With minimal fuss and fanfare, St Kilda midfielder Jack Newnes established himself as one of the best wingmen in the competition this season, continuing his incremental year-on-year rise to produce his best season to date.
The hard-working 23-year-old played all 22 games in 2016 – extending his streak to 66 games in succession – compiling an impressive body of work, which culminated in a fifth-place finish in the Trevor Barker Award – the best result of his short career.
In a similar manner to another ultra-reliable teammate in Jarryn Geary, Newnes doesn’t receive the plaudits he deserves externally, but inside the four walls of the football club, he is highly regarded for his work rate, selflessness and leadership, which went to the next level in his second season in the leadership group.
Due to his elite level of professionalism, Newnes is one of the most consistent players at Linen House Centre, a trait reflected in the best and fairest count where the Northern Knights product polled in all but three games.
While others like Seb Ross, Tim Membrey and Tom Hickey all enjoyed significant spikes in their improvement from 2015 to this year, Newnes continued his gradual ascension, continuing to build on his previous body of work.
Newnes’ three best performances for the year all came on the wide expanses of the MCG, where the endurance beast utilised his superior engine to his advantage to patrol the wings.
He accumulated a career-high 34 possessions in the win over Collingwood in Round 3, added another 32 against Carlton in Round 20 before closing out a trifecta at the home of football with 28 against Richmond in the penultimate round of the season.
Alan Richardson’s Views:
“‘Newnesy’ has become one of the better wingmen in the competition. His ability to turn up week in week out and play physical hard running wing/midfield footy was a real credit to him this year. We think he is one of the better players in that role in the competition. He’s still only a young man so that’s exciting; he’s one of our hardest workers on the training track – he’ll challenge Geary in the running when they come back, he’ll challenge Geary and a few others all throughout the pre-season. He is an elite preparer and an elite trainer.
“His use of the ball was really positive and that was an area that we focused on. He was still getting a fair bit of the footy in 2015 and we never even thought about him not being in the team last year, but at times we didn’t quite get what we wanted when ‘Newnesy’ had the ball, but he worked on that extensively with Adam Kingsley throughout the pre-season and we saw the result of that this year, not only was able to be much more positive with his use going inside 50 he was also able to get shots on goal at times.
“He’s probably as hard a runner as anyone in our team at getting back to support our defence. The defenders actually love him because he plays their sometimes so he gets defence, but also because of his commitment and his want to get back there and help out his defence is outstanding. Such a positive year for him.
“He has grown into the role and become more comfortable with the leadership role. He inspires his teammates with his actions; the way that he plays, the way that he prepares, he sets a great example for others to follow. He’s really positive and constructive in meetings in the way that delivers feedback to his teammates in some of our player trademark sessions but he can go to another level out on the ground and now that he is feeling much more comfortable about his position in the team and his standing within our group he can go to another level in terms of bringing people along with him as opposed to just setting a great example and that’s his weapon to inspire.”
The Numbers:
22 games
5th in Trevor Barker Award
23.3 possessions (No. 4 at St Kilda)
16.8 uncontested possessions (No. 3 at St Kilda)
409.0 metres gained (No. 4 at St Kilda)
4.7 inside 50s (No. 11 in the AFL)
2.9 rebound 50s (No. 6 at St Kilda)
3.0 tackles
30.7 pressure points
