AFL

Cox On Track

Monday 25th January 2010

Author: Frizz Ferguson

Photographer:

The West Coast Eagles are confident injured ruckman Dean Cox will play in Round One of the 2010 AFL season while the younger players prepare to gain experience in the preseason NAB Cup.

The 28-year-old Cox had been struggling with an abdominal injury since last year, but is now in training and looking good for round one game in March. When asked if there is a danger Cox would not be ready for the season Sumich was sure the tall ruckman would play.

“There is no danger, but things can change. It’s still sweet at this stage so he should be right for round one,” he said.

With the NAB Cup less than three weeks away the club want to play some of the younger players to build their experience, especially the much talked about 19-year-old, Nic Naitanui.

‘That’s what we’re after really at this stage with Dean being on the sidelines. Get that experience into him,’ Sumich said.
 
‘I think he [Naitanui] will ruck a bit more and we might see Will Sullivan get a game depending on how he goes with the intra club [game], but you would think Nic would do a fair bit of rucking.’

Naitanui has been going through a lot of preparation in the past month with learning how to ‘read the play’ and Sumich said he can see a difference to how he has improved in the past year of being with the Eagles.

“Yeah big time,” he said about seeing the improvement.

“He is still in my opinion two or three years away of being this player everybody expects him to be, you’ve got to give him a bit of grace.

“You will see a lot of good stuff in between. You will see a lot of stuff saying, “Gee, what’s going on here? Where’s he going? Is he moving in the right direction?” We’ve just got to bear with that.”