Tara Murray
Calder Cannons defender Jayden Nguyen isn’t leaving anything to chance as he chases his AFL dream.
The Essendon Next Generation Academy talent finished third in the Morrish Medal this year, the award for the league’s best player.
Not content with just that, Nguyen was earlier this month one of the stars at the AFL state combine.
Nguyen finished in the top five of four of the tests across all the state combines.
The half backer said the combine was a really interesting experience.
“I guess it comes back to the body of work that I put through in preparation for the combine,” he said of his results.
“Obviously the season finished four weeks before the combine and during that time my focus was to improve my power and my speed and strength and I feel like it has come off well and the results have shown.
“I always knew that I had the ability to do it, but it was doing it at the right moment… I knew the combine was really important and would help my draft chances significantly and tried my best at it.”
The testing results come after what Nguyen thought was a consistent season with the Calder Cannons.
He shared the Robert Hyde Medal as the Cannons best player last season, so there were plenty of expectations heading into this year.
“I thought I had a consistent season,” he said. “I had a patch of quiet games in the middle of the year, but was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to suit up for Essendon in the VFL [Victorian Football League] and I think that gave me tremendous confidence to come back and finish the year at at the Cannons as strongly as I did.
“I was very happy.”
Nguyen said finishing third in the Morrish Medal was an honour to be up there with some real quality players.
He was also part of the Victorian Metro championship winning squad.
“It was a great experience,” he said. “You play with many highly touted players from around the country and share the same goal of getting drafted.
“In a way it motivates you to work harder as you’re in the right crowd of people that want to push you to be your best.
“I think it helped me put my best foot forward at the end of the year.”
If Nguyen is to be drafted later this year, it won’t be his first foray into an AFL club.
As an NGA player, he had the opportunity to do a pre-season with Essendon and continue to use their facilities.
Both of Nguyen’s parents were born in Vietnam and came to Australia as refugees with footy not prevalent in their culture, which allows him to fall in the NGA.
“It’s really good actually,” he said. “You get to use the facilities and it’s being around club, meeting the players and staff and you build relationships that can help you with your footy as well.
“Essendon have just helped me so much with my footy, I did pre-season at the start of the year.
“It helped me learn how the professional players go about their work, their body of work they’ve put in behind every training session and how they’ve prepared themselves.”
Nguyen said it would be a dream come true to be drafted by Essendon, which has the opportunity to match any bid on him in the draft, while he would be excited to take any opportunity that arises.
Between now and the draft, he’s going to continue to stick to the plan.
“I’m going to keep chipping away, keep running, put best foot forward and if I do get a chance of getting drafted, make sure my body is 100 per cent ready to go into the AFL environment.”
