Western Bulldogs player Easton Wood lends a hand at Spotswood’s training session on Thursday. 67824 Picture: SARAH MATRAY
By Michael Esposito
SPOTSWOOD Football Club officials may not even know that a former junior at the club is now running around for the Western Bulldogs.
Speedy defender Easton Wood took Spotswood’s under-16 team for a training session last week as part of the Toyota Good for Footy program, and revealed he played one game for the Green and Gold – but can’t remember if it was in under-10s or under-12s.
Although Wood lived in Camperdown, his father lived in Williamstown and he would travel down every weekend as a youngster to spend time with his dad and run for the Williamstown Little Athletics Club.
On one weekend his dad organised for him to play a game for Spotswood, and as Wood recalls it, the side lost by about 100 points.
Wood’s journey from oft-overlooked junior to AFL footballer makes him an ideal role model for young and impressionable footballers who are deciding if they want to make the sacrifices necessary to play sport at their maximum level.
The 21-year-old Altona resident spoke to the Spotswood teens about his failure to make TAC Cup side Geelong Falcons’ list, and how the Bulldogs picked him up after being impressed with his performances for school side Geelong Grammar.
“I was under the impression I was never going to play AFL, but I continued playing footy because I really enjoyed it, so that’s the message – if you keep with it and you enjoy it, you play good footy.”
Wood knows all about persistence. He’s had to overcome a string of injuries in his four years at the Western Bulldogs, and is only just starting to play consistent footy.
Having recovered from snapping his ankle in round one and not missing a game since round nine, Wood is now being talked about like Callan Ward was two years ago – as someone with loads of promise, a footballer with the goods to become one of the Bulldogs’ most important players.
“My body’s just starting to get a lot better. I started to struggle with my ankle earlier in the year and when I came back from that I felt like I had a new ankle, I had to learn how to play within its capabilities and certainly just started to get used to it,” Wood said. “It’s good just to play a few consistent games.”
The Bulldogs’ back-line woes have been well-documented this season, but Wood has been a beacon of consistency.
“It’s been really difficult, we’ve had massive changes in personnel with blokes being injured, being in and out. It’s hard to gel as a group with that, because the back line really is a team within a team,” he said.
“Probably the last six or seven weeks we’ve had a much more consistent group.”
Of his side’s failure to meet expectations this season, Wood said no one’s looking for excuses.
“A lot of time when things haven’t been going well we’ve really concentrated on what we’re doing wrong, there’s not been finger pointing or a witch-hunt.”
