Former AFL club captains Garry Lyon and Tim Watson have hailed the sudden development of Collingwood tall forward Mason Cox.
The American’s improvement has caught many off guard, but his five-goal performance against Melbourne in the Magpies’ Queen’s Birthday win wasn’t lost on Lyon.
It led the Demons team of the century member to compare Cox to one of the AFL’s greats.
SEN Breakfast with Garry Lyon and Tim Watson can be heard Monday-Friday 6-9am, and you can subscribe to the podcast here.
“I don’t ever want to start to get down this path, but in terms of their development, there is a bit of Jim Stynes about this lad,” Lyon told SEN Breakfast.
“It’s slow. If you had put the spotlight on Jimmy’s first 20 games, he would have copped the same sort of criticism…not sure, he doesn’t understand.
“After 40 games, he was unstoppable. His rate of improvement would be on a similar graph to Jim, and who knows where it is going to go.”
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Watson also lauded Cox’s ability to transform into a legitimate weapon for Nathan Buckley.
“That’s an extraordinary story,” he said.
“If he continues to build on what he produced at the MCG yesterday, he is a real factor. He is a genuine weapon and he kicks so accurately.”