Macaffer elevated and elated

[Dave The Man]

Brent Macaffer spoke to CTV in Arizona about his recent elevation to the senior list and the camp so far.

The 20-year-old has spent the past two seasons on Collingwood’s rookie list after coming to the Lexus Centre from the Gippsland Power at the end of 2006.

But after an excellent 2008 representing the Magpies’ VFL team in which he led the goal kicking with 38 and emerged as a fine mid-sized forward prospect, Macaffer earned a permanent place on the senior list for 2009, and is understandably thrilled.

“It was an enjoyable year and it got to the end of the year meeting that each player has with the coaching staff,” Macaffer said on Friday in Flagstaff.

“They pretty much said then that I had to just wait and see what would happen over the coming weeks with trade week, but it was more likely than not that they were going to put me up on the list.

“So it was just a bit of a waiting game, and (chief of football) Geoff Walsh spoke to my manager, and pretty much told me from there that they were going to put me up, so I was rapt with that.”

With the coaching staff urging Macaffer to improve his endurance base, he has been using his first trip to Arizona to work as hard as possible, although he didn’t expect to have to work as hard as he did on Friday after Thursday’s gruelling Mt Humphrey hike.

“We got the news after we got back from the (Mt Humphrey) walk that today (Friday) would just be a bit of a recovery session because all the boys were a bit sore and tired in the legs from the big walk.

“But... we got down there (to the Northern Arizona University Skydome facility) and that sort of changed towards the end of it. We were put through our paces a bit and it turned out to probably be our toughest session since we got over here.

“We did a normal training session, but there was a lot of long running in the drills that we were doing.

“We’re doing a thing tomorrow, called the 10 commandments, which is 10 different exercises, you’re in groups of four or five and you work as a team. They decided we’d do three of them today... running up and down stairs as a team for 10 minutes, just flat out as many as you could, doing sled pulls up and down the gridiron oval, and then carrying a big heavy thing, two at a time, with sand in it, so it was pretty tough.”

Anyone who has witnessed the way Macaffer has applied himself as a player at Collingwood knows he shouldn’t have too many problems negotiating the remaining seven stations of the ’10 commandments’ in Flagstaff on Saturday, or making a good fist of his chance at AFL football in 2009.

Video:

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Story Here

 

[Pie eyed]

Well done Macaffer.
Speaks well too.
Sounds like the boys are earning their pay over there.
Was that Dids lugging he big Blue thing?

 

[Bigness]

Interesting his comments about playing further up the ground. I wonder if they are looking at him as a goal kicking midfield option. He has the goal kicking ability obviously so maybe with some extra endurance he could play that role. The other option is a roaming half forward. He could possibly develop into a Ryan O'Keefe type player.

 

[Gone Critical]

Well deserved elevation and great that he gets a chance to see if he can make it.

Hope he does but still think he may just struggle to bring what he has to AFL level. For what he is he probably needs to be just a liitle bit bigger.

Glad to be wrong though.

 

[person_pitch]

Seems like a cool guy. He said this is his first pre-season? Was he injured or something last year?

 

[Ryan The Man]

Well deserved elevation and great that he gets a chance to see if he can make it.

Hope he does but still think he may just struggle to bring what he has to AFL level. For what he is he probably needs to be just a liitle bit bigger.

Glad to be wrong though.

Would be a perfect suit in our midfield imo.

Could very well develop into a Luke Power, Ablett Jnr type, albeit unlikely he'll end up in the same class.

 

[sunnyTEE]

Would be a perfect suit in our midfield imo.

Could very well develop into a Luke Power, Ablett Jnr type, albeit unlikely he'll end up in the same class.

Disgrace, not even Dave.

 

[Ryan The Man]

Disgrace, not even Dave.

Im Ryan, the version that doesn't spell random letters in Upper class.

 

[sunnyTEE]

Im Ryan, the version that doesn't spell random letters in Upper class.

High brow spelling you say?

 

[MightyQuinn]

hahaha ryan the man, daves brother??

 

[Stifler's mom]

I reckon this bloke is a bit like Paul Chapman.






Hope so anyway.........

 

[well left]

I reckon this bloke is a bit like Paul Chapman.






Hope so anyway.........

That might be a fair comparison. Not the class but type of player. They want him to work on his endurance so the plan might be for him to become part of the midfield rotation. From what I have seen of him on TV he seems to use the ball OK. Can more regular watchers confirm or contradict this?