Highly rated youngster Daniel McKenzie overcame a frustrating start to the year to finish the season in the senior team, building some momentum into the pre-season and into 2017 in the process.

The second-year utility spent the bulk of the first half of the year at Sandringham, before breaking into Alan Richardson’s team in Round 10. He spent two weeks in the senior side before being a late omission due to illness in the loss to Adelaide.

After a month out of the St Kilda line-up, McKenzie returned against Essendon in Round 16 and played seven of the final eight games of the year, finishing the year with a flurry.

The Oakleigh Chargers product played a variety of roles in 2016, predominantly on a wing, before being shuffled to a half-back flank in the final few weeks of the season where he demonstrated his capacity to not only shutdown a player but also use his dash and penetrating left-foot.

McKenzie polled well in the Trevor Barker Award across the final fortnight, following impressive efforts down back against Richmond and Brisbane. With his ability to play on a wing and across half-back, McKenzie joins a growing fleet of players in that mould at Linen House Centre.

Alan Richardson’s Views:

“‘Macca’ had a really positive end to the year, his start was somewhat compromised due to his health, but once he got some continuity into his training and his footy at VFL level, he quickly went to a level what made us sit up and go: we need him in the team, he’s going to make us a better team. He’s a very exciting player, not unlike ‘Whitey’ and Jimmy Webster, he played a bit of everything in fact he played a bit of everything for us at senior level too; he played forward as a defensive forward; he played inside a couple of times and did well; he played a bit on the wing and he played back; he’s got some real versatility to his play.

“I really like him in defence, I like his speed, I like the fact that he wins contest and he’s a very competitive young man, he’s one of those kids that if you meet him off the footy field you’d want him to marry your daughter because he’s a nice, respectful young man, but as soon as he crosses that white line he turns into an animal and we love that. So there’s no doubt he’s going the right way.

“To take the next step in his development he just needs to get some continuity in his program, that’s been his biggest challenge, he’s worked really diligently with Lindsay Gilbee on his kicking for a long time now, just to try and become an elite kick and that will be an ongoing program. His defence of his ball winning is pretty positive, but we’re committed to make players’ strengths weapons, so he’ll continue to work on that as well. He’s got a lot of improvement in many facets of his play but what we saw in the back end of the year we’re excited by.”

The Numbers:

9 games
12.7 disposals
3.7 marks
3.2 tackles
2.1 rebound 50s

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