Gold Coast SUNS defender Michael Coad is on track to join mature-aged success stories Michael Barlow and James Podsiadly after the 27-year-old impressed during the GC SUNS maiden AFL pre-season campaign.
The former Sturt veteran isn't taking anything for granted, but his work inside defensive 50 at the elite level, after a promising year in the VFL, has him well positioned to make an AFL debut that has been a long time coming.
"Hopefully I'm out there in round two - it will be really exciting. All the blokes will just have to pinch themselves a bit when we're about to go," Coad says of the Suns' first AFL game against Carlton.
"I think everyone's pretty confident with how we're progressing. Everyone will just be really excited to get out there and see what it's all about. Especially in the first couple of weeks - it will be really interesting just to see where we sit exactly.
"We've done the work, now we've just got to go out and see how we match up against these clubs."
After Gold Coast SUNS offered him the chance to resurrect his AFL dream following several career false starts, Coad found himself in the odd position of being sought out for advice by younger GC SUNS despite having never played an AFL game.
It's a situation he thrived in, however, with the full-back taking the players' player and the coaches' award despite having his season cut nearly in half after a collision with Carlton's Shaun Hampson saw him hospitalised with broken ribs and a sliced kidney.
"It was good for me to have a bit of a rest toward the end of last year," he says, taking the glass half full approach.
"It allowed me to get my body back into the shape it needed to be and gave me a head start into this pre-season."
Coad, the elder statesman, received reinforcements when the uncontracted, experienced players started to arrive at the club at the end of the season.
Rather than be unsettled by the fact a lot of those players, like Nathan Bock, Jarrod Harbrow, Campbell Brown and Nathan Krakouer, were defenders, Coad has seized the opportunity to expand on his own knowledge of the game.
"I get to train alongside some of the best in the competition now, which has been really enjoyable. I've learned a lot already," he says.
"Every team is built from the defence. While we've got a lot of younger forwards and midfielders, at least in the early stages, I think having that more experienced back half will hold us in good stead.
"I'm sure we'll have some ups and downs, which you get at all clubs, but we're ready for anything they throw at us."
Coad has endured knockbacks from AFL several clubs, a knee reconstruction and a serious internal injury among other things to get to this point, but he's confident it will all be worth it when he finally lands that elusive AFL debut.
"It's been a long time in the making I suppose," he says.
"The rookies that got picked up last year were playing in the VFL and it was a bit tough at times [not knowing if we'd be retained], but it's great to see the light at the end of the tunnel at last.
"It's really exciting."
