Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
The night before his AFL finals debut, the last thing Mitch Edwards wanted to do was make a head start on opposition analysis.
So while he went to the MCG on Friday knowing that his old club awaited Geelong if they won their elimination final, the young Cats ruckman has had to catch up on how Hawthorn dismantled Fremantle.
After impressing in the win over Carlton, the 20-year-old will face Dockers ruckman Luke Jackson for the third time this season in Friday night’s semi-final at Optus Stadium.
“If I’d watched the game, especially before my first final, it might have made me a bit nervous. I just sat back and checked the scores here and there,” Edwards said of Hawthorn’s upset qualifying final win over the Dockers.
“Luke Jackson’s probably had my number, so I will have to adjust off that, but I’m really looking forward to the challenge over there.
“Hopefully I take some learnings, hopefully I’ve gotten better and just have a few different looks at it – we’ll see how it goes.”
Edwards is from WA and was in Fremantle’s next generation academy, before Geelong drafted him in 2023.
After two injury-plagued years, he made his AFL debut at the start of this season and has flourished, becoming the Cats’ main ruck option.
Friday night was some occasion for his first final – more than 96,000 fans at the MCG.
“It’s amazing. I remember, after the national anthem, I looked around and thought ‘this is what you live for as a kid’,” he said.
While Carlton’s Marc Pittonet was the better ruckman, Edwards more than held his own and earned praise from coach Chris Scott.
It was critical that Edwards and the Cats midfielders were able to adjust after Carlton had a big clearance advantage early in the game.
“I guess we’ve been beaten (on that statistic) a few times and we know how to wrestle the clearance count back,” Edwards said.
“I feel like that’s where we’ve matured as a midfield. We don’t get too fussed, we adjust, we know what we’re good at and get back to that.”
