Key position ace Darin Stewart will post his 50th game for Broadbeach on Sunday looking to lock in a third consecutive State U21 jumper.
Thursday, 3 June, 2010
Darin Stewart will post his 50th game for Broadbeach on Sunday.
The key position utility star, in his fourth season at Merrimac, will register his half-century against Redland at Victoria Point hoping to confirm a cricketing analogy of a different kind … a hat-trick.
Stewart is in line for a third consecutive State U21 jumper, having represented the Young Maroons against the VAFA U19s in 2008 and the VAFA U21s in 2009.
His 50th game for Broadbeach is a milestone he probably wishes didn’t happen … he would have much preferred to have earned a chance at AFL level after representing Tasmania at U16 level as a 17-year-old in 2006 and Queensland at U18 level in 2007.
There are recruiting scouts who say, with his clunking marking ability and good all-round size, strength and skill, it was only a sometimes unreliable kicking technique which cost him a chance at the elite level.
But Stewart, originally from Devonport and a QAFL Rising Star nomination in 2008, has put his AFL disappointments behind him to become a much-valued and respected member of the Broadbeach line-up.
Elevated to the leadership group this season under co-captains Dayne Zorko and Matt Fife, he has been in good form, mostly at centre half back and more recently, since the return of Ben Walters, at centre half forward.
His 50th game comes as the sixth-placed Cats, coming off a disappointing 38-point loss to Labrador, face a must-win clash with the eighth-placed Bombers which could elevate them to the top five at the break for the interstate games next weekend.
