Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak has heaped praise on Sam Powell-Pepper for his sensational debut season for the Power.
The 19-year-old, recruited with pick 18 in the 2016 AFL National Draft, has impressed in the first year of his AFL football career, averaging 17 disposals a game and collecting a NAB Rising Star nomination after collecting 19 touches and two goals against the Sydney Swans in Round 1.
The talented youngster’s form has seen him already locked up by the Power until the end of the 2020 season, with Port announcing the two-year contract extension on Monday.
Boak says that the big-bodied midfielder showed signs he was something special the day he stepped through the doors of the club over the summer.
“It was right from day one. He wasn’t shy in throwing his body around,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“I think in his first session he don’t argued Ollie (Wines) and put him on his arse and probably two weeks later he did the same thing to Hamish (Hartlett), so we knew this kid was going to be pretty special.
“The club is really lucky to have him. He is a great kid as well, he just wants to learn, go out there and compete.
“I’ve said to him in a couple of games now ‘Mate, you just need to be a bull in there’ and he would just go in there and throw his weight around.”
The Power skipper also touched on the superb form of fellow midfielder Robbie Gray, who has been at his damaging best in recent weeks while spending further time up forward.
The 29-year-old has kicked 34 goals in 2017 at an average of nearly three majors per game, six of those coming in the past fortnight alongside just as many goal assists to other Power players.
Boak branded Gray his favourite player in the competition, praising his sensational career turnaround after suffering a serious knee injury in early 2012.
“I’m probably biased but he is probably my favourite player in the competition,” he said.
“I guess for Robbie – I’ve known him since we first got drafted together – the amount of work he has put in since he has done his knee has pretty much turned his career around.
“You put him in the forward line and one-on-one he is pretty hard to stop. He is a pretty good player (and) it’s pretty special to see.”
Boak says that Gray’s extended time in the forward line is a strategic choice and not one to try and cover any injury he might be carrying.
“He’s not managing an injury. He is playing forward because that is where we think he is most damaging for us at the moment,” he said.
“We’ve been pretty lucky with getting blokes like Sam Powell-Pepper in the side. We can throw them straight in the middle and you have seen on the weekend, you give him enough space and you get the ball in there enough, he’s going to kick a pretty good score for us.
“It’s allowed us to now play Chad (Wingard) through the middle a bit more, and Ollie and (Brad) Ebert are running through there as well.
“We think he is really damaging forward and it showed on the weekend.”