By JARROD POTTER
IT WASN’T the match he would have loved to play in over the weekend, but there were plenty of positives to take away from a Young Guns Game appearance for Dandenong Stingrays utility Liam Hulett.
Instead of featuring in Dandenong’s preliminary final against Eastern on Saturday – where he was just too raw to return to the line-up in the do-or-die clash- the exhibition match was a welcome distraction for Hulett and his difficult season so far.
Hulett has been mired with injury throughout 2015 as his ankle caused havoc with his top-age TAC Cup campaign and restricted him to just two Stingrays matches this year.
“Obviously this year hasn’t really gone to plan for me with the injury that’s put me out for most of the season but it’s good to be playing footy again,” Hulett said. “I did the ligaments in my ankle pretty badly, but I’m all past that now and onwards and upwards from here.”
The 193cm utility – who played mostly with Bonbeach instead of the Stingrays this season – was given the call-up to the Young Guns Game to give recruiters one last chance to watch him on-field this year before the looming AFL National and Rookie Drafts.
Hulett featured predominantly in an unusual position for the ruck/forward … playing mostly at centre-half-back but he took his unique challenge in his stride and made it his own.
He held strong on the Black Team forwards and streamed out of defence, booting it long to set up his one-day-only midfield and forward team mates.
Hulett’s Green Team ran away with the match from the second quarter onwards to build a 62-point lead over the Black Team by the final siren.
“I suppose it’s a pretty good honour and it’s good to get another game of footy under my belt,” Hulett said. “It was good out there; I was expecting to play up forward but was switched down back for most of the game, so it was good to have a run down at centre-half-back and all that.”
Next up for Hulett is the AFL State Combine on 11 October at Etihad Stadium.
“Hopefully test really well, put my best foot forward and there’s nothing much else I can do from there,” Hulett said. “Just want to test well and the rest will look after itself.”
