Colin Sylvia, who has died aged 32, had rare combination of power and speed on footy field

COLIN Sylvia was a teenage footy prodigy with the power and speed of Dustin Martin. Sadly, he wasn’t able to produce it consistently for the Demons or Dockers, writes Jon Anderson.

Colin Sylvia in action for Melbourne.

COLIN Sylvia is being remembered as a fun-loving young man who never quite reached the training levels that would allow his rare talents to fully emerge at AFL level.

Sylvia, 32, who died yesterday afternoon in a car crash in his home town of Mildura, could make the ball talk when the mood took him.

It was that talent that saw Melbourne take him with Pick 3 in the 2003 national draft behind Adam Cooney and Andrew Walker, and there were moments in his 157 games for Melbourne that his star shone extremely brightly.

For instance, his 37 possessions and four goals against Hawthorn in Round 9 at the MCG in 2009 highlighted just how devastating he could be on his day.

At his best Colin Sylvia was one of the most dangerous players in the competition.

At 185cm and 90kg he possessed a combination of power and speed that could break games apart, just as Essendon’s Tim Watson and North Melbourne’s Sam Kekovich had done before him.

Watson was able to translate those gifts into a 300-game career, while Kekovich succumbed to a succession of crippling knee injuries but not before playing a key role in North Melbourne’s first premiership in 1975.

Of modern players, Sylvia most resembles Dustin Martin — Martin is 1cm taller and 5kg heavier but both could rip games open in the midfield and up forward.

Sadly for Sylvia, he was never able to produce it on a season-to-season basis and in 2014-15 he travelled west to Fremantle in an attempt to reignite his career. Just six games resulted before he returned to his roots, this year acting as assistant coach of Meringur in the Millewa Football League.

Colin Sylvia bursts out of the centre in an intra-club game.

He was someone who didn’t take himself too seriously as his comments in 2015 highlight: “I came in as a young boy from the country, probably pretty uneducated — people would probably argue I still am,” Sylvia laughed.

Melbourne teammates liked being around him due to his sense of run and natural friendliness, but his time wasn’t without controversy. Sylvia was fined $5000 and banned for one match in 2008 after breaking a club curfew. A year later he was suspended by the club’s leadership group after being out late on a Sunday evening.

They were behaviours that hurt Sylvia more than anyone else, for those who remember him speak of a good person at heart whose career was ultimately derailed by injury and inconsistency.