Greater Western Sydney GIANTS midfielder Adam Treloar has become the club’s sixth player to be nominated for the NAB AFL Rising Star Award in 2012.
This is a new record for the most nominations from a single club in any year, beating the previous record of five by Essendon in 1993 and Fremantle in 1996.
Treloar earned his Round 18 nomination with an impressive 37 touches in the midfield against Collingwood at ŠKODA Stadium last Saturday.
Treloar joins fellow GIANTS nominees, Jeremy Cameron (Round Two), Tomas Bugg (Round Five), Stephen Coniglio (Round Seven), Dylan Shiel (Round 10) and Toby Greene (Round 14).
Head Coach Kevin Sheedy said that it was an outstanding achievement for Treloar and a credit to a number of the young GIANTS payers who have continued to improve over the season.
“Adam has been here for two years now, as he came up as a pre-listed 17 year old and he has shown some strong character. Last year he had to work through a lot of injury frustrations, but he’s been able to come back strong and is now starting to really gain his confidence and play very well. He’s been terrific for the team,” said Sheedy.
“For him to actually get the ball over 35 times on the weekend, is a huge achievement for a player in his first year of AFL football and particularly playing against a side that was in the Grand Final last year.”
Sheeds said that the GIANTS were extremely proud for their young side to break a long-standing AFL record.
“Whilst we have been beaten on the scoreboard this year, these young boys have had some impressive standout performances against the top sides of both last year and this year. That isquite remarkable for players that have not yet played a full season of football. We are a very young side,” he said.
“It’s a great sign that we’re tracking well in developing each of these players in their ability to win their own ball playing against players that are much more experienced than them.
“With some of their performances at the moment these boys are now starting to play on some of the better players. We’re putting Adam Treloar and Toby Greene on the opposition’s better midfielders and this is an area where they have really lifted in their performance in the last month.
“These players now have every opportunity to develop into a very powerful side as long as we do our next stage of recruiting diligently to best compliment these young men who have had a fine start to their career.
“Who knows, there’s a sneaky chance we could end up with one or two more, we’ll just have to wait and see how they perform in the last five rounds.”
GWS GIANTS v Port Adelaide
ŠKODA Stadium - Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park
2.10pm Saturday August 4, 2012
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