Geelong academy prospect Jesse Mellor on the rise after another bag of goals as Jagger Mooney shows good signs

Geelong already has a top prospect tied to the club, and now another academy product is rising at a rate of knots. Plus, a son of a Geelong gun played his best game for the season.

Jesse Mellor is on the rise. Picture: Rob Lawson/AFL Photos

Geelong academy prospect Jesse Mellor is rising up draft boards after his second bag of goals in the space of a fortnight, and embracing his forward role has been crucial to his improvement in 2025.

The Cats Next Generation Academy product had a day out at North Hobart Oval on Sunday, kicking five goals – all in the second half – and finishing with 20 disposals, 14 contested possessions, 10 score involvements, seven marks (three contested) and 172 SuperCoach points against the Tasmania Devils.

It came after the powerful forward-midfielder set tongues wagging in a Vic Country trial a fortnight against a Young Guns side of mid-season draft hopefuls with 6.3 and 17 disposals, booting four goals in the final quarter of that clash.

Geelong Falcons coach Paul Corrigan saw the similarities between Mellor’s two eye-catching performances and said he is doing all the right things to get on the radar of AFL clubs.

Jesse Mellor leaps for a mark for Vic Country. Picture: Rob Lawson/AFL Photos

“He’s playing us that sort of link forward type role for us and what he was able to produce at the country trial was a game similar to what he able to do (on Sunday),” Corrigan said.

“He’s a really hard player to sort of match up on because he’s so strong in the air and then when he’s doing that, if he’s not marking it and he’s bringing it to ground, he’s very hard at ground level too.

“He took some super marks and one-on-one stuff just looked really strong.”

“Without putting any (draft pick) numbers on it or whatever, he’s just giving himself the best opportunity to be looked at.

“We probably realise that he’s not going to keep five goals every single week. For us it’s just about still maintaining that consistency, whether it’s the role that he’s playing, forward and mid for us. And if he keeps doing that, then he puts himself into that position to be talked about going forward.”

Geelong currently has all its selections for the 2025 draft but has Mellor and AFL Academy member Ben Rongdit available to them as NGA prospects, with the Cats able to match bids with a 10 per cent points discount.

Mellor, the son of Geelong West coach and former Richmond assistant Greg, trained with the Cats for a week over the pre-season along with Rongdit and potential top-five prospect Josh Lindsay.

The Geelong West junior was to be a midfielder but the Falcons saw the potential of his aerial and ground level traits in the forward half.

Those exciting attributes have come to fore this season thanks to Mellor’s application.

“He was very keen to be just a midfielder and we saw different potential in him. Just his strengths as a forward as well and we probably just tried to develop that with him and get him to understand that as well, and he’s taken on board,” Corrigan said.

“To his credit, he’s done a lot of work with myself, weekly, just around edits and stuff like that in watching the game, what that looks like and where he’s positioning himself and how he’s going with all that.

“That’s where the improvement and maturity has come from his end.”

Geelong also has access to father-son prospect Jagger Mooney, the son of Geelong great Cam, a 188 centimetre defender who collected 15 disposals and nine marks against the Devils.

“He probably had his best game (on Sunday), the influence he had defensively and but also the influence that he had from an offensive point of view was probably the most I’ve seen him have ball in hand and be really more attacking as well,” Corrigan said.

“Hopefully that will give him a fair bit of confidence in playing that role.”

Originally published as Geelong academy prospect Jesse Mellor on the rise after another bag of goals as Jagger Mooney shows good signs