Harry Rowston’s childhood dream of playing for the GIANTS will come true on Sunday with the Academy graduate named to make his AFL debut.
“My head’s still spinning, I can’t believe it,” the 18-year-old said on Friday morning after learning he’d be playing his first game from captain Toby Greene.
"I haven’t slept all week thinking about it. To finally know is pretty exciting. I couldn’t be happier.”
From a farm near Binya in southern NSW - a town with a population of 122 at the last census - Rowston has been part of the GIANTS Academy since the very first year he was eligible.
“I was as young as I could get into it,” Rowston said.
“I’ve been through every rank, I’ve been with (fellow draftee) Nick Madden as well so to be here with him is pretty cool and now to be playing for the GIANTS, it’s a lifelong dream come true.”
GIANTS AFLW head coach and former Academy head coach Cam Bernasconi was in the room when Rowston was told his dream would be coming true.
“Me and ‘Berna’ have had a pretty good connection the past couple of years and he’s probably one that I dedicate being here to him,” Rowston said.
“For the last couple years he’s really taken my footy to the next level. It just shows the connections you make through the Academy, it’s just amazing to be able to share those sort of experiences with him.”
Rowston called his mum Kirsty - a primary school teacher at the local town of Yenda - to tell her the news with mum, dad Phil and the entire extended family to make the trip to Perth for Sunday’s game.
“Mum’s at work with her little kiddies,” he said.
“She obviously cried, like she always does. They’re stoked. Dad’s back on the farm slugging away like he always is so to tell him the news is pretty exciting.”
The farm is a place close to Rowston’s heart and despite moving away to boarding school in Melbourne for his high school years, it’s where he feels most at home.
“Obviously it’s a lot of hard work, coming from the farm, and it probably shows in my footy,” Rowston said.
"I dedicate everything back to home, I absolutely love getting back there whenever I can, it’s my favourite place ever.”
Rowston has very clear instructions from coach Adam Kingsley on what they want to see from the debutant on Sunday against the West Coast Eagles.
“Just get in there and compete,” he said.
“Hit bodies, tackle hard, those are the things I got drafted for and the things that ‘Kingers’ has wanted me to show out on the footy field so I’ll just go out there and have a crack and try and get the win.”
