Get your seats to WA v Victoria<\/a><\/p>\nThen, a message from Victoria coach Chris Scott was the icing on the cake.<\/p>\n
“I got a message asking to give him a call when I could,” Rowell told\u00a0AFL.com.au.<\/p>\n
“I gave him a call and he said: ‘We’d love to have you in the team’.<\/p>\n
“It’s a massive honour. Any time you put on the Big V and you’re representing your state is massive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was lucky enough to make Vic schoolboy teams in under-12 and 15s and into Vic Metro (under-16s and 18s), which was a massive honour.”<\/p>\n
The enormity of the selection hit the former No.1 pick when he realised who he’d be playing alongside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The smile on his face broadened when he rattled off the players he was looking forward to lacing up alongside: Marcus Bontempelli, Nick Daicos and Zak Butters in the midfield, and Jeremy Cameron and Toby Greene ahead of the ball.<\/p>\n
Marcus Bontempelli during a State of Origin media opportunity at Marvel Stadium on November 14, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
The latest accolade for the 24-year-old came after what he described as a “whirlwind” end to his past season.<\/p>\n
Rowell’s Brownlow triumph led to a huge Grand Final week with a role in the parade, the day itself and various functions to speak at.<\/p>\n
“Nothing’s changed much now, but that week after the Brownlow was pretty hectic,” he said.<\/p>\n
Matt Rowell in Vic Metro gear during the NAB AFL Under-18 Championships at Marvel Stadium on July 2, 2019. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
“I was knackered after the week, mentally more than anything, and emotionally.<\/p>\n
“I went to Japan for a few weeks with a few of the boys to chill out, then I was back in Melbourne with my family, and they always bring me back to earth.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, not too much has changed.<\/p>\n
“Now it’s just back to trying to get better and trying to win that premiership.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Rowell can’t wait to run out for Victoria in February’s State of Origin match against Western Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-385416","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","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385416","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=385416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}