NORTH Melbourne recruit Liam Anthony has already shown enough to suggest he'll push for selection in the opening rounds of the season.
That's the view of development coach John Lamont, who said the mature-aged recruit had responded well to the demands of summer training since arriving at Arden Street via pick 43 in November's NAB AFL Draft.
Anthony, 21, dominated in a midfield role with WAFL club East Fremantle last year, finishing second in its best-and-fairest award.
"He's had two or three years of senior footy," Lamont said. "So he's a little bit more seasoned.
"He's a good size at 189cm and has been quite impressive in the practice matches in terms of his ability to get the footy. You'd have to say at this stage that he would be in the mix for round one."
Lamont has similar faith in first-round draftee Jack Ziebell, who turns 18 next week and like Anthony has been named to play Carlton in Friday night's NAB Cup clash.
Also a midfielder, Ziebell was a member of the Murray Bushrangers' TAC Cup premiership side in 2008 and will use the pre-season competition to fine-tune his adjustment to the elite level.
"[Jack] has got a relatively mature body," Lamont said.
"He's going to draw great benefit from pre-season training and all those sorts of things. He's certainly got a little bit of class about how he reads the game and his ball-handling and kicking.
"The next few weeks will be interesting, just adjusting to the speed and all those things of the NAB Cup. But you'd think he'd be in the mix if everything goes to plan for round one or those first half-dozen rounds."
Forwards coach last season, Lamont joined Dave Newett in a development role in October.
With high performance manager Ray Breed, the pair oversee North's academy which includes players with three years' experience or less – almost half the squad.
Juggling their overall workload has proved the greatest challenge, with extra sessions including goal-setting, skills and conditioning.
"They need to do extra but at the same time a lot of them are younger bodies, particularly the first-year guys and a few of our second-year guys," Lamont said.
"Our academy has done a pretty good job to wedge in the extra skill development and increase their knowledge and understanding of what it takes to be an AFL footballer in this day and age.
"It's a big change for a first-year bloke, from playing footy and training two or three nights a week. Some of them in the country train one night a week. There's certainly an adjustment period there."
Lamont said he was pleased with the endeavour of the new recruits, who have a cross-section of backgrounds.
"Nine of them have come [since November]," he said. "We've got one from around the corner: Marcus White from the Calder Cannons lives fairly locally.
"Then we've got Jack Ziebell who originally hails from Wodonga, Liam Anthony who's from Geraldton via Perth and then Conor Meredith from Ireland.
"They're from far flung places but their application and attitude has been good."
Lamont also made special mention of South Australian rookie Ben Speight who will start the year with Werribee in the VFL.
