Three weeks in and I’ll be having a look at another obvious option, but I guess a lot of the reason for this is that there hasn’t been any footy played for me to stick my neck out on guys who I can’t be sure will be getting games. 

Melbourne Demons Press Conference Barring injuries, Jack Trengove will surely be in Melbourne’s Round 1 team and he definitely has the skill to spend the year there. Before I get too far into it, I would like to point out that on SEN Melbourne Football Manager Chris Connolly said, “I will guarantee they (Trengove and Scully) will not play 22 games. Dean is very aware of the management issues, and we won’t be throwing them to the wolves.” 

I find that comment interesting, but I don’t interpret them to mean that they’ll get a taste and then play the year out at Casey. I still think Trengove is good for 18+ games if he is handling the workload fine, but just be wary that it sounds like he could be a candidate for a rest during the year. 

He’s already played a lot of footy against men in the SANFL and his 29 touch BOG performance in the Prelim for Sturt against Glenelg turned a lot of heads and had many believing that he, not Scully is the true #1 in the draft. Not that it mattered with Melbourne having both of the Top 2 picks… 

Trengove’s versatility will be one of his strengths as a DT’er. He can play inside and outside, so he’s more than willing to go and get his own ball, but he’s great in space too. His football IQ is very high, so he combines these two aspects of his game really well and knows where to be positioned to get his hands on it. 

Athletically he stacks up really well, with elite endurance that he’ll hopefully get the chance to use with plenty of game time, Mr.Bailey. I really like his disposal when he gets a bit of space and Melbourne could do a lot worse than working the ball out to release Trengove out wide. Obviously teams will try and work to get the ball into the hands of good kickers, and while he may have a bit of work to do on his kicking in traffic he’ll be very reliable outside. 

As Daniel Rich showed us last year, rookies can come in and be a focal point of a midfield rotation and I really think that Trengove (and Dustin Martin at Richmond) are the best chances of being really important players in midfield rotations this year. 

Once again, he’s an expensive rookie prospect given that he was the #2 pick overall. I was pretty glad of that though. Melbourne could’ve taken him #1, but I prefer Trengove to Scully as a DT’er (and don’t get me wrong, I love Scully) so it made him a few grand cheaper. He’s still $153,500 so you’d be unlikely to shelve him on your bench if you’re going to pick him. 

A few weeks ago when I wrote about Martin I was only going with a one starting rookie strategy, but I’ve changed some things around because I just can’t pass up another rookie (Trengove) who I could see averaging 75+ and being a great money maker while pulling decent enough scores to get you by early in the season. 

I swear, next week I’m going to start looking at cheaper options, I just had to get the mega guns out of the way…