Some questions fascinate and confound us, no matter how many times they are answered.
On a clear, warm autumn night, a distant gaze is often greeted by points of shining light from incomprehensible distances. Even with ever increasing amounts of light pollution, stars still captivate us all.
According to NASA, stars are formed by clouds of gas and dust, coalescing by the force of gravitation into denser and denser masses.
It's a perfectly tangible answer, yet, one that is impossible to truly grasp.
In a footballing sense, the formation of stars is even less concrete. The term is thrown out to describe young men in their teens and twenties, but how to quantify them is far harder.
Stars exist, from Dustin Martin and Lance Franklin to Marcus Bontempelli and Christian Petracca, but how they become stars is harder to answer.
As happens every year, round one saw another crop of first-year footballers played their first senior professional game on the weekend.
Undoubtedly, some future stars in the making took their first steps on a decade-long journey to the hall of fame. The most highly anticipated of these youngsters was young Lion Will Ashcroft, speculated to be a difference maker from day one.
But it was another debutant, with a slightly lower profile at a rebuilding club, that stole the attention with a Rising Star nomination, and a win, on debut.
How do the first games of Harry Sheezel and Ashcroft stack up, and what does it mean for their future stardom?
The rush starting from down back
The jump to AFL football from the juniors is a tough one. There's a noted jump in speed, and the bodies are a lot bigger and stronger. It is literally the difference between playing against kids to playing against men. First game players note the adrenaline rush accompanying their first games.
As noted philosopher Tom Hanks said in the movie "A League of Their Own": "It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it."
As a result, the most common pathway to the AFL for draftees happens at the edges of the game, where a bit more time can be taken to acclimatise to the increase in intensity. For Sheezel, the number three pick in the 2022 draft, that happened down back.
Coming into the draft Sheezel was tabbed as a damaging forward with great footy nous, with the potential to move into the midfield as he grows as a player. Instead of playing up forward, or even through the middle, Sheezel was thrown down back in his first game in the league.
Sheezel looked at home in his first game, accumulating six intercepts, nine marks, 631 metres gained and 34 disposals. The AJAX FC product set several records for a teenage AFL debutant, and looked at home on the big stage.
After the game, Sheezel said that he was making sure he focused on maintaining his role. On the field, that was often keeping his spacing and avoiding being sucked into the play. West Coast often threw an extra forward into the contests, often Sheezel's direct match-up.
Instead of rushing in, the debutant held his space and upheld the Roos' defensive structure — key to modern football.
In a sense, that was more impressive than the counting stats that he was able to accumulate. Sheezel contributed strongly to what may have been North's most solid performance in two years, albeit against fellow rebuilding side West Coast.
The idea to slot a highly fancied junior midfielder into their senior side in defence isn't a new one. Recently, Callum Mills and Nick Daicos both picked up the Rising Star awards after a season playing eye-catching roles as defensive players from debut.
The appeal of this pathway into the league is obvious — top draftees in the modern talent development system can enter the league with fairly complete high level skill-sets, while still lacking physical development and the footy IQ that comes with experience. It's also a good on-field vantage point for a young player to learn to understand and read the play upfield.
Such players don't have to fight for scraps of ruthlessly limited possession like a forward. Instead, they gather wayward opposition entries and find teammates feeding them plenty of ball, blocking for them, and directing them as they help rebound the ball.
Of course, it's another thing altogether when a young player is thrown into the fire in game one.
Into the Lions' den
If ever there was an AFL-ready player from day one, many observers reckoned it would be Will Ashcroft. Ashcroft wowed ardent footy watchers across the country not only with his performance against fellow under-18 talents, but also how he physically matched up in the VFL last year.
If any team was set to break Geelong's reign at the top, it was as likely to be Brisbane as any other side.
Instead, Port Adelaide dominated the Lions, controlling the game throughout. Through the game, the Power forwards dominated an undersized Lions defence, and their midfield brigade got the better of the more highly credentialed Lions core.
Unlike Sheezel, Ashcroft was thrown into the coalface in his first game, earning significant midfield minutes from day one. In a midfield studded with stars such as Lachie Neale, Josh Dunkley and Hugh McCluggage, it was quite the sign of trust by coach Chris Fagan.
Coming into the season the Lions identified their midfield mix as being a real area for improvement. More specifically, the Lions worked on the balance of ball winners to line breakers — with the Lions full of the former but lighter on the latter.
Ashcroft and McCluggage were tabbed as the key options as break-the-line players — the guys running downhill, looking for quick hands from the likes of Neale and Dunkley.
While the Power were able to dull the impact of the new-look midfield in game one, Ashcroft's own game was surprisingly solid. Ashcroft found his way to the right spots often enough, and produced a nice goal to top off a solid game.
While Ashcroft's numbers didn't pop off the page like Sheezel's did, even being entrusted to serious midfield time in a debut is pretty rare for a first year player.
From over 1,200 teenage debuts since 2000, Ashcroft is one of only 11 to earn at least a goal, eight contested possessions and four clearances.
Few youngsters get entrusted with a prominent midfield role from day one, with Ashcroft joining names like Chris Judd, Scott Pendlebury and Clayton Oliver. Despite not dominating the game as Sheezel did, Ashcroft flipped between inside and outside midfield roles in a pretty adept manner.
Although there's only a one-game sample, it might bode pretty well for his future. It was an impressive start, albeit a different type of impressive.
Does a sparkling debut last?
The famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said, "we are all made of star stuff". There's an element of truth that all footballers good enough to make the AFL have at least an element of stardom inside them.
Often stars aren't formed immediately, instead, they emerge over time. Ashcroft's Lions were topped by a Power side led by 2021 number-one draft pick Jason Horne-Francis. Horne-Francis had an up-and-down first year at North, seemingly uncomfortable with his role, surroundings, and the increase in intensity of league football.
Horne-Francis shone in his first game for Port, looking every part the player he was hyped up to be prior to entering the league.
He's far from the first player to start a little slower. Plenty of modern stars got off to slow starts in their first AFL games.
Names like Sam Mitchell, Joel Selwood, Gary Ablett, Dane Swan, Luke Parker and Jobe Watson took time to find their feet at the top level; time that didn't damage their final form.
And sometimes what we think is the emergence of a star is instead a false dawn.
That list of 11 players that Ashcroft joined has stars like Chris Judd, but also less remembered players like Mark McGough. Players like Jordan Gysberts impressed immediately, while others such as Patrick Dangerfield were more anonymous.
One game doesn't make a career, even if it is a decent sign for the future. Solid stars are often hard to tell from shooting stars, even if you know what you are looking for.
