West Coast Eagles: Campbell Chesser is closing in on an AFL debut after two seasons interrupted by Covid-19 and injury

“There’s no AFL club in Albury,” he would say.

He left home to further his education and a football career that came more naturally to him than others. And it’s a continuation of that can-do approach that has put Chesser in the mix for selection in West Coast’s round one team, despite a dearth of football over the past three seasons.

It would surprise a few if he played round one.

The Sandringham Dragons would not be among them,

“He drove himself over there after he got drafted,” Sandringham talent manager Mark Wheeler recalled. “He spent that Christmas away from home.”

Chesser, like most Victorian juniors, missed a year of development in 2020 amid the state’s Covid-19 lockdown. He played a limited amount of football in 2021 due to a number of factors – another season shortened by Covid-19 on top of a couple of minor injuries.

Then he missed all of 2022 after being taken at pick 14 in the 2021 draft by the Eagles with an ankle injury sustained in the first half of the first practice match against Fremantle.

Chesser impressed in intra club games for the Eagles this summer and then in the first practice match against Port Adelaide. He was quieter – with nine disposals – in West Coast’s 59-point loss to Adelaide in their second hit out.

But it’s fair to say he wasn’t the only Eagle starved of football that night.

While draftee Reuben Ginbey looks like a lock for round one, Chesser is better described as being right in the mix. Wheeler believes that if the Eagles pick him, they would do so knowing he’d leave no box unticked in preparation for an AFL debut a month away from his 20th birthday.

“He is very professional,” Wheeler said. “As a junior he came through an athletics program which is how he ended up being a boarder at Melbourne Grammar. But he was a very good footballer at the same time. He is very dedicated, meticulous.

“He was always diligent. He changed his diet as a top age player to get himself ready to be an AFL player. His sprinting was great. He was good at middle distance. But he had a lot of speed and power.”

Chesser played in the under 18s as a 16 year old.

At 17, a quirk of the Victorian talent development system meant that the Sandringham Dragons had the captains of both the Vic Metro and Vic Country teams in their ranks.

Josh Sinn led Metro. Chesser, originally from Lavington and the Murray Bushrangers before shifting schools to Melbourne Grammar, led the country team.

Wheeler said the attention to diet typified his approach to his football.

“At a boarding house it is a bit of an open feast and the food might not be the right food for a semi professional athlete,” he said. “He did a lot of work with our staff to understand what he should be doing when he wasn’t here.”

You can see the speed and power Wheeler talks about on the football field even at this early stage when Chesser senses clear grass around him.

Asked where he would play him in the AFL Wheeler said: “He is definitely a winger. At some stage, after three or four years in the system, he could potentially come through the midfield but his strength is as a link up. I would say half back flank as well. Definitely around the centre square. He can go forward but he is such a good ball user we would say behind the ball and around the middle.”

Wheeler thinks he will surprise a few: “The opposition won’t know his turn of foot and he has got a really good turn of foot. He plays between the logos across the wing. He doesn’t run too wide, he knows how to turn left and right and he sees the gap and runs through it. He doesn’t go around it, he goes through it.”

Asked if he would be surprised to see him out there against North Melbourne in round one, Wheeler said neither he nor the Eagles would be.

“There is no shock,” he continued. “Everyone knew how good he was. He shouldn’t have got past the top ten. We always thought that and everyone else thought that.

“The (Eagles) recruiting team based out of Melbourne definitely saw what they wanted to see from him. If he does (play in round one) we will be clapping as much as anyone.”