Cooper Hamilton felt extra nervous during his first few days as a GIANT, late last year.

Not only was the rookie hoping to run a very good time in his first time trial at the club, he was racing against Josh Kelly, Stephen Coniglio, Toby Greene and the rest of the senior GIANTS, back for their first day of pre-season training.

Hamilton – who ran a 5.48 2km during pre-draft testing – not only won the race but finished in a club-record time.

It made for a pretty good first impression.

“I was already pretty nervous, and seeing as I had to run against them, it was a pretty eerie feeling,” says Hamilton in the latest episode of the Becoming GIANT podcast, with club recruiter Emma Quayle.

“I had a little bit of confidence but I was really unsure about how I’d go in this Sydney weather, it’s a bit more humid than when I ran in Bendigo.

“I was a bit iffy on that but once I got going everything just clicked and all the nerves went away and I just felt like I was running on a cloud which made it a bit easier.

“I wanted to come here and make a name for myself straight away, so having the 2ker first really helped me because one of my strengths is my aerobic fitness.

“I sort of got my name out there early which was good, but now I have to assimilate into the group and play some football.”

Hamilton was the last of the GIANTS’ four picks in last November’s drafted, picked up as a rookie after being overlooked on both nights of the national draft.

The teenager chats about growing up on a farm in country Victoria, moving to boarding school with his twin brother Hugh and navigating his way through two years of interrupted football.

He also reflects on being overlooked in the national draft, and the feeling that he was going to miss out entirely before receiving a phone call from GIANTS recruiting manager Adrian Caruso as the rookie draft got underway.

“It would have been about a minute before my name was read out. Adrian flicked me a call and I was on cloud nine from then on,” he says.

“The initial feeling was ‘I think I’m going to be a GIANT,’ but when I answered the call and he said ‘congratulations, you’re a GIANT,’ it just didn’t feel real.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling. It feels like everything paid off.”