Can Koschitzke arrive Just-in time?

Justin Koschitzke has long teased the football world without ever quite delivering on
the full extent of his talent. Sebastian Hassett believes necessity might change all that.

When I sat down with SportsAustralia’s newly assigned Chief Football writer Brett Collett at the start of the year to thrash out the AFL’s top 50 players, the name Justin Koschitzke was thrown up – and duly rejected.

Collett asserted that the list would lack credibility if Koschitzke – a “one season wonder” – was included among the elites of the game.

Despite my protests about the versatility, strength and ability of ‘Kosi’, he was right. Potential has become a dirty word in football circles, and Koschitzke is surely the biggest case in point.

A stellar debut season in 2001 has been proceeded by years of injury-plagued cameos, yet some of us still have a burning belief that he is ready to break out and claim the mantle of the league’s most effective big man.

Against the Western Bulldogs in Round 14, the boy from Brocklesby delivered all that potential in a paralysing display of key position power. Not only did he stand up to be counted as a key component in the Saints’ 18-point win, he turned the game on its head.

13 kicks, 11 marks, 11 hitouts, six handballs and three goals. They’re the kind of stats Grant Thomas has been having dreams about since he took over the reigns at Moorabbin.

Last Sunday against Carlton, in his first game as makeshift skipper, it became abundantly clear that Koschitzke was ready for more. 16 kicks, 11 marks, 13 hitouts, seven handballs and four goals. Has there ever been a more impressive captaincy debut?

Indeed, with Peter Everitt moving on to Hawthorn and playing career-best football, St Kilda has since felt cheated out of a mobile and dominant big man.

There is no doubt that Koschitzke is seen as the player to fill that void. Like Everitt, he possesses a smart football brain and precise skills that the other giants of the game just don’t have. And while he is by no means in Everitt’s category yet, he now looks primed and ready to close the gap.

Neither Rodney Eade nor Denis Pagan could contain Koschitzke, no matter what they tried. When he’s gone forward, he’s outmarked and outmuscled a series of helpless opponents. In the ruck, he’s won numerous of pivotal hitouts and, against the Bulldogs, drove the Bulldog duo of Peter Street and Daniel Bandy into the ground with relentless hard running.

It must be said I’m no huge wrap for either of those guys. Bandy has been dreadfully out of form recently, and despite giving away around 25 centimetres in height to Street, I’m confident even I could give him a fair contest at the centre bounce.

However, regardless of the opponent, Koschitzke needed to hand out a thrashing to remind the football world, and himself, that he is still capable of performing with such impact.

What made his efforts that day all the more meritorious was that he didn’t just dominate in a regulation win; that's easy. He dug his heels in when the team needed him most.

Without Aaron Hamill, who we all forget was in All-Australian form before his injury, and of course, the absence of Nick Riewoldt after quarter time, the Saints looked like they’d once again have to squeeze every ounce of value from Fraser Gehrig.

The ‘G-Train’ delivered his end of the bargain with four goals. Alone, however, his output wasn’t nearly enough. Throw in Koschitzke’s 197cm, 96kg frame, and it virtually became the difference between St Kilda staying in the hunt for the flag or wilting to a pitiful 6-8 record.

They now sit 8-7 and have a run home that enables them to have a serious crack at the Premiership. That’s not being dramatic. And neither is this: Koschitzke now holds the key to St Kilda’s season.

With Riewoldt out until the finals, and with Hamill and Gehrig seemingly under eternal injury clouds, the Saints desperately need a reliable tall who can take marks and kick goals. To be brutally honest, Kosi has never been this. But now is his big chance.

He has the talent, but he no longer has the time. He needs to deliver - now. Should he perform with further aptitude in Riewoldt’s absence, don’t be surprised to see his manager Liam Pickering delay much-vaunted contract negotiations for a little while longer. His client has just gotten a hell of a lot more valuable.

Nobody knows that more than Grant Thomas. If Koschitzke can raise his game for the remainder of 2005, the Saints’ flickering flag hopes just grow that crucial bit stronger.

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