On this week’s episode of Opposition Breakdown key defender, Harry Taylor, took a closer look at a player that he believes has the potential to be a future star of the Melbourne Football Club.

Dean Terlich, who was number 68-pick in the 2012 draft, played his first game with Melbourne in round 2 this year.

Since then he has become one of Melbourne’s most reliable defenders and Taylor strongly feels Terlich’s high intensity around the ball could possibly be one of Geelong’s biggest threats this Saturday.

“He’s a terrific ball winner, averaging 20.5 disposals a game which ranks him number one out of the Demon defenders for the 2013 season,” Taylor told Cats TV.

Terlich’s main strength during play, according to Taylor, is his ability to increase the heat using a number of defensive tactics, including his number one trick of taking marks from the opposition.

“He is also great at applying pressure and ranks really high in pressure acts, such as spoils and tackles, and he also is a capable player at taking marks from opposition kicks, which is becoming a really important stat in the AFL’s modern day football.”

Taylor is confident the Cats have the strength to inhibit Terlich’s ferocity around the ground by keeping him away from the rebound, which will restrict him from reloading and passing it forward.  

“As much as possible we have to stop him from getting the ball in the midfield and then hopefully stopping him passing it on to some pretty dangerous forwards from the Melbourne footy club,” Taylor explained.

Click on the video above to catch more interesting facts from Harry Taylor on this week’s Opposition Breakdown.