WHILE some young players are slowly eased in to their AFL careers, Hawthorn’s Ben Stratton has well and truly been thrown into the deep end, and he has come up swimming.

In just his eighth AFL match on Sunday, Stratton was given the job of minding dual Brownlow Medallist Adam Goodes.

Goodes got the upper hand early in the match but failed to capitalise on his scoring opportunities and was soon blanketed by the 21-year-old.

The Swans champion finished the day with 1.5, which Stratton admits was flattering when looking at the match-up.

“I was told on Thursday that I’d have him. I started looking at tapes and studied the best way to play him,” Stratton said.

“He got me in the first half. I’m lucky he was spraying a few but after half-time we worked him out and felt we had it over him.”

Stratton had assistance at every opportunity from fellow backmen Luke Hodge and Stephen Gilham, but it was a teammate who wasn’t even playing that proved to be the most assistance in the lead up to Sunday’s match.

“I spent a bit of time with Josh Gibson because he has played on Goodes before. I went through Goodes’ tapes with Josh. Each week he does that - helps me out with positioning and how to play different forwards.”

Drafted from East Perth with pick 46 in last year’s NAB AFL draft, Stratton says he has a growing sense of belonging at AFL level with each passing week.

“I’m definitely getting more confidence. I got thrown down the challenge pretty early in the week and set my sights on Goodes. I don’t mind getting a challenge each week. Every game I play I’m getting more confident," he said.

After an auspicious start, the Hawks now sit at 4-6 and Stratton says the team is setting their sights on stamping their mark on the competition in the next three weeks before the mid-season break.

“We’ve got Port, then Adelaide then Essendon. That block of three again is pretty important for us and they are definitely winnable games,” he said.

“We want to get a roll on to the break and win at least two of those three.”

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