With 17 career games now under his belt, evolving young talent Nate Caddy is truly beginning to understand the expectations of playing AFL footy and is relishing in the opportunity to continue to build strong connections with his forward line comrades.
One of these being fellow young forward Isaac Kako, whom Nate is continuing to grow alongside after playing school footy together at Parade College.
‘We are still young and developing, he has only played seven or odd games now so hopefully we can gel and have some really big games together’. said Caddy.
‘It’s obviously going to take some time, we probably went the early crow and made ourselves out like superstars but we are still learning and we are still humble’.
‘We aren’t going to come out and demand that everyone love us and everything, we will be right we’ve just got to get use to playing AFL, I’ve only played 17 and he’s played seven so we continue getting used to it.’
Essendon’s forward line has seen a rotating cast so far this season, with often regular senior players such Peter Wright, Kyle Langford and Matt Guelfi missing time to start the season.
With limited AFL exposure, individually and collectively, forming coherence proved a daunting task at times but one that has provided many benefits going forward.
‘We were pretty young early, me, Harry and Tom Edwards we all haven’t played too many games, and haven’t played too many games together as well, it was tough to try and get that cohesion.’ said Caddy.
‘There wasn’t really a big leader in that forward line to really push us through in some of those early games.’
I think having Langers (Kyle Langford) and Pete (Peter Wright) back, they’re a bit scary out there sometimes, they pull me into line and I’m sure everyone else follows as well.’
The forward line will look to continue to build this coming Saturday, where the team will face the Swans at Marvel Stadium.
With a family friendly timeslot of 4:15pm Caddy is keen to see as many of the Bomber Army down as possible in what will look to be an exciting clash.
‘It’s a really family friendly time slot, hopefully we can get as many fans as possible, when they turn up we turn up.’
