AARON BLACK PLAYER COLUMN – ROUND 4

A WEST Perth premiership player will be writing a column for the club's website every week of the 2014 WAFL season. This week's edition is Aaron Black's first offering.

OBVIOUSLY I was really pleased and honoured that Bill gave me my first opportunity in the league team at a young age when I was just 17.

I was very honoured that he had the trust in me to give me my first game in 2010 and then to continue to show faith in me over the last three years as I have developed. When you are younger, you aren’t as consistent as I would like to think I am now so I did have my ups and downs early on, but Bill continued to show faith in me. That was something that was really exciting because I was given the opportunity to play league football on a regular basis and develop alongside really good footballers.

For those first five games I played in 2010, I was still in Year 12 at school and I remember going to my Year 12 ball just after having my head shaved for being a rookie. That was something that ended up being very well timed. It was very exciting to playing league football while still being at school.

There was a really strong group of senior players here at that time and no doubt Jason Salecic had the biggest impact on me. He really helped me with my development and he worked hard with me, and gave me the sort of advice that he was given when he was a young player. He told me about how hard I had to work at training, in pre-season and he showed me the way that he would prepare. His advice early on was the most influential on me in me becoming how I am now with the way that I train and play.

Early on in my career, I was doing jobs on the inside and I was given the job of tagging some blokes. I tagged Josh Roberts and Kris Miller and those were great learning experiences back then. I was a bit more of an inside player then and the last two years Bill and the coaching staff said they wanted to develop that outside game, and get some more run and carry, and flair into my game. I don’t think I had that early on, but the last two years doing that have been fantastic playing on a wing. I developed a side of my game that I never really had before. To show State football on a wing shows that I developed to a stage where I can play outside or on the inside.

My favourite position is to play as an inside midfielder so for Bill to put me back in there this year has been exciting for me. I've really enjoyed the challenge of playing with big bodies and getting whacked around a little bit more than when you play out on the wing.

There were a lot of senior players, but there wasn’t anyone who was too scary when I first came up into the league. Everyone was pretty down to earth and easy going, and that is the type of group we have now. We have a really good mix of young and older players, and that showed last year and we are starting to find our feet again early this year.

When I first started, I don’t think we had quite the same gelling of the older and younger players. There probably was a bit more of a divide, but the past couple of years has really seen that change and the mix between the younger guys and the older ones has been really exciting. It now is a really close group and it doesn’t matter if you are the oldest or youngest guy here, we all have things in common and we all talk among each other. There isn’t those separate groups and that helps when you are playing because you have that connection with each other.

A lot is made of myself and Shane Nelson being good friends by our teammates. We were close school friends and to now play here together, and win a premiership together was obviously very exciting. The good thing is that we also like to push each other pretty hard, and we are pretty competitive with each other. When I see him out there racking up the footy, it inspires me to go and find some of the footy myself so it's probably a good thing because if one of us is playing well, the other one tries to lift to play well also.

That has been a good thing that we've had going and we also work hard together. Even the other night, we were out there working on Nelly's kicking. We push each other and work hard together, and then also have a good time together. We are very relaxed with our approach and we enjoy being around each other before games because we're not the most serious guys in how we go about it.

Speaking to some of the older guys over the years like Jase, I've always been told to enjoy my career while it's here because it goes really, really quick. That is something that I have done and I've made sure I have soaked up and enjoyed everything I've been part of. To think about some of the things I've achieved like being a premiership player before I even turned 21 was just so exciting, but obviously I have plenty of football left in me, and plenty of opportunities to achieve even more.

I might only be 21 now, but having 67 games and one for WA I'd like to think I am starting to become a bit of a leader. I'd like to think that I have some leadership qualities and I have learned a lot from being around guys like Jason Salecic, Jay van Berlo, Luke Tedesco, Dion Fleay and those sorts of guys. I've learned a lot about what it takes to be a leader and what you have to do. Then I have almost 70 games of experience now and that has really helped my development as a leader, and how I view myself as a leader.

BY AARON BLACK