Former skipper Jarrad McVeigh will play reserves for what's believed to be the first time in more than a decade when the NEAFL Swans take on Sydney Uni in Friday's curtain-raiser.
The 32-year-old is over his calf strain suffered in Round 8 against North Melbourne and trained fully on Wednesday and Thursday to be right in the mix for a senior recall, but senior coach John Longmire has decided to err on the side of caution.
Instead of risk him at AFL level, the Match Committee thought the best course of action given the veteran's recent run of soft-tissue injuries was to ease him back through the reserves to (hopefully) bye the classy defender time to string a solid block of football together and dispel any lingering doubts surrounding his body.
"Hopefully we'll get him through a good patch in the reserves to make sure he's nice and confident to be able to play senior footy," Longmire told SwansTV.
Sydney Swans Media believes the last time McVeigh featured at the lower level was in 2005, his third year in the system and before his breakout season in 2006, but that’s unconfirmed with official records unattainable at the time of publishing.
McVeigh couldn’t recall the exact date when approached but his best guess echoed the same line of thought.
Selected with the fifth pick in the 2002 National Draft, McVeigh enjoyed a stellar debut season in 2004 winning senior selection for the opening round before banking 20 games by year’s end.
He had an indifferent 2005, managing 13 games before his last senior appearance of the season in Round 17. He tallied just two disposals which suggests McVeigh copped an injury in the 21-point win against West Coast at the SCG.
A promising tagger, McVeigh couldn’t win a spot back in the soon-to-be premiership-winning team.
He didn’t miss a beat for the next few seasons, though, playing 85 consecutive games together from Round 1, 2006, and Round 12, 2009.
He’d win his first Club Champion award in '08 and has had the hypothetical ‘golden ticket’ ever since (automatic selection/recall).
One thing's for certain, Friday’s clash against Sydney Uni will be McVeigh’s first NEAFL game.
Between 2003-2010, Sydney fielded a stand-alone team in the AFL Canberra competition, winning four premierships (‘05-‘08) during that period. Sydney then joined the North East Australian Football League (NEAFL) after the amalgamation of the Queensland and ACT leagues in late 2010.
McVeigh will be joined on-field by premiership teammate Alex Johnson, but in a non-playing capacity.
Johnson will team up with Aliir Aliir and run water for the NEAFL Swans for extra conditioning as the pair continue their recovery from respective knee injuries.
