In his first year at the Fremantle Dockers, rookie Bailey Banfield said he is learning a lot from the senior players at the club.
Gathering 11 disposals and kicking two goals, Banfield was impressive in his team’s 10-point JLT Community Series loss to Adelaide at Strathalbyn Oval.
“I’ve been talking to blokes like David Mundy, Danyle Pearce and Michael Johnson and just soaking up as much information that I can - leading patterns, positioning, body work, all the little things that you have to learn coming into an AFL environment,” he said.
Banfield said that he really enjoyed his first hit-out with his teammates and was pleased with the performance of his fellow draftees.
““It was good fun, I had a good time and it was pretty cool to kick some goals,” Banfield said.
“There were a couple of us on limited minutes, but I thought that everyone had an impact when they were on the ground.
“(Andrew) Brayshaw didn’t look out of place playing through the middle as well, which was really good to see.”
Despite the loss Banfield said there were many positives to come out of the game.
“It just showed that we can match it with some of the better sides in the comp, it’s really pleasing, some of the footy we played,” he said.
“We just had a couple of lapses that we’ll work to eliminate over training, but it showed that we can play at that level and hopefully we can bring that consistently.”