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<\/p>\nWest Coast draftee Willem Duursma says he won\u2019t be leaning on his sibling for advice as he enters the AFL system, stating it\u2019s better to discover it for himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Duursma family are no stranger to the AFL system, with Willem\u2019s two older brothers, Xavier and Zane, on AFL lists, while his older sister Yasmin plays in the AFLW.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While he too followed their footsteps and got picked by an AFL side, he\u2019s determined to learn the system himself, preferring to discover it himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really use them too much to chat, but I think I\u2019ve just watched them throughout the years and understand the stuff that they go through,\u201d he told\u00a0SportFM.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s the beauty of being in the AFL. You find out all this stuff for yourself. It\u2019s probably better that way, so I don\u2019t try and take any shortcuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duursma\u2019s versatility around the ground made him an enticing prospect for any club, having success in different positions throughout his junior career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many will be speculating where the No.1 pick may land on the field once the season rolls around, with him being tipped for an early debut in round one against the Suns. While Duursma says he plays his best footy through the middle, he\u2019s happy to play it by ear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really had too many tests yet where I\u2019m playing at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I play my best footy in the middle. We\u2019ll see what happens whether I have to go half-forward, half-back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The No.1 pick was among six players to be picked up in this year\u2019s National Draft, with all of them getting stuck in on Monday morning during the first pre-season training session with the entire squad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Duursma, along with fellow draftees Cooper Duff-Tytler, Josh Lindsay, Tylah Williams and Fred Rodriguez,\u00a0 joined the main group, while Sam Allen was on lighter duties while recovering from an ACL injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also among the new faces were premiership Lion Brandon Starcevich and former Tiger Tylar Young, who were picked up in the trade period, and SSP signings Deven Robertson, Fin Macrae and Harry Schoenberg.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club welcomed all of us draftees really well,\u201d said Duursma.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that we\u2019re all really excited to get cracking into these next three weeks with pre-season and keep going after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
IMAGE: afl.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast draftee Willem Duursma says he won\u2019t be leaning on his sibling for advice as he enters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-307878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}