Aspley ace Michael Hutchinson is the new captain of the Australia Post Queensland Scorpions.
Wednesday, 23 June, 2010
Aspley utility ace Michael Hutchinson will take over as captain of the Australia Post Queensland Scorpions for the last two games of the NAB Australian U18 Championships in Melbourne.
This comes after first-choice skipper Joel Wilkinson was ruled out with a broken collarbone, suffered in last Saturday’s game against NSW/ACT at Coorparoo.
Hutchinson will lead the Scorpions against Victorian Country at Visy Park
(Carlton) on Saturday, and Northern Territory at Etihad Stadium on Wednesday.
His appointment to the leadership role is another credit on a football CV which has grown rapidly since he took up AFL in late 2007.
Formerly a State-level soccer player, he decided to sample AFL because a lot of his mates were playing it and he enjoyed watching it.
In three years he’s graduated from an out-and-out rookie with the Sandgate Hawks and the Northern Raiders U18s to be one of Queensland’s most consistent players in this year’s national U18 championships and an AFL draft prospect.
He won the Raiders U18 ‘Best New Talent’ award and made the Raiders Team of the Year in 2008, and won the Sandgate senior coach’s award in 2009.
In the first two U18 championship games for the Scorpions against Tasmania and Western Australia the athletic 190cm utility was a standout at defence, and against NSW/ACT he started on the wing before being swung into defence by coach David Ashkar to shut down the opposition’s key player.
He’s also squeezed three senior QAFL games into his busy playing schedule – he played with Aspley in Rounds 4-5 of the State League and as a top-up player with the Brisbane Lions Reserves in Round 6.
Hutchinson, born in Townsville, moved to Brisbane in 2001 and is a graduate of Willows State School in Townsville (1997-2001), Norris Road State School (2002-03) and Sandgate District State High (2004-08).
A Collingwood supporter who rates Magpies captain Nick Maxwell his most admired player “because of all the unrewarded team things he does”, he is doing a Bachelor of Commerce at Australian Catholic University and works part-time as an air cargo freight handler at Australian Air Express.
The Scorpions team for Saturday’s clash with the unbeaten Vic Country side will be named after training at Coorparoo tonight (Wednesday).
