Drafted to his childhood club and named after one of the Essendon greats, draftee\u00a0Dyson Sharp\u00a0has entered his first AFL pre-season all guns blazing.<\/p>\n
Playing his first game in the sash last week against the Tigers in an unofficial practice match, the midfielder is getting the gist of what Bomber life is like and is learning from some of his childhood idols.<\/p>\n
Sharp joined the crew on FiveAA Adelaide\u00a0to chat about all things draft, pre-season, and how he\u2019s found life as a Don so far.<\/p>\n
Read the full chat below.<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 becoming a Bomber<\/p>\n
It (draft night) was a big night. I was pinching myself at the end of it. I didn’t think it was real.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I was very happy and very grateful for the opportunity that the Essendon Football Club’s given me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And to hopefully one day wear the sash that I’ve grown up going for would be amazing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To be honest, the lead up took forever\u2026 minutes felt like hours, while you’re sitting there waiting for your name to be called out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From when my name got called out to now, everything has gone by very fast.<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 pre-season<\/p>\n
I’ve gotten through it.\u00a0That’s the main thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The load definitely is a whole new level. We’ve got a new high-performance team with Matt Inness, who are doing a mountain of work to get us in good shape and ready to go for the start of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve done a tremendous job. The boys are looking really good,\u00a0and I feel good also.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goal was just to get in and get through it, which I have, so I\u2019m very pleased with that.<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 culture and development<\/p>\n
I think coming in; to grow confidence, you have to have a good group of guys around you.\u00a0The boys\u00a0have been very welcoming, the staff, the coaches, everyone around the footy Club,\u00a0and the fans.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re making me feel welcome, which has allowed me to have the confidence to put my best foot forward, both on the track and in the practice matches.<\/p>\n
I really feel like I am finding my way within the team, the structure and the game plan. Now it’s just about consistency and continuing to put my best foot forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 fellow draftees<\/p>\n
Jacob (Farrow) has put together a really nice pre-season block,\u00a0he\u2019s been tearing up the track, which is really good off the halfback, and so is Hussey (Hussien El Achkar) and Max (Kondogiannis).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Sully (Sullivan Robey) early on got a stress fracture in his back, so he’s been in rehab.\u00a0He\u2019s been getting to work and\u00a0making sure that his body is right for his return.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I feel that us draftees as a collective have really hit the track running and putting our names out there quite nicely.<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 learning from the best<\/p>\n
It’s very hard to go past Darcy parish. You know he’s, respectfully, one of the best players on our list, up there with Zach Merrett as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But just the way that he goes about his business, both on and off the track, is very admiring, the way that he leads from the front.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can just tell someone like him has had lots of experience in the game, because his knowledge of where to run, when to run, when to impact and when to help out in defence, it comes with time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I’ve really just been trying to be a sponge off those guys, but he’d be one of the older guys that’s really stuck out to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 Mason Redman<\/p>\n
When I was transitioning over here, I lived with him (Mason Redman) for a few weeks pre-Christmas.\u00a0He is another\u00a0South Aussie boy, so he kind of put me under the wing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been showing me the ropes of what it’s like to be professional and what AFL footy is like,\u00a0the lifestyle, the intensity\u00a0and the standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He’s been a\u00a0really big help for me, especially off the field.<\/p>\n
Sharp on\u2026 Saints hit-out<\/p>\n
They’re (St Kilda) primed and ready to go. They\u2019re playing next weekend in Opening Round, so they’ll be firing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It will be a really good challenge for the boys to go out there and to really measure where we’re at.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hopefully we show the fans\u00a0all the hard work that we’ve put in over this pre-season block.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drafted to his childhood club and named after one of the Essendon greats, draftee\u00a0Dyson Sharp\u00a0has entered his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":["post-504839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504839","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=504839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}