If you’d told Tyrone Leonardis at the start of last season he was a chance of being drafted to the AFL, he wouldn’t have believed you.
Although the AFL has been his lifetime dream, he didn’t actually think it could happen.
“I thought I’d play a couple of games for the Northern Knights and that would be it,” Leonardis said last week.
“Everything sort of fell into place and I ended up playing for Vic Metro and was invited to the draft combine.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
Leonardis said the biggest difference in his game last season was that he backed his own ability a lot more.
“My confidence is the biggest change, 100 per cent,” he said. “I was confident I could take on players and I do anything I set my mind to.
“There was confidence from the boys and the coaches that I could take the game on using my speed and agility and my confidence grew and grew.”
That confidence grew even further when Vic Metro selected Leonardis for the under-18 national carnival.
“I was invited to training but hurt my finger at the first training session,” Leonardis said.
“They could have cut me as I missed all the trial games, but they didn’t.
“What else would you want to be doing other than going to Perth and Adelaide to play football?
“I don’t know where I’d be now if I’d been cut.”
Leonardis was one of the standouts at the draft combine in October.
“I couldn’t have asked for more,” he said. “The skills testing and the goalkicking went really well.”
The Bundoora resident, who models his game on Hawthorn premiership-winning players Grant Birchall and Isaac Smith, said the most difficult part recently had been the six weeks of waiting since the draft combine.
He said he and fellow Knights draft hopefuls Jade Gresham, Darcy MacPherson and Brayden Fiorini would catch up on draft day this week.
“I’m pretty nervous,” he said. “I don’t think it’s hit me yet that it’s real. It’s always been my dream.
“Clubs spoke to me before and at the combine.
“I’m confident it will happen but it may not … hopefully I get an opportunity.”
