Richmond development coach and VFL midfield coach Xavier Clarke provides ‘Roar Vision’ with an insight into the development of promising draftee Jack Ross.
First thoughts
"Jack's come on board as a really highly-talented player. He was captain of Oakleigh Chargers, had some great leadership qualities and had done a lot of work in the off-season by himself to drop a bit of weight and become a lot leaner, which is a credit to him. Straight away, his impact at the Club was the way he trained. Dimma loves the hard and tough, in-and-under-type players, and he picked up the game plan really well which was rewarded with an early JLT game. He's been fantastic so far and earned a lot of respect from the group through his hard work."
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Off-season aerobic work
"Credit to him, he did that between the Draft period and turning up to the Club. He ran a pretty good three-kilomentre time-trial time, was very lean, very fit, and got rewarded with the early JLT game. He just really stepped into training like he'd been around for a long time."
His JLT performance
"He looks comfortable. The bigger body helps, but he reads the game really well. As a midfielder, he had to do a bit of work in terms of his body work around the contest. But his ability to be able to win the ball, put pressure on, and tackle as well, was certainly his strengths."
His ball use
"He's a very good ball user, he does see the game well. He's got a good balance between being composed as well as using and taking the contest. He does see the game well. What I like about him is he's talking and he's directing with his teammates, he shows great leadership qualities. He hasn't dropped, his form has been fantastic, he's playing good footy and no doubt pushed his name up for selection again. He plays the way we want all our mids to play, in tight, in hard, and win the ball."
His spread away from the contest
"It's been a focus for him. Generally when you play Under 18s footy, you're in and under, you can get the hard ball, contested ball. So just really getting him to think about spreading from the contest and getting the next possession away fromt the contest which he has been working on, and to his credit he's starting to the find the footy elsewhere, other than just in the contest."
