Mature-age East Fremantle recruit Liam Anthony was pick No.43 in last year's NAB AFL Draft. He will debut alongside Jack Ziebell, 18, who the Roos selected with their first round pick in November (No.9 overall).
“It’s a real look to the future,” coach Dean Laidley said from Arden Street on Thursday morning. “I think [supporters] will be really excited to see those two take the field.”
Laidley said Anthony and Ziebell might not be the only new faces from last year’s regular side, with the coach likely to include other potential debutantes when he names his 25-man squad later today.
“There’s still an opportunity for maybe one or two more that might come in” he said.
“Certainly there’ll be some new faces in the 25 … and then we’ll weigh that up after training on Saturday.”
Laidley said he told Anthony of his inclusion on Tuesday while the highly-touted Ziebell was informed he would debut on Wednesday.
“I just thought it was appropriate that they know at this stage of the week,” he said.
“There’s a lot of football to be played from tonight through until Sunday.
“The one thing that we don’t want our boys to do is to sit around and watch tonight’s game, then watch tomorrow night’s game, then watch Saturday night’s game and then they get to our game on Sunday and [be like] ‘oh gee, now we’ve got to play’.
“So, we’ve told them … ‘watch some football but keep yourself interested [in our game] over the weekend’.”
Dream Team watch – North Melbourne’s Liam Anthony is rated an $86,600 midfielder in Toyota AFL Dream Team 2009.
