Oscar Steene was in his hometown of Adelaide when he heard the AFL had changed the ruck rules.
He’d made strong progress in 2025, his third season with the Magpies, playing 18 VFL games after a dislocated toe had restricted him to just one VFL match the previous year after 18 VFL matches in 2023.
Mason Cox’s delisting vaulted Steene forward as the Magpies’ back-up ruckman to best-and-fairest winner Darcy Cameron.
The dream of playing AFL, which had slowly moved closer to reality for Steene, suddenly accelerated when the AFL abolished the centre bounce and introduced a line at centre ball-ups; changes that favoured spring-heeled rucks.
“I definitely liked the [new rules]. I think jumping is a strength of mine, and I could see the rules were trying to bring the jump back into the ruck,” Steene said.
It’s not only the rules which have, as Steene says, put the jump back into the ruck.
The likes of Steene and Hawthorn’s Ned Reeves – who he will line up against on Thursday night – have been able to thrill crowds with their high-leaping taps to midfielders on the burst. The pair tops the table when it comes to the percentage of hit-out wins at centre bounces in 2026.
Steene’s hop and tap on debut to Nick Daicos in the opening quarter of the round three match against GWS stands alongside Reeves’ right-handed palm down to Jai Newcombe late in the Easter Monday clash against Geelong as two early-season highlights.
Steene, a West Adelaide product who attended Adelaide High School as part of its cricket program, recorded an 83cm running vertical jump at the 2022 state combine (West Coast great Nic Naitanui was measured at 102cm on the same test in 2008) doesn’t know what put springs in his heels.
He knows he used to try to slam dunk a ball through his older sister Charlotte’s netball ring in their backyard, but beyond that, he has no explanation. Steene didn’t play basketball. He didn’t do high jump or athletics in any serious way, either. His sports of choice were footy and cricket, where he played as a bowler, describing his pace as more medium than quick.
“I have been playing in the ruck my whole life, I have always been semi-tall,” he said.
And this year, he has been able to draw on his younger days, when umpires routinely threw the ball in the air at ball-ups.
“All through my juniors that was how it was done. The umpire would just throw it up in the middle, and it would always be at a consistent height,” Steene said. “And then when I started playing some senior footy, that’s when they were bouncing [the ball]. The [new] rules are similar to what they were when I played juniors, which helps a bit.”
His potential partnership with Nick Daicos – who is only eight months older than Steene – has Magpie fans salivating. On Anzac Day, Daicos ran around the centre circle feasting on Steene’s taps like a chicken picking at sunflower seeds.
Although Thursday night will be just their fifth match together, it is the fourth season they have spent on the list training together. Steene was doing his apprenticeship in the VFL while Daicos came close to winning three Brownlow Medals.
Although not afraid to contribute ideas when teammates put their heads together before a centre ball-up, Steene is smart enough to listen to what Daicos, Scott Pendlebury, Jordan De Goey and co. have to offer when applying their football brains to the science of the centre clearance.
“It’s a pretty balanced discussion. They will ask me where I think the easiest spot is for me to hit, and then they will try to work something out to get there. If we are on top and we want to keep the momentum going, we might try to go for a forward hit,” Steene said. “They know what they are talking about, so they will say, ‘no we should try this hit or that hit’. It’s a real privilege to play with them; it’s pretty cool.”
Although he has leapt from obscurity to Magpies fan favourite, Steene is under no illusions.
The mentoring, advice and competition Darcy Cameron has offered him from the moment they became training partners in the summer of 2022 has been crucial in his development.
“All rucks have that competitive edge to them, especially in centre bounce, as you need to be pretty aggressive. It is a pretty scary thing to do when you are running into someone else,” Steene said.
Minimising the impact of the Hawks’ ruck pair, Reeves and Lloyd Meek is his next challenge. “They are obviously two elite players so it will be a great experience to play against them,” Steene said.
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