By Beth Newman
Brock Askey is back home this year, but it’s not quite as he remembers it.
The 21 year-old has returned to Palm Beach after three years at the Southport Sharks in the NEAFL and he said plenty had changed since his last season at Salk Oval.
“It’s gone a step in the right direction,” he said.
“I think the standard’s not going to be far behind the NEAFL, myself, but I suppose it’s just going to be the speed, the intensity difference, that’s going to be the main difference.”
Askey wasn’t sure how he’d fit in back at the Lions, but speaking in his first week of training, he said he slotted into the group easily.
“I didn’t know what they’d be like considering I left the club four years ago now,” he said.
“It has changed a fair bit since I was down here but there are the main few blokes that I’m really close with off the field that I’ve kept in touch with.
“It was pretty stressful obviously up at Southport trying to get a gig and what not, but now I’m back, it’s like home.”
Coming back from the NEAFL, Askey admitted there might be some high expectations on him, but that possibility doesn’t worry him.
“I’ll embrace that and hope for the best,” he said.
“I’m not going to put added pressure on myself, there’s no reason to do that kind of thing.
If I did, then obviously I’d take it out into games and then I won’t perform how I’d like to.”
The midfielder/small forward said he would draw on his experience to help his teammates through the year, wherever he could.
“There are blokes here who have played NEAFL before and played a lot of games in the NEAFL and I’m just going to come back here, trying to play the best for the team.”
Preparing for round one, Askey said he was looking forward to seeing the level of competition the QAFL dished up.
“I think it’s going to be an evenly spread competition, and I don’t’ think they’re going to have as much of a gap down here as they did up in the NEAFL.”
“You don’t have your top six kind of teams, it’s going to be a really even playing field, which is going to be good.”
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