Promising young defender Brandon Zerk-Thatcher says belief in Essendon VFL’s back six has given him more confidence to back his ability and impact the play.
The 20-year-old, who signed a two-year contract extension in March, has gradually been building on his game since being sidelined with an ankle injury earlier this season.
“I think I’ve slowly gotten better each week since I rolled my ankle, but definitely these past two weeks I’ve felt a lot more comfortable out there,” he said after Sunday’s 41-point win over Northern Blues.
“(I think I’m) reading the play better too, and just being more confident – because our back six are so good at working together, it gives me a lot of confidence to come off my man and impact.”
Zerk-Thatcher was pleased with Sunday’s victory, despite being critical of his individual performance.
“It was a tough fight all day but I thought we stood strong and were able to break them in the end - the boys managed to pull together in the last quarter.
“I thought I managed to play alright and take a couple of marks –as a defensive six though we played really well.
“The ball was coming (into our defensive 50) quite a fair bit in the first half, so for us to be able to stand up and repel that was really good.”
Since returning from his ankle injury in round three of the VFL, the 195cm key defender has averaged 13 disposals and six marks.
But more telling of his continual growth, Zerk-Thatcher has recorded an average of 16 disposals, eight marks and three rebound 50s from his last three games – including a game-high 11 marks against Richmond in round eight.
“I’ve been focusing a lot on my footwork, and when I go up for marking contests to take the ball out in front rather than going behind,” he said.
Yet to make his AFL debut, Zerk-Thatcher has impressed VFL senior coach Dan Jordan in recent weeks, who says the young defender is nearly “back to his best”.
“He’s been growing every week, especially after coming back from injury,” Jordan said.
“He’s now probably at the level he was prior to getting injured, where he was really knocking the door down to get into some AFL Match Committee selection.
“I think his last two games have been really solid and consistent in that format, and the challenge for him now is to keep that up so that can be his bar week in and week out – to perform at that level.”
Zerk-Thatcher will use part of the upcoming bye weekend to visit family at home in South Australia, and aims to come back mentally refreshed for the second half of the season.
Essendon VFL’s next match will be against Box Hill at Windy Hill from 2pm on Saturday, June 15.
