While Jonathon Patton was dominant inside 50 and Jack Viney and Toby Greene went head-to-head with Jaeger O’Meara and Stephen Coniglio around the ball, one defining contest sticks out for St Kilda Recruiting and List manager, Tony Elshaug.
In a crucial moment in the second half of an under-18 game between Western Australia and Vic Metro in 2011, Jack Newnes was opposed to the highly rated Dayle Garlett inside defensive 50, where an act of desperation prevented a certain goal.
Months later, Elshaug, in his first year in the recruiting department read out Newnes name with the club's third selection at pick No. 37, the exact same pick St Kilda utilised on another Northern Knights/Marcellin College product 10 years earlier in Leigh Montagna.
“There was a contest against Dayle Garlett that still sticks in my mind to today. I can still picture it vividly,” Elshaug told saints.com.au ahead of Friday night’s National Draft in Sydney.
“He was playing on a highly talented player in Garlett and the ball came in and just his ability to defend him and spoil him and harass him, hit the deck and bounce back to get on a second and then third effort, it was quite an inspiring contest.
“In that one piece of play we saw his competitive nature come out.”
Amid a championship winning side stacked with high quality midfielders, Newnes wasn’t the cream of the crop, but he has rapidly emerged as one of the best wingmen in the AFL, following a career-best season in 2016 where he played every game and finished 5th in the Trevor Barker Award.
While the contest against Garlett was a key piece of the jigsaw puzzle for Elshaug, Newnes performance the week after the carnival finished was equally as impressive, paving his way to the Saints.
“The week after the championships is always a test. The good players hit the ground running straight away and Jack did exactly that,” Elshaug said.
“He had a 30 possession game out at Preston and it was then we thought to ourselves, this is a serious player.
“He was someone that just kept stepping up to the plate and competing, regardless of what level he was playing at.”
