Oscar Allen’s broken foot has opened the door for Brisbane Lions teenager Cody Curtin to make his AFL debut on Saturday against Essendon at Marvel Stadium.
Prized off-season recruit Allen had surgery on Wednesday on the foot he injured in Brisbane’s 52-point home win over Adelaide.
With the former West Coast Eagles co-captain set to be sidelined for at least 12 weeks, 18-year-old Curtin has been given the first chance to replace Allen in Brisbane’s forward line.
“Cody Curtin will make his debut for the team,” Lions coach Chris Fagan confirmed on Thursday.
Fagan said it was a maiden AFL appearance that would have come in Brisbane’s Opening Round loss to the Western Bulldogs had the 200cm giant not suffered a chest injury in the Lions’ pre-season win over Gold Coast.
“He performed really well over the pre-season in the practice games,” Fagan said of the No.43 pick in last year’s draft.
“We’re really bullish about him. He’s been back playing in the reserves over the last couple of weeks. He’s a 200cm competitor, a big body, halves contests, puts pressure on, so we think that he’ll help our forward line.
“We don’t expect the world from him, but as long as he makes a contest and plays to his strengths, he’ll help our team.”
Curtin said he was “so excited and ready to go”.
“I feel like I’ve been dreaming of this for years,” the Claremont product said.
“When ‘Fages’ (Fagan) told me, I had a massive rush of excitement and had goosebumps instantly. but the message from him is simple – it is just to create a contest in the air and then bring the pressure once it hits the deck.”
While it was great news for Curtin, the younger brother of Adelaide midfielder Daniel Curtin, Fagan was also gutted for Allen.
“It’s disappointing for him as much as anything else,” the Lions coach said.
“When you’re a new player at a club, it takes you a while to settle in, and I felt like he was just starting to do that, and then this comes along, but that’s just part of football, part of the challenge.
“The positive thing is he’ll be back before the end of the year. It could have been worse. In the meantime, we get the opportunity to see what other options that we’ve got, and in that process, hopefully we’ll become a stronger club because of it.”
The back-to-back premiers are also poised to welcome back veteran defender Dayne Zorko, who has missed Brisbane’s past two games with a calf injury.
“According to him, he’s good to go. He thought he was good to go last week, but he started training fully towards the end of last week, and he’s available for selection this week,” Fagan said of the former Lions skipper.
Zorko, 37, is off-contract at the end of the season, with Fagan hopeful the club will re-sign him for next year.
“I just get asked the question if I still want him. The answer to that right now would be yes, so hopefully he can (stay with the Lions beyond this season), but there’s a lot of this season to go, and hopefully it does work out that he can keep going,” Fagan said.
