’ll build on that out at Casey next week.”

Maynard said the challenge for him was to keep building and improving his fundamentals.

“The reality is that I was coming from a long way back, so now it’s about staying hungry and not getting comfortable,” he said, after returning to football in late 2016, after 10 years out of the game, because of an impressive basketball career.  

“I just want to keep working on my game to prove that I can belong at this level – and that’s ultimately what I believe, but I’ve got to prove that.

“That’s going to be the hard part and the challenge for me going forward, but I’m really excited to hopefully do that.”

Although Maynard was in the first JLT side last weekend, he acknowledged that he wasn’t sure where he sat for round one.

“There are a lot of guys putting their hands up and we’ve got multiple guys in each position who are really good and really talented, so depth is a strength of the list now – that’s the reality of it,” he said.

“Players are going to be learning how to deal with that, so there are going to be guys who have had a really good pre-season, but miss out in round one.

“I haven’t really focused on round one – I’m just trying to get better every day, as cliché as it sounds. I just want to help the team and play the role I need to play for the team.”