For someone who hadn’t played an official game of football for almost 300 days, Jhye Clark made quite the impression.
When Clark took the field against the Bombers in Geelong’s final pre-season hitout last Friday, an AAMI Community Series fixture at GMHBA Stadium, it was the first time he’d officially pulled the Cats jumper on since his debut in May last year.
It wasn’t just the team high 10 contested possessions, or the six intercept possessions, or the (2nd most on the team), the team-high three centre clearance, or the 17 disposals at 94%, another team-high, it was the way he got them.
With nine minutes to go in the second, the former number 8 draft pick split the stoppage, swung around with the ball under his arm and cleared the footy before anyone else had time to react.
On the other side of the ball, he was hunting opposition ball carriers, dragging down an unsuspecting Darcy Parish, and later ruck Told Goldstein, winning possession back for the Cats both times and lunging for smothers. His constant movement, and first to the footy energy also won him a team high five free kicks.
Still just a teenager, Clark, who went down with a foot injury after an encouraging first-up game against the Tigers in Round 9 last year, brought all the energy of a player who’d been looking forward to this moment for a while and was going to enjoy every minute of it.
“It was a lot of fun. I think it's only my second game in nine months, so it is good to be back out there and good to get a run around with the other young lads,” he told geelongcats.com.au post match.
“Even though it was just a practice match we wanted to get what we wanted and that last quarter the crowd was loud. I can't imagine it with 40,000 here. It was pretty surreal”.
Geelong face St.Kilda on Saturday March 16 at GMHBA Stadium in Round 1 of the 2024 AFL season. Get your tickets here.
