Draft hopeful Cooper Hamilton was perhaps one of the only prospective draftees not overjoyed with the news of the AFL’s skinfold testing ban, having put in plenty of work getting himself in peak physical condition.
Growing up just outside of Bendigo, Hamilton began boarding at Caulfield Grammar at the start of 2020 and has put himself firmly in draft calculations.
He ran a time of 5:48 for two kilometres in the Victorian Country Draft Combine, the second quickest ever recorded.
Unsurprisingly, he loves to run and sees himself playing off half-back at the top level.
“The last couple of years, as you know it’s been interrupted a bit, so I haven’t been able to play as much footy as I’d like,” he told SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“But I feel pretty comfortable off the half-back, I love running, so that’s a strength of mine, so I love to play off half-back.
“When it comes, I love going into the midfield and getting a lot of rough body.
“To be honest I’ll play whenever I’m put, if I’m put in the forward line, I’ll try to snag a goal, but I’m not the best goalkicker, so that doesn’t happen too often.”
The draft hopeful recently finished his year 12 exams and hasn’t had many interviews with teams scheduled over that busy time.
However, he’s had “six or seven clubs” that have kept in regular contact with him, and he’s hopeful those chats will ramp up in the coming weeks.
His incredible running prowess is likely to form a big part of his sell to recruiters, and has put Hamilton in good physical shape.
It would have given him good results in the combine’s skinfold testing, and Hamilton can count himself unlucky to miss out on the test.
“I got told that (news) just this morning and I was pretty surprised about it,” he said.
“I put a lot of emphasis (on my fitness) just coming up to the draft because I thought we were going to have skinfolds done at the combine.
“So, I put a lot of emphasis on shedding some weight, and turns out we didn’t even have to do it, that’s what I was trying to work on.”
As for a player he plans to emulate, Hamilton hopes to adopt a similar style to a champion Bomber.
“I always lean towards the way that Dyson Heppell has changed his game into that half-back role and how he leads off that half-back,” he said.
“I like to consider myself someone who’s pretty vocal on field, and as captain he sort of does that for Essendon, which I sort of pride myself on trying to implement into my game.”
The AFL National Draft will be held over two nights on November 24 and 25, with the rookie and pre-season drafts a day later on November 26.
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