Season in short:
While second year blues might have made an easy headline, it certainly wasn’t the case for Marcus Bontempelli.
The Bulldogs midfielder built on the foundations laid in his first year of senior football, and continued his rapid rise.
His ball-winning ability was evident from his first season, but ‘The Bont’ developed several other sides to his game under the watchful eye of Luke Beveridge and midfield coaches Steven King and Joel Corey.
He had the fourth most tackles of anyone at the Club, highlighting his ability to defend, and his ‘clutch’ goals showed his ability to head forward and step up in big occasions.
He averaged 21 disposals, five tackles and three marks, and ranked sixth in the league for inside 50s.
The 19-year-old was selected in the AFL Players Association 22 Under 22 team, and finished second on the Dogs’ leader board in the AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year award.
The stat that mattered:
Bontempelli soared into the Top 20 AFL Player Ratings at the end of the season. Currently at 11th in the rankings, he is the youngest player in the top 100.
What they said:
“This year’s been a bigger learning curve, I was challenged quite a bit more, forced to learn a bit more about myself, not only as a player but how I deal with things off-field and how that reflects on-field. Probably being a more holistic player and contributing in more areas of the game, than what I was able to in my first year.” – Marcus Bontempelli, September 2015
“Bonti backed up an impressive first year, he’s starting to find what his strengths are and he’s getting a lot of confidence now… You saw him spend more time around the footy but also how damaging he can be taking his opponent forward and you started to see him pluck some in the forward 50 and as a mid now, with him spending more time going forward you’re going to see a player that can play inside, outside and covers a lot of ground as well. He just wants to be the best player he can be and he wants to get there.” – Steven King (Western Bulldogs Assistant Coach), September 2015
