Jarrad Grant, star in the making
What a brilliant performance from the youngster on Friday night. Fantastic overhead mark and positions his body well in the one-on-one contests. I know it was only Essendon and a pre-season cup match but genuine quality shows and he has it in bounds.

He will start Round 1 and be given every chance to retain his spot in the side. Hopefully he can make the most of it and continually improve as the season progresses. We can't put too much pressure on the kid and expect him to be the main forward, but give him the second best defender every week and he will do the job.

Really looking forward to his 2009.

Definitely going to be a star, he could of kicked a bag pretty easily, hopefully just a bit of nerves, but he will be awesome, especially once he puts on a bit more muscle! :clap:

Was very pleased to finally see him in action. Skinny weasel, that's for sure. Give him a few years, 10kg and better foot skills and we're onto a winner. So saying that, the club are expecting him to play at least 15 games this season (their words, not mine). Grant's misses in front of goal sure showed me what the oldies are like with the Pups, I'll tell you that much. Future hero after the first free kick and super goal, his other 4 shots on goal had him cemented as a failure. Pretty hilarious though.

Easton Wood also impressed me and Higgins stepping up was/will be phenomenal.

For the first game of the season, albeit a NAB Cup game, puts some excitement into to see the Pups waiting for their turns patiently.

What impressed me the most with Jarrad, wasn't his positioning or sticky hands or outsmarting McPee , but his seconds efforts, his tackling etc.

He got crunched with his first contest, and straight up, i really thought he was gone for the night when i saw that happen.

He has shown that his size isn't as much as a concern as most people would think, he has the smarts to get around that, Rob Murphy was the same when he was starting out, and Grant could even play a similar role whilst Murph is in the rehab group.

I'm not taking much notice of his kicking, he isn't as fluent as a Fev with the goalkicking BUT, he's not as bad as we saw on Friday night either, he definatly knows where the goals are, i'll put it down to a mixture of nerves , being rusty & not so easy shots for goal.

He is going to be your classic full forward type, super lead who also loves a contest and good pack park, i have seen him take a few down at Willy.

Can't wait for Cordy to join him in the forward line!!!!!!!

I thought Ben Hudson was in fine form the other night too.