YARTAPUULTI winger Jase Burgoyne is excited for the opportunity to wear the club’s First Nations guernsey over the next two weekends to celebrate Sir Doug Nicholls Round.
The 20-year-old has been finding form early in the season, however a minor setback with a groin injury saw him miss Yartapuulti’s historic win over Geelong on Friday night.
Burgoyne spoke to the Adelaide media on Monday about the club’s First Nations guernsey, how his injury is faring and his reaction to watching the Round 9 win from home.
Burgoyne on Port Adelaide’s 2024 First Nations guernsey
“Yeah, it's unreal. It's probably pretty fitting that Byron (Pickett) is the designer this year, 20 years on from the grand final and winning a Norm Smith (Medal), so yeah, it's unreal and I can't wait to run out in it.
“Our families are pretty close and I grew up with his kids… I haven’t seen him too much recently. But yeah, it's good to see him and his family doing well and (having him and cousin Melanie) designing the guernsey. It looks great.”
Burgoyne on his groin injury
“Yeah, well, I've got to get through training this week on Wednesday but running on Saturday I felt okay, so yeah, just test myself at training and if all goes to plan, I should be back this week. It’s a low-grade groin strain, just pulled up sore from the Showdown and just tried to get through training during the week and I couldn't get up so they sent me for scans and yeah, just came back as a as groin strain but should be only a week.
“Obviously, it's not great to miss any game, really but yeah, especially for Indigenous Round. To possibly be out could be not great for myself but obviously we've got good stocks and depth and stuff so if I'm out then someone can step up.”
Burgoyne on his own form
“Yeah, obviously starting to build some consistency in my game so pretty frustrating to go down with a minor injury. But like I said, we've got good players that can come through and fill spots. But hopefully, when I'm good to go, I can continue to play my good footy.”
Burgoyne on Friday’s win over Geelong
“Yeah, unreal win. Obviously, we had, I think five changes it was and to go down to Geelong, where I think we haven't beaten them since 2007 it was, yeah and to win, it was a credit to the boys. And then to the boys that we had come into the team and perform well. So yeah, we’ll just keep pushing forward from here.”
Burgoyne on watching the win from home
“My heart was racing. I couldn't get to sleep that night. But yeah, I was on the edge of my seat watching the game. And like I said, we had some boys come in and play their roles and we had people like you know, Jason Horne-Francis and Zak Butters and Ollie Wines who stood up when we needed them to, so it was really good to watch.”
Burgoyne on Josh Sinn being back in the side on Friday
“Yeah, so me and him, we’ve been living together now for two years and he's been battling with injury over that time but yeah, really good now to see him get some consistency in his body and start to push for AFL games now. We were pretty excited this week to possibly get a chance to play together but yeah, now he's playing AFL footy which is good to see and hopefully in time we'll get that game together.
“We’re different positions (now). He plays halfback and I’m on the wing so we sort of switched positions because my first two years I was a halfback and he was a wing and now we switched and I think we've found our positions Yeah, just looking forward to getting a game with him.”
Burgoyne on the playing group’s reaction to the win
“Yeah the WhatsApp group was getting filled up a little bit and all the boys were definitely happy and yeah, it fills us with a lot of confidence knowing that we can go down to Geelong and beat them and probably beat any team in the comp really, as long as we play our footy.”
