Horsham Saints’ product Tom Berry was put through one final trial before the AFL National Draft, undergoing a medical and fitness test under the watchful eye of AFL recruiters on Wednesday.
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A knee injury kept Berry out of the national draft combine last month, an event for young prospects to impress clubs through a series of tests across multiple days.
Wednesday provided a chance for Berry and eight others who missed the combine to be assessed.
It started with a two kilometre time trial before an in-depth medical from club doctors that Berry jokingly likened to “a meat market”.
“They were looking at my knee and my scaphoid (wrist), which is all looking positive,” Berry said.
“It’s very similar to what they do at the combine, just all packed into one day.”
Berry performed well despite his limited preparation, only recently being informed of the two kilometre run.
“I was told there might be the possibility that we would get tested later on, but it wasn’t confirmed until about two weeks ago,” Berry said.
“My preparation probably wasn’t the greatest, not being able to train because of the injury and then just flogging myself the last two weeks to get a little bit of an aerobic base.
“But my knee felt fine and I pumped out a pretty good time in the end so I was pretty happy with it, especially after only two weeks of preparation.”
The national draft starts with the first round drafted on Thursday 22 at Etihad Stadium. The following four rounds – where Berry is hopeful his name will get called out – will be drafted the following morning.
Warracknabeal’s Charlie Wilson and Horsham Demon’s Matty Lloyd are also in contention to get drafted on the Friday.
After a tumultuous year with injury threatened to derail his draft dream, Berry is back at full capacity and ready to take the next step in his football career.
“Everything’s pretty much back to perfect condition again. My knee isn’t giving me any pain and I’m back doing weights with my wrist again, so I’m pretty happy with it all,” he said.
“Hopefully next week everything just goes according to plan.”