MELBOURNE’S Jacob van Rooyen knows a thing or two about pressure.  

The tall forward was drafted to the club shortly after the team’s premiership glory in 2021, starting his career without expectation.  

It wasn’t long before that all changed.  

At the beginning of the 2023 season, suddenly he was the talk of the Dees town, having just had a formative first year.

He kicked 36 goals from 18 games in the VFL, helping inspire the Casey Demons to a premiership and was given the prized No.2 guernsey, previously worn by club legend and former skipper Nathan Jones. 

The pressure was starting to build, and quickly.

“When you first come into the club, it's all just a blur,” van Rooyen said.  

You’re trying to prove yourself, doing everything you can to get into the team, you don’t have a whole lot of external noise, because there aren’t really expectations.

“As you get more experienced and start becoming more of a regular figure in the forward line, you do get a little bit more pressure on you, those expectations do rise and it’s about being able to deal with that.” 
 
Since his debut in 2023, van Rooyen has had to learn how to manage the mental gymnastics of life as a key forward, with last year the hardest yet according to the young Demon.  

The 22-year-old spent six weeks back in the VFL, a stark difference to the year prior where he had a full season of uninterrupted senior footy. 

The state league stint, in addition to the growing fan concern around the team’s forwards, led to 2025 becoming van Rooyen’s toughest season to date. 

“It was a challenging year for both myself and the team,” van Rooyen said.  

“We didn't have the greatest start to the year, and I wasn’t playing my best footy either. I got sent back to the VFL for a few weeks and rightly so. 

“I think at the start of last year, that [external pressure] is something I didn’t handle very well, but I’ve done a lot of work off the field with various people, with my mentality and performance mindset, making sure I know how to manage that pressure.  

I think in the end, last season was a good thing for me because I know if I ever go through rough patches of form again, that I have those tools in place to come out the other side.”

Troy Chaplin, who’s been an important figure in the football program as the backline coach and now the forwards’ coach, has made a big impact on van Rooyen throughout the past 18 months.  

While often using a stern coaching style, van Rooyen values his honest feedback and his knowledge of the game.  

“Chappy’s been really good, he’s been at the club for a long time now, and he's proven himself as a premiership backline coach,” van Rooyen said.  

“Him becoming the forwards coach has been really good because he has those strong standards for us. 

“If he needs to pull someone into line and get them going, he can do that, and I think that's an important thing we need with such a young group of forwards.  

“In terms of his work with me, he’s been really great for my development, especially last year, working with him through my ups and downs.” 

Van Rooyen has come far since first arriving at the club in 2021, having now kicked 74 goals across 57 games, but there’s still more to come from the forward.  

In a relatively young list, he’s using his few years of experience at the Dees as a springboard to help the news players entering the AFL world.  

Learning to lead is a slow process but it’s something that he believes will add value to his craft, bringing his teammates along for the ride too.  

“Being a leader at this footy club is definitely something I aspire to be in the future,” van Rooyen said.  

“I think with the guys around me in the forward line, we’ve got such a young group, I’m a little bit older and more experienced. 

“It almost forces me to get out of myself and stop worrying about what I'm doing or maybe a mistake I’ve made.  

It forces me to start speaking more, get out of my own head and help others, which then in turn helps me and my craft as well.”

Max Gawn has been the Melbourne skipper throughout van Rooyen’s time at the Dees and is someone that models the leadership traits he hopes to adopt later in his career.  

“I haven’t specifically focused on a particular leader to learn off, but I do really like the way Max goes about it,” van Rooyen said.  

“He's not necessarily the most vocal kind of leader, but when Max talks, everyone listens, everyone switches on.   

“He's also got a really good connection with pretty much everyone in the team and that's something that I admire about his leadership style – that he has a one-on-one personal relationship with everyone.” 

 As the countdown to Round 1 continues, the Melbourne chatter has started to ramp up. Who will be named in the season opener? How will Steven King’s new-look Dees shape up?  

It’s both challenging and exciting. 

“It’s good to come into the season with no one expecting much of us, and if we can prove them wrong, that'll be awesome,” van Rooyen said.  

“I think it’s just been that fresh start we needed. Coming in on day one, everyone was back at square one. 

“There were no years of experience playing under the same coach. Whether you’re in your tenth year or in your second year, everyone's on the same level. 

“If anything, it's pushed the boys to go really hard, and everyone's come back in great condition and really fit. 

“Hopefully that leads into a good 2026.”