Launceston recruit Jake Kilby has a conversation with former St Pats coach Alex Russell to thank for his growth as a senior footballer.
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Several seasons ago, the 24-year-old was a self-described "pretty lazy footballer" and has since put in a mountain of work to this year be named in the NTFA's team of the year.
"I'd played a couple of years at St Pats ... and I was just happy to roll around with the size that I had," Kilby said.
"[Alex] gave me a pretty choice-worded spray on the sort of footballer I was and him and I are great mates, so I think that hit home and flicked a switch that I was sick of being average and having everyone say 'if you got fit, you'd be a good footballer'.
"So I wanted to see how far I can take it when I put the work in and that's a big step of why I want to go to TSL, to see where that ceiling is."
Having the blessing of St Pats made the decision to sign with the Blues easier for the 201-centimetre ruck, with several people around the club encouraging him to play at the higher level.
"It makes it a lot easier to go with their goodwill because they have helped massively for me with life in general as well as footy," he said.
"That's always the hard side of it, leaving a club that you love but there was nothing but positivity and last night when it got posted, a lot of the boys sent messages, which is really nice."
Kilby's move to the Blues is actually a return to his junior club, playing under-12s, 13s and 14s there before basketball took over as his main sport - playing in Tasmanian under-age teams.
He took a three-year break from football before joining Bridgenorth and eventually moving to St Pats full-time in 2019.
A desire to learn in a professional environment like Launceston's is one of several things that excites him.
"Being in the system of one of these State League clubs is a real draw, obviously they do things at the highest level - whether it's recovery or development and that side of things, he said.
"The way Tassie footy is at the moment, it's pushed me again because I don't know how much longer I'm going to have the chance to go and do it.
"So the chance to go and just be in the system of one of these clubs, particularly Launnie being as I played some juniors there and they've shown in the past five years that their system works, was one of the big draws."
Blues coach Mitch Thorp described Kilby as "a needs-based inclusion" to their line-up.
"With Joey Groenewegen 32 [years of age] and Deagan Madden 18, we really lack that mature, mobile, youthful ruckman that Jake can bring," he said.
"If you look across the competition now, there's some real monsters in the ruck with Alex Lee, Jack Tomkinson and Andrew Phillips now at Lauderdale, it's really evident that you need a big guy.
"We are really pleased that we've got a really big one at 201cm and 105 kilograms, it's fantastic for our midfielders and more importantly, fantastic for our playing group."
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