Essendon great Tim Watson is happy for Josh Schache, who has earned the chance to be a premiership player for the Western Bulldogs if they win Saturday week.
Schache has struggled to establish himself as an AFL player since being taken with pick two in the 2015 National Draft by Brisbane.
A trade request later and even at his second home, the key forward could never establish himself in the Dogs’ best side. The odds of that happening lengthened with the arrivals of Josh Bruce and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, as well as the deployment of Tim English inside 50.
However, with Bruce and Ugle-Hagan unavailable, and after a brief stint in defence, Schache has been called upon in this finals series.
The 24-year-old kicked two goals in the club’s Elimination Final win over Essendon in wet conditions before playing a vital defensive role on All-Australian Port Adelaide defender Aliir Aliir in the Prelim.
Watson wondered whether Schache would make it at AFL level, but is happy that he has found a crucial role at the perfect moment in time.
“I was thinking about Josh Schache and I’d written him off as a player. I watched him live and I thought okay, this kid just doesn’t have what’s required to play AFL footy,” Watson told SEN Breakfast.
“He just didn’t seem desperate enough, he didn’t seem urgent enough when he plays. All of those things that you need. Even though you’ve got talent, you’ve got to have all of that.
“Then they shift him to the backline through necessity and probably looking at him for the last time and thinking ‘okay, if he can’t make it down here, let’s see if he can make it back there’.
“He played some games in defence, Josh Bruce gets injured and he wasn’t even the first player they looked to to replace either, so he wasn’t even at the forefront of their minds at that point and then through circumstance he found himself back in there.
“He was able then to play the defensive role on a defender. He’s a smart player. That’s what he revealed about himself on Saturday night. He is smart, the way he played Aliir.
“Congratulations to him because it must have been a difficult few years for him.
“They go and recruit Bruce, they go and recruit Jamarra Ugle-Hagan, they play everyone except him in the forward line, Tim English, Aaron Naughton, everyone.
“He’s overlooked and then he finds himself in that position on Saturday night – and delivers under the pressure.”
Schache has played seven games for the Bulldogs this year, three of which are finals.
Subscribe to the SEN YouTube channel for the latest videos!