Highly rated young key forward Paddy McCartin experienced a difficult second season in the AFL, with concussions and a broken collarbone marring a year where he showed glimpses of his prodigious talent.

The 20-year-old, who inked a two-year contract extension in January which ties him to the Saints until at least the end of 2018, started the season on the back foot after straining his hamstring in the opening NAB Challenge game.

From there, the 2014 No. 1 pick suffered the first of three concussions in the win over Collingwood in Round 3. He didn’t miss any football due to the hit, but spent some time out of the senior side in the early part of the year to build some fitness, before returning with conviction against Essendon in Round 9, where he plucked ten marks and kicked two textbook set shots from beyond 50. Again, the signs were there.

After kicking another two goals against Fremantle a week later, McCartin was involved in a sickening collision at Adelaide Oval, which saw the spearhead carted off the ground on a stretcher with another concussion.

The Geelong Falcons product returned against Geelong after the bye, but again ran into trouble early in the loss to Gold Coast in Queensland, after a collision with Steven May and Tim Membrey, left McCartin with a third concussion in eight games.

After a couple of weeks on the sidelines and a couple of games in the VFL, McCartin returned to the senior side in Round 21 and kicked the opening goal of the game inside 90 seconds to shake off any concern.

A week later he began brightly on three-time All-Australian key defender Alex Rance, before he broke his collarbone in a collision with Nick Vlastuin. By the time he departed the ground halfway through the opening quarter, McCartin already had two goals on the board. More signs of what is to come in the future.

Alan Richardson’s Views:

“I liked Paddy’s year, I thought that he showed us what he is capable of. For obvious reasons we didn’t see it as often as we’d like with the concussions and then ultimately the collarbone, but he got himself in much better shape and was able to be much more involved in the game both offensively and defensively.

“We all know that Paddy’s going to be a terrific mark but he needs to be so much more than that and he’s growing that facet of his play so he can be much more involved. It was disappointing not to be able to get more footy into Paddy, but we’re incredibly optimistic and bullish about what Paddy’s going to be able to become.

“He’s a quality person Paddy, he’s not a sook, he copes with that stuff as well as could be expected, of course he was disappointed he loves playing, he loves his footy club, he loves his teammates and he wants to be out there playing, particularly as the year unfolded and it became really exciting with the prospect of playing finals he really wanted to be out there. He did whatever the doctors asked of him, trained hard, gave himself every opportunity to be in good shape when it was that he was to come back.”

The Numbers:

11 games
14 goals
7.0 disposals
4.4 marks
1.5 contested marks

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