How Brayden Sier went from a bit player in juniors to a key member of Collingwood’s finals squad
SOME Magpie fans sniggered at the club when it used its first pick on a kid who played just two TAC Cup games, but Brayden Sier has fast become a key member of a Collingwood squad that hopes to take down West Coast in Perth tomorrow.
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BRAYDEN Sier’s coach said he “embarrassed the opposition”.
The opposition conceded Sier “just dominated”.
In a 2015 exhibition game between Marcellin and a Northern Knights development squad it became clear a growing talent had slipped through the cracks.
Sier never made the grade at the Knights and at the end of 2014 he was given some tough love by Marcellin coach Vaughan Cleary.
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“He came in and said, ‘Look, coach, I want to be a midfielder,” Cleary said.
“I told him he’s dreaming, unless he can get in physical shape that’s appropriate for a midfielder.
“But he came back in much better shape. He focused on his running, he lost quite a bit of weight, he grew a bit and, by the time we started practice matches, his performances were quite outstanding.
“He went from a bit player to an outstanding player and real key for us.”
Collingwood midfield coach Robert Harvey said this week Sier had become “really important really quickly” for the Magpies.
“(Scott Pendlebury) was shouldering the load on the bigger mids and we had to burn him up playing on bigger bodies like Patrick Cripps and Nathan Fyfe,” Harvey said.
“(Sier) has become important with his ability to lock onto those bigger mids — it’s a bit of a prototype going forward.”
Fancy that, a “bit player” at school level in 2014 to a “really important” midfielder in tonight’s qualifying final?
Sier’s under-18 year was like few others. He was the ghost of the 2015 draft, labelled the mystery selection when the Magpies swooped at pick 32.
After all, Sier had played just two TAC Cup games.
Unless you attended Marcellin games — where Sier won the best-and-fairest in a premiership season — chances were you hadn’t heard of him.
“He was on our radar as an under-15 and 16 player, but hadn’t made any of our squads,” former Knights talent manager Peter Kennedy said.
“We saw him early at Marcellin (in 2015) and thought, ‘Geez, his body shape has changed’.
“He started training with us after that (exhibition game). We decided because it was such a late call, and we didn’t want to upset the school, we’d hold off playing him until after Marcellin’s season.
“He was also playing seniors for Banyule, and so we held off until after their final as well.”
The Knights waited because they expected Sier to return to the TAC Cup in 2016. They thought they had time to feed him games.
But the Magpies were already watching, with Cleary spotting scout Dominic Milesi at several games.
“It all happened in the span of two months,” Sier said.
“I played seniors at Banyule, a bit of school footy and snuck in late for Northern. It’s probably one of the easier ways of doing it, instead of having to do the whole Knights pre-season.”
Some Magpie fans sniggered at the club using its first pick on a kid who played just two TAC Cup games.
Then, after two barren seasons, fans coined Sier ‘The Unicorn’ as they wondered, ‘Does he really exist?’
“I had a lot of impact injuries,” Sier explained.
“I busted my wrist at training innocuously one afternoon. I wasn’t sure it was broken for about three days, and then finally figured out it was broken and had surgery.
“That was about six (weeks out). Later in my first year I had a blown disc in my spine and it was sitting on the nerve down my leg.
“That was 10 weeks before we decided to get surgery, which was another 12 weeks.
“That was the biggest one, and I had a concussion for a bit.
“I’ve done my eye socket as well, which is a weird one. I got all this air caught in the bottom of my eye and it was all swollen for a couple of days really badly.
“That was five or six weeks.
“This year — touch wood — that’s all behind me. My junior career was unscathed, so hopefully that’s my little pocket of bad luck out of the way.”
This year ‘The Unicorn’ tag has been shredded. Maybe fans should cotton onto Sier’s pre-existing nickname.
“My dad and all his mates call me The Bear, because I was quite hairy at a young age,” Sier said.
He starred in nine VFL games before Adam Treloar’s dual hamstring tear opened the door for a Round 15 debut.
After just his fourth AFL game Melbourne great Garry Lyon declared: “The way Sier moves, the size, the shoulders — that’s got Josh Kennedy written all over him”.
Like Kennedy, shoving Sier at stoppages is like trying to move a statue. Kennedy stands 188cm and 96kg and Sier, 10 years his junior, stands 191cm and 91kg.
Sier sports nose rings in both nostrils and is as relaxed as his No.36 predecessor, Dane Swan.
In fact, on draft day Sier was oblivious to his shock selection.
“I remember sitting on the couch sort of zoned out, because it was early 30s, and then mum sort of looks at me and I’m like, ‘What?’” Sier said.
“Then dad’s sitting up at the table and he had his hands up. It was pretty funny — I’d zoned out.”
As for taking over Swanny’s locker?
“He left it broken for me — the hinge doesn’t work, so the thing doesn’t shut,” Sier said.
“Not that I’ve got anything to protect in there, anyway. I’m pretty sure he’s been on a Contiki the last two years, so I haven’t talked to him yet.”
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