Jai Newcombe’s fairy-tale story was capped off on Friday night when he made his debut for Hawthorn against Sydney at the SCG.
Just nine days after being taken pick two in the AFL’s mid-season draft, Newcombe, who hails from Poowong, was selected.
Coach Alistair Clarkson announced on Thursday the hard-nosed midfielder would be making the trip to Sydney and the 19-year-old didn’t look out of place.
He collected 13 disposals and laid an enormous 14 tackles, the most ever recorded by a debutant in the AFL, finding himself in Hawthorn’s best players.
His nous around the contest and hard tackling helped his Hawthorn side defeat Sydney at the SCG by 38 points in front of some proud family members.
Jai’s family were able to make the trip up to Sydney from Poowong, his father Clint saying they only got the green light on Friday morning.
“We all had our COVID tests on Thursday and had to wait and see. New South Wales gave us the okay at 8pm on Thursday night and our negative COVID results came in on Friday at 7am, so we were able to fly up at lunchtime,” he said.
Jai was able to have his parents Clint and Heather, sister Macy, girlfriend Georgia, grandad John and uncle Michael from Perth in the stands to watch his debut.
The family was able to head into the rooms and see Jai post-match.
“It was a really proud moment as a family group, he came across and had a chat after the game and so did captain Ben McEvoy and Jaeger O’Meara who he is living with at the moment. The club were really good and really looked after us,” Clint said.
It caps of a meteoric rise for Newcombe, with just six appearances for the VFL affiliate team Box Hill enough for the Hawks to pick him, wasting no time in giving him a taste of the big leagues.
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Newcombe averaged 23 disposals for Box Hill and has been one of their standouts to start the season before being picked up by Hawthorn.
“It’s not just getting there, it’s the way he’s got there. He’s taken every step in his stride despite a few speed bumps along the way, he’s done all the work and travel and had a really supportive boss at Allchin Builders who let him get to training on time from work,” Clint said.
On being able to watch his son play his first AFL game, Clint said it was a combination of nerves and excitement for the family.
“It was probably all of those, we are really proud of what he was able to achieve, it was exciting and thankfully the game panned out really well,” he said.