THE Ellis family boasts a trio of young hopefuls currently vying for spots in the Western Jets TAC Cup squad.
Throw in a fourth, even younger brother (Nathan, 12) that has his eyes set on following in the footsteps of his three much taller siblings, and what you get is a footy-loving family that believes they could be the next Selwoods of the AFL.
As bottom-agers, twins Mitch and Brent Ellis, both 17, combined for five games in the TAC Cup last season and both remain confident they will be back in 2013, while younger brother Corey, 16, is hoping to join his brothers as a team-mate.
It’s hard to not make the comparison between the Ellis clan and the Selwood brothers, though granted, the Selwoods have a number of years in age and experience over the Keilor Football Club juniors.
Geelong captain Joel Selwood is a three-time premiership player, Adam has one of his own with West Coast, Adam’s twin Troy played 75 games for Brisbane and the youngest of the lot, Scott, won the Eagles’ best and fairest award last year.
But even considering all that, the ingredients are very similar and these Keilor youngsters have already achieved some remarkable things that prove anything really is possible.
Corey, who throughout junior footy played every second year alongside Mitch and Brent, has only lost three games of footy wearing red, white and blue.
Among those games which total more than 100, eight were winning grand finals, four of which were shared with the identical-looking, yet not identical twins.
“He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose all that much,” his proud mother Lorelle quipped.
When asked if he ever got sick of singing the Keilor song every winter’s Sunday, Corey responded: “No, never. You can never get sick of winning.”
Father Michael is also a senior premiership player at the club that’s within walking distance of the Ellis household, and says the family has always had a strong affiliation with both the Blues and the game itself.
“It’s a passion for all of us,” Michael said.
“I think they’ve all got a lot of ability, and potentially they could go to AFL level or VFL level so it’s just a matter of playing that one good game in the meantime.”
However, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.
While Mitch played three games last season and says he got used to the tempo of TAC Cup footy, Brent could only manage two coming back from a knee reconstruction and subsequent long rehab process.
“My aim was to play at least one Jets game and I ended up playing two,” Brent said.
“I was over the moon about that.”
