Rising Richmond star Brandon Ellis entered the 2015 season determined to build on the substantial gains he made in 2014.

Ellis finished runner-up in the Jack Dyer Medal last year, after averaging 26.1 disposals per game for the season, being ranked sixth in the competition for total kicks, sixth for total rebound-50s and fourth for total uncontested possessions.

The hard-running, talented 21-year-old has started off this season in fairly impressive manner too, averaging 26.2 disposals over the first five rounds, although he admits he still has scope for a fair bit of improvement.

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 “I had a pretty strong finish last year, so I wanted to bring it into this year . . . I’ve just got to keep doing that, keep improving my standard as a player for us to get better,” Ellis told Richmond great Matthew Richardson on ‘Roar Vision’.

 “Outside ball, that’s pretty good at the moment.  I’ve got to work on my contested (ball) a lot more and my tackling,” he said.

“I think my contested numbers haven’t been too bad this year, and I think I’m averaging five tackles a game (compared to his 2014 tackle average of 2.4), which has never been heard of before, but I’ll try and keep that up.”

Hardwick press conference, May 7th

Another area of his game that Ellis is looking to become more productive in, is goalkicking.

“The coach is starting to get into me now that you can’t just be a midfielder that gets the ball – you need to be a midfielder that kicks goals as well, to be more damaging,” he said.

“I’ve had a couple of shots this year, just haven’t nailed them.  But they’ll come . . .

“I’m not going to try and force it.  I’ll just keep playing the team role.”