MITCH THORP’S highly anticipated debut for Hawthorn at theMCG on Sunday showed glimpses of what he’s capable of in the future. Thetalented forward finished with five possessions, three marks and one hit-out,as well as a goal and two behinds.
The former Tassie Mariner, taken sixthoverall in last year’s national draft, is thrilled to have his first game underhis belt.
“It’s just great to get a win in your firstgame. Coming into it, I didn’t really know what to expect,” Thorp said soonafter the match. “But after the first quarter I felt like I settled in allright.
“I’ve always looked forward to this day,and now that it’s come and gone I can hopefully move on to bigger and betterthings with the team.”
Standing at 194 centimetres, Thorp cuts animposing figure and he is not short on confidence. But he admitted to having afew butterflies in his stomach as he ran onto the MCG for the first time.
“I had a look around the ground and triedto take it all in,” he said. “Once it got underway, I felt like I got into thegame a bit. The older guys were really good. I had three shots on goal all up,so all credit for the midfielders for getting the ball to me.”
There was a bit of swagger and a lot ofpoise in the way he coolly slotted that first goal at the Punt Road end, and he smiled as hedescribed how it came about.
“I saw there was no one guarding the markreally hard, so I just played on, kicked around my body and she went through,”he recalled.
“All the boys got around and it was brilliant.Everyone talks about their first goal and their first game, but until you do itand experience it, you just don’t know how different it is from junior footy.I’ll always remember it.”
Thorp is good friends with Lance Franklinand Jarryd Roughead, and he said having them in the team made his debut all themore significant. He hopes they will be able to form a lethal combination foryears to come.
“We get along quite well as a group outsideof footy, so it was good,” he said of his forward-line teammates. “When Iwasn’t doing the right thing they’d tell me, and likewise I’d do the same forthem; it worked well.”
So was there anything that caught him bysurprise on his big day?
“Not really,” he replied. “It’s prettyquick obviously, but once you get used to it and settle in and realise youbelong at the level, and all your teammates believe that as well, then it’sjust a matter of executing and taking marks and kicking goals.”
Now that he’s cracked the senior side, Thorpplans to keep his spot with hard training and “kicking those goals I missedtoday”, the key to impressing the coach, who saw some good signs in the first-upperformance.
“He looked a bit scratchy at differentstages, but he did some things today that I thought [were good],” Clarksonsaid. “As he gets accustomed to the speed at the level, he’ll be a very goodplayer for us.”.
