Sydney youngster Matt Roberts’ breakout AFL season hasn’t just come off the back of two years of fighting against the odds.
Plucked out of South Australia’s wine country in the 2021 draft, Roberts played one game in his debut season before watching Geelong hand Sydney an 81-point thrashing in the 2022 decider from the sidelines.
He squeezed into the senior side as a substitute in 2023 but a medial knee injury kept him to just six games.
Now perseverance is finally paying off for the midfielder-turned-defender with the booming left foot, with a maiden grand final appearance against Brisbane on the horizon.
But the 21-year-old, who left the family farm to finish school as a boarder in Adelaide and had a taste of SANFL footy before graduating to AFL ranks, had to clear tougher hurdles long before the Swans took a chance on him.
Hailing from Langhorne Creek, a country town an hour’s drive from Adelaide with a population of just over 400, Roberts’ chances of making it to the big smoke were slim.
While Langhorne Creek Football Club junior coach Matt Tonkin never doubted Roberts' abilities, even he admits surprise at his former pupil’s journey.
“Players of ours don’t get to that level from where we're from out this way,” Tonkin told AAP.
“His game sense has always been better than any other player we've seen at the club but he’s not the flairy sort of type … which is why you get worried when they get drafted. Those players get unnoticed.
“It's just one of those things of whether a club saw that in him and took a chance with him. We're glad that Sydney saw what we've seen him with him growing up.”
Tonkin, who coached Langhorne Creek's under-14-and-half side, easily recalls watching a 12-year-old Roberts cause trouble for opposition teams in upper-age divisions.
Such was Roberts' prodigious talent that at 15, he kicked two goals to help launch the football club's A Grade side to a premiership in 2018.
“At our club, we don't have a lot of numbers, so he'd come up every week to fill in,” Tonkin said.
“Even from that time, he was obviously half the size of some of these kids, but his game sense was just well and truly above. You could see that from day dot.
“The way he sees the play from behind, he always had that ability to set play up and read the play. That's where he's always been quicker than every other player.”
Roberts kickstarted his third AFL season with eight marks and 19 disposals in Sydney's opening round win over Melbourne, earning a Rising Star nomination.
Playing in a career-best 22 games so far this year, Roberts points to a conversation with club coaches at the end of 2023 when asked about his breakout season.
“They touched on last year who the third years were, which was Errol Gulden, Logan McDonald, Braeden Campbell, and they made a really big impact in their third year, and continue to do so,” Roberts told AAP.
“They were just like, ‘Well, there's no reason why you can't have a big impact like those boys have in their third year’.
“It's pretty special to reach the final game of the year in my first full season in the senior team.”
