Early in his career Jack Ziebell formed a reputation as a fearsome contested player, doing his best work at the coalface to power out of tackles and drive the ball forward.
While Ziebell’s role may have changed in recent years, moving forward and then back, North Melbourne has another young midfielder quickly gaining notoriety as one of the competition’s most exciting young players.
That player is Luke Davies-Uniacke, with the number nine playing a starring role in North’s victory against Gold Coast on Saturday, registering a game-high 19 contested possessions and 9 score involvements.
Currently in the midst of a career best season, ‘LDU’ is averaging 20.4 disposals, 3.8 tackles and 3.8 clearances per game, massive increases of his 2020 averages of 17.3, 2.3 and 2.4 respectively.
“He’s (Davies-Uniacke) just growing in confidence. For young players in the modern game you need that in spades and sometimes it’s a funny thing … it’s hard to find,” Ziebell told The Sunday Footy Show.
“I think we can all see his skill level and his power around the contest, he’s bloody hard to tackle. His lateral movement is second to none [and] he finds space in the contest.
“He’s growing each week and he’s starting to believe his own abilities and he’s going to be a star for us going forward. He’s going to be exciting for our fans to watch.”
Since his move into the backline at the start of 2021, Ziebell has been in arguably career-best form, currently ranking first in the AFL for both kicks and rebound 50s, while also registering top ten rankings in effective disposals and metres gained.
While he hasn’t ruled out a return to the midfield or forward line in the future, Ziebell says he’s more than happy to play any role in the side David Noble needs him to play.
“I feel like as captain of the footy club I can have more impact behind the footy, helping us set up and being able to provide a bit more of a steady defence,” he said.
“Within that I’ve learned a hell of a lot in my role, each week I’m learning new lessons, playing on different opponents who’ve got different tricks. It’s been an awesome year for me personally to be able to develop a new set of skills.
“I’ve been big on playing where the coach wants me to play. This year it’s been down back and a bit of a role change for me, it’s something I’ve really enjoyed to be honest.”
While taking some time post-game to enjoy the victory against Gold Coast, such is the nature of football that North’s focus is now firmly on the next fixture.
With a repeat of the Round 3 clash against the Western Bulldogs coming up, the way North has played in recent weeks is a sign of massive improvement over the course of the season.
Ziebell says the an intense and focused training mentality throughout the playing group is a key part of the side’s recent rise.
“It was really pleasing the boys executed the plan … unfortunately we didn’t kick as accurately as we would have liked … no doubt we’ll go to work this week to try and fix that,” he said.
“We’re playing a way better brand of footy at the moment that I think our fans can identify as something exciting for the future.
“Every week we work our butts off at training trying to implement the plan … and I think we’ve learned valuable lessons week in, week. We’ve come to a point now where the consistency and effort for us has been really good.
“We can see that coming out positively in games and I think we deserved to win the last few weeks the way we’ve played and thankfully on the weekend we got to share that as a group.”
