Geelong coach Chris Scott has been taken aback by young key defender Sam De Koning’s substantial improvement in 2022.
While De Koning arrived at the Cattery as a highly-rated first-round pick, his development was a slow burn across his first two years at the club as he had just one game to his name ahead of the current campaign.
A show of faith from Scott and the Geelong coaching staff ahead of Round 1 gave De Koning the first crack at a key role down back, with the 21-year-old grabbing that opportunity with both hands and quickly developing into one of the competition’s future stars.
Although Geelong was always optimistic about what the 204cm defender could become, even Scott didn’t see the youngster making an impact in such a key role so quickly.
“I didn’t really see Sam De Koning’s (improvement coming),” Scott said on Sportsday.
“We were really optimistic about what he could be, but his capacity in a second or third-year player to hold down one of the most difficult positions on the ground has been a massive win for us.”
De Koning’s pre-season set him up for his first real entrance to senior football, and Scott revealed that feedback from star key forwards Tom Hawkins and Jeremy Cameron helped reaffirm the club’s hopes that De Koning could become something special.
“It was relatively late in the pre-season,” Scott said.
“I think I said this in a post-game press conference recently, but some of the best feedback we got as a coaching group through our pre-season was from Hawkins and Cameron.
“When you’ve got two key forwards like that and say, ‘This young guy is pretty hard to play against’, that spoke volumes for me and us as a coaching group.
“But even then, there are plenty of case studies in recent history of young key defenders having a tough time against mature key forwards.
“I’m not a huge believer or as a coaching group in a sink or swim philosophy, we brought him in Round 1 on the basis that we were convinced that he would acquit himself well.
“But as I said before, I don’t think anyone could’ve expected the performance at this level.”
Having already beaten the likes of Aaron Naughton, Max King and Harry McKay in 2022, the Rising Star hopeful will hope his form continues into finals as Geelong enters as the number one contender.
De Koning and the Cats will look to wrap up their home and away season with a win at home against West Coast before kicking off their September campaign.