#41 Ben McNiece - has been future endeavoured

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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C’mon… who saw that coming? Pleased to have you on board Ben.

Essendon Football Club has finalised its list ahead of the 2017 season with the signing of Ben McNiece as the Bombers’ inaugural Next Generation Academy player.

The 178cm defender was eligible as a Category B Rookie for the position on the Club’s list as his mother was born in India.

McNiece said he was honoured to be given the chance to play senior football.

“I’m extremely grateful for the chance to be part of an elite football environment and to work under senior coach, John Worsfold,” McNiece said.

“This is such a wonderful opportunity for me to realise my dream of playing senior football, and to be able to do what I love on a full time basis is a huge honour.

“I’m looking forward to putting in the hard work and hopefully that gives me every chance to play at the elite level next season.”

The 24 year-old has been a member of the Club’s VFL outfit for the past two seasons and finally gets his chance to impress at senior level.

List and Recruiting Manager, Adrian Dodoro, said McNiece boasted a strong defensive and offensive mindset.

“We are really pleased to have finalised our list for the 2017 season, and Ben’s addition provides us with another small defensive option,” Dodoro said.

“Ben has an elite left kick, and he has a super competitive nature which allows him to win a lot of contested possessions.

“He has shown he is capable of shutting down some of the state league’s best small forwards and will continue to play an important role for us this season.”

McNiece had an impressive 2016 season with the VFL, finishing third in the Best and Fairest.

VFL Coach, Paul Corrigan, said McNiece also displays outstanding leadership qualities.

“Ben has excellent leg speed and fantastic kicking skills and provides plenty of rebound,” Corrigan said.

“We have been really impressed with his determination and hard work since he joined us in 2015.

“His leadership has also been outstanding, and was named Vice-Captain to skipper Daniel Coghlan in 2016.”

The finalised Bombers’ playing list for 2017 includes; 40 primary listed players, four rookies and one Category B player at a total of 45 players.

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Hi Ben!

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Is a great kick. I don’t think he has enough tricks to make it at the top level, but I’d love to see someone give him a crack.

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I probably should have just opened up this discussion as a PM with Dell.

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No from me.

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Best prospect running around in our twos? For real?

I don’t see it Mr Dill.

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The two most important kicks in footy are the 45 degree kick into the corridor from defence, and the kick into the forward 50. McNiece is elite at those kicks and we need some good ball users for our back half in particular. I think he’s got a skill set that would translate well at AFL level.

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This bandwagon’s wheels are too wobbly for my liking.

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The two most important kicks in footy are the 45 degree kick into the corridor from defence, and the kick into the forward 50. McNiece is elite at those kicks and we need some good ball users for our back half in particular. I think he's got a skill set that would translate well at AFL level.

Well, you present a point, and maybe you’ve seen a bit more of him than I have, but he didn’t look particular great in one on ones from what I saw. Not terrible by any stretch, but looked highly unlikely to make the jump to the big leagues.

I wouldn’t think he’s for us, but we’ll see I guess.

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The two most important kicks in footy are the 45 degree kick into the corridor from defence, and the kick into the forward 50. McNiece is elite at those kicks and we need some good ball users for our back half in particular. I think he's got a skill set that would translate well at AFL level.

Or kicking at goal…

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I will admit I noticed him too late in the VFL season to take note of his other strengths and weaknesses but what I will say is his kicking is fk off elite. I’ve said it before but not only is his kicking elite but he has the arrogance to try anything with it a la Suckling. Plenty of guys are good or great users of the ball but McNiece tops even Zach in the “fk it I can make that kick” stakes. He just stops and props, drops the ball over his left foot and just belts it exactly where he wants it to go.

I was a bit worried, I thought he was a bit older than 24 but that age is fine. Also he’s quite small from what I saw. Could he play through the midfield?

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Given we’ve been fkn idiots in our attempts to hide away Holmes and Heppell and Egan will probably pinch both of them a la Dickson and Campbell this is the bloke I’d be taking from our VFL side.

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Given we've been fkn idiots in our attempts to hide away Holmes and Heppell and Egan will probably pinch both of them a la Dickson and Campbell this is the bloke I'd be taking from our VFL side.

Bulldogs had picks ahead of us, Melbourne are behind us.

They might have to overpay if they want them.

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I don’t imagine would have been able to hide the performances of Heppell and Holmes from our own VFL coach, no matter how sneaky we were.

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Given we've been fkn idiots in our attempts to hide away Holmes and Heppell and Egan will probably pinch both of them a la Dickson and Campbell this is the bloke I'd be taking from our VFL side.

Bulldogs had picks ahead of us, Melbourne are behind us.

They might have to overpay if they want them.

I blame Shanon Grant.

When he wen’t to the Bulldogs he told Mcartney about Dickson and Campbell.

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Is this bandwagon to hide the real bandwagon for the other 2 blokes we actually want?

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Given we've been fkn idiots in our attempts to hide away Holmes and Heppell and Egan will probably pinch both of them a la Dickson and Campbell this is the bloke I'd be taking from our VFL side.

Bulldogs had picks ahead of us, Melbourne are behind us.

They might have to overpay if they want them.

I blame Shanon Grant.

When he wen’t to the Bulldogs he told Mcartney about Dickson and Campbell.

To be fair, Grant was the man who brought Dickson to Essendon.

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Ben Z Neeze

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MOMENTUM!

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Trained with the AFL group along with Xavier Richards. Thanks to Jackie Mihocek for his training report.

MOMENTUM!