How close will we go ?
Deledio produces form to back draft hype
By Emma Quayle
July 11, 2004
Brett Deledio knows he has much to learn. Seconds after the Victoria Country midfielder had plucked an unlikely overhead mark from among a clutch of South Australian opponents last Wednesday, he slammed his third-quarter set shot straight into the post.
"I wasn't too happy about it," Deledio said later. "It was a pretty easy shot and it ended up being a close game. You hate thinking something like that will cost the team. But at the same time, you just have to get on with things."
As he did a few weeks back when, playing for his Murray Bushrangers TAC Cup side, Deledio attracted a fairly heavy tag and spent most of the first half figuring out what to do about it.
"He didn't handle it well at first," said Bushrangers coach Xavier Tanner, "and I can remember thinking, 'it will be interesting to see how he gets himself out of this'. He actually worked it out quite well; he fought his way out of it and became a really good player for us. It's a tough thing for a young boy to handle, but he's getting better at it."
Yet another angle has been exposed during the national under-18 championships. Deledio entered the carnival with the words "one to watch" alongside has name and has offered a strong on-field explanation as to why he will be drafted with the first few picks this November. Good against Vic Metro in Vic Country's first game, Deledio exerted even more influence against the South Australians in game two.
Playing mostly on the ball, he entered the play at several key moments, got to spots where the ball would find him and, at the same time, was able to force his way into contests he initially seemed out of.
Deledio, who opened the bowling for the Victorian under-17 cricket team this year, is used to being watched. He played well enough at the under-16 football championships last year to get picked in Terry Wheeler's AIS-AFL Academy and did not waste any time last week wondering what impression he had made.
"The only thing you want is for the team to have a win," he said. "Everyone asks whether you're thinking about the draft, but I don't really see how you can.
"We've got a really good group and we've come together and the only thing we want is to win the championships like the Country boys did last year. Everything else will happen when it happens."
The club that drafts Deledio will, according to Tanner, get its hands on a footballer who is willing to work hard to achieve "a very long and very successful (AFL career)".
