Michael Hurley has enjoyed arguably the best month of football in his career over the last four weeks underlined by a 29-disposal performance against Sydney on Friday night.

Hurley played a key role as a rebounding halfback against the Swans showcasing his ability to use the ball to set up play.

Teammates and coaches praised Hurley’s performance following the game highlighting his work ethic and desire to be the best player he can.

Brent Stanton believes the last month of football is some of the best of Hurley’s career.

“He was fantastic tonight, he is continuing to grow and over the last month is probably the best football he has played for this football club,” Stanton said.

“He shuts his forward out and as you saw he is pretty lethal with the ball in his hands so it is exciting to see him rebounding.”

Acting captain Brendon Goddard singled out the performance of the key defender.

“Hurls just keeps coming along in leaps and bounds,” Goddard said.

“He keeps backing up the faith that Bomber (Thompson) and the rest of the coaching staff keep putting in him and in particular the players as well.”

“We’ve really encouraged him to come out of his shell and back himself so Friday night was clearly his best game of the year as a centre half back.”

Senior assistant coach Simon Goodwin praised the competitive nature of the 24-year-old key position player.

“Mick is such a competitor and really does compete so well one on one so when the ball is in his vicinity then he competes really well in those contests.”

“He has a really good feel for where to move into space, we have stuck at it and got the results so far.”

“He ended up with just under 30 possessions and we spoke about before the game trying to just get him to attack a bit more.”

“He went to where the ball was a bit more and we spoke to him last week about starting to step up and he did that this week.”