John Noble will make a debut for Collingwood in Friday's grand final rematch against West Coast, a career goal the 22-year-old midfielder described as "very overwhelming".
"It's been a whirlwind couple of months. If you'd told me that I'd make my debut this time at this start of the year I'd probably say you're kidding. But it's a childhood dream," he said beside coach Nathan Buckley on Wednesday.
John Noble will make his debut for Collingwood in the grand final rematch against the Eagles in Perth. Credit:Tom Robertson/Collingwood Media
Originally from Adelaide, Noble said his family – including his father, Brisbane Lions' football manager David Noble – will attend the match in Perth.
Noble got the tap on the shoulder after just three VFL games and is the third of the mid-season draft-picks to play at AFL level this season, alongside Kyle Dunkley for Melbourne and Ryan Gardner for Western Bulldogs.
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But his rise to the highest level has been beset by setbacks in his development. As an identical twin to footballer Mark Noble, he had to take medication as a child that delayed his growth.
"I always knew I had the ability, it was just going to take a bit longer then somebody else," John Noble said.
But coach Buckley had nothing but praise for the "mature" young footballer, rattling off a long list of compliments when describing his play, adding it was exactly what the Pies needed at this stage in the season.
"He's played off half back, off the wing. He's got a lot of dash, he takes the game on, uses the ball really well. He's courageous with his decisions, he's very forthright in the way he goes about the game. He's actually been defending really well, he's always in the right spot, competing and contesting really well."
Buckley acknowleged the Pies aren't playing their best football, having lost consecutive matches – against Hawthorn and the shock 44-point defeat to North Melbourne. The loss to the Kangaroos Buckley had described as "embarrassing".
"I think I'm generally quite honest, for good or for bad … Our form hasn't been great and we need to turn it around."
The coach said the team's performance had "ebbed and flowed" but insisted they had to remain positive.
"We're not catastrophising at all about where we're at," Buckley said.
"We've lost five games of footy this year, we've won 10. We've got games coming back in the stretch starting this week that we want to win so we can put ourselves in a good position to attack September if we earn that."
Buckley said confidence was not something "you can go down to the shop and buy" and had to be built on a week-to-week basis.
"One of the great challenges at this level is everyone's going to have a bad contest, you're not going to play a perfect game [every week]. You've got to be able to leave that behind and bring your strengths and all of your focus to the next contest, whenever that is.
"Being able to move on is part of that."
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