Jack Ginnivan continues to prove doubters wrong, performing on another big stage with his three Semi Final goals.
The second year forward has kicked 39.19 this season from just 10 disposals per game and continues to bob up and hit the scoreboard for Collingwood.
Magpies great Nathan Buckley revealed a text from his mother comparing Ginnivan to him.
“I sent my mum and dad to the game with my tickets and my mum sent me this text at 9:46pm – “Just love Ginnivan, he reminds me of you at the same age, the joy he takes in the game”,” Buckley told SEN Breakfast.
“My mum has watched a lot of footy and she very rarely makes a comment about footy or players, but I think that’s what you see.
“You see in Ginnivan a player who plays with his heart on his sleeve.”
Buckley, who coached Ginnivan in his first season, provided some insight into how he arrived on the AFL scene.
“Last year he came into the club and he was green and he wasn’t fit and he worked and worked and worked,” the former Magpies coach said.
“You could see that he didn’t have the capacity, but in the VFL there was one particular time just before the midway point of the year and he had about five or six pressure efforts and he coughed up a lung, he came to the bench and this was early in the second quarter and he was gassed.
“But he just found a way to work himself through it and we should never be surprised when we see players pop up.
“He doesn’t have to have more than five or six touches to have an impact on the game because he’s a surgeon with his finishing and he plays with such energy.
“I think we all should celebrate rather than find the negative in it. He keeps performing (on the big stage). He won an Anzac Day medal.”
Collingwood will now head to the SCG to face Sydney with a spot in the Grand Final on the line.
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